Renaming a Chicago Landmark
As a native of Chicago, I was astounded to hear rumors about the potential renaming of The Sears Tower. The famous Illinois skyscraper reigned as the tallest building in the world for quite some time, and still remains among the top ten loftiest structures. Appropriately named, The Sears Tower was designed as the headquarters for Sears, Roebuck & Company (the largest retailer in the world in the late 60’s) whose employees were previously scattered throughout Chicagoland.
If you’ve shopped at Sears lately, or heard of Wal-mart, you probably know that Sears, Roebuck & Company no longer stakes claim to the ‘largest retailer in the world' title. Sears sold the tower in the early 90’s and eventually gave up the naming rights.
The Sears Tower will now be known as The Willis Tower, a tribute to the building’s current largest tenant. Willis Group Holdings is an insurance brokerage based out of England.
We often hear of stadiums changing names, but this is a national landmark. How long will it be before people start to use the new name in place of the old? Probably a long time.
The Willis Tower website website includes future plans for several on-site green initiatives like wind turbines, solar energy and conservation. Funny, it doesn’t mention all the trees that will be eradicated to reprint all those history books and encyclopedias.
Contributed by Laine Beyerl
Don't blame it, name it!
It’s a scary time for those on both Wall street and Main street. But let's try and make some of that proverbial lemonade out of a sour economy.
I don’t know about you but when I hear 'sub-prime meltdown', I think of something off the menu at Quiznos. I think we should take this opportunity to give the sub-prime mortgage crisis a name with branding potential. If Lehman Brothers employees are successfully selling their company paraphernalia online, think of the merchandizing opportunities just waiting for an economic crisis brand! Mugs, hats, paper weights for those now useless stock certificates… the possibilities are endless.
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The $99 Brand Name
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In an effort to reduce the intimidation factor at the beginning of a new project, we often tell our clients that while they may not realize it, every one of them has naming experience. We’ve all named something in our lives, be it a pet, a child, or a nickname for our car or a friend. What I didn’t know is there is, in fact, a structured way for all of us to be professional namers. Clicking through a recent email that breached my spam filter, I came across a new competitor for Addison Whitney: NameThis.com.
This site offers “three world-validated names for your thingamajig in 48 hours”…all for the bargain price of $99. Eighty percent of this fee is distributed back to participating site members, meaning those who helped create or influence the winning names actually get paid for their ideas. Of course, there is no guarantee that the customer submitting the naming request is going to like the winning candidates or that they’ll be legally viable. If you were starting a new business, would you be willing to spend $99 to give a group of average citizens a shot at naming your company, product, service or website?
Contributed by: Ashley Hollingsworth
You Do What for a Living?
“Wow is that like branding a cow?” or “You must be really creative to do that!” … That’s what people say when I tell them what I do for a living.
My name is Kelly, and I am a “brand namer,” a Senior Associate of Verbal Branding to be exact. "You guys must sit around in beanbag chairs and come up with names all day” or “That must be such a cool, easy job” are among other statements that I hear often. While we do sometimes brainstorm in beanbag chairs, and it is a cool job to talk about with others, naming doesn’t always come so easy, and although I like to think I possess a spark of creativity, it’s not as simple as thinking of a clever name, writing it down, and it magically appearing on a package. It’s actually much more than that…
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