Catchy names can generate big bucks

One year after the pooh-bahs at Clark County’s amphitheater decided to call their facility the “Amphitheater at Clark County,” I launched a fierce crusade against the agonizingly mundane name. It was in 2003, and in a column I even offered a few sublimely creative alternatives: Music Meadows, Grand Ol’ Osprey, Percussion Park or Decibel Downs. Then, in a 2007 column I compared the amphitheater’s humdrum name to the Texas Rangers’ ballpark in Arlington, Texas, which for more than a decade carried the breathtakingly avant-garde appellation: “Ballpark at Arlington.”

So, now that our local amphitheater’s name has finally been changed, I owe those folks a tip of the hat. Obviously, they succumbed to the power of the press, although other people would suggest an undisclosed sum of money from the Northwest’s largest mattress retailer also carried some clout.

But now we encounter a new problem: resistance from the status quo-worshipping Hounds of Whinerville. As soon as that “Sleep Country Amphitheater” name was unveiled last week, the mournful baying began from the all-change-is-bad crowd. But all of their predictable wailing cannot drown out one reality in the marketing world that elicits nonstop snickering at both the amphitheater office and the Sleep Country board room: Love it or hate it, you won’t ever forget that name, will you? Gotcha!

It might be just me, but many people up here in the Northwest seem to have this congenital barrier against creative names. Then again, as my wife often points out, “Anytime you begin a sentence with ‘It might be just me … ,’ it’s always just you.” Like four years ago, when a wave of excitement swept over me as I learned about the new state tourism motto: “Say WA!” Man, I thought that was just about the coolest phrase in the world. Alas, it was just me. I couldn’t find one person who shared my enthusiasm, and a few months later the universally excoriated signature was quietly tossed into some round file at the state tourism office, and we all retreated safely to the drab “Experience Washington” invitation.

Dare to be different

Allow me to point out that many of the more daring name creators are jeered and mocked at first, but they persevere and ultimately claim the last laugh. For example, in January 1994, two obscure guys at Stanford University came up with a name for their company that must have elicited guffaws from countless colleagues. Today, that company has 13,900 employees and total assets of $14.9 billion. Yet 16 years ago, many marketing experts probably thought Jerry Yang and David Filo were crazy when they created Yahoo! A few years later, two other Stanford guys chose for their company’s name a word that didn’t even exist. It sounded weird, but it was clever and catchy. And today, branding geniuses no longer scoff at Larry Page and Sergey Brin, whose 19,800 employees have garnered $40.9 billion in assets for a little mom-and-pop outfit called Google.

As you can see, creativity flourishes more in the private sector, a principle that likely guided the amphitheater officials. In the public sector, though, you’ll never find a park or library with a name like Yahoo! or Google. And that’s really too bad, because snappy names can generate big bucks. Just think, the $2.8 billion deficit that state legislators are wrestling with might evaporate with a few Muchas Gracias Mexican Food Freeways or maybe a Fatty Patty’s State Park or two.

Locally, the city of Vancouver recently went through a couple of rebranding exercises. The cumbersome (take a deep breath) “Southwest Washington Convention and Visitors Bureau” became the more definitive “Vancouver USA Regional Tourism Office.” Not exactly in the Yahoo! or Google class, but still a nice improvement, in my view. And the city’s new motto is “Visit Vancouver, USA — Discover the Original!” That’s not as scintillating as my suggestion: “Gateway to the Yacolt Burn!” But again, it’s just me, and I applaud the phrase as a big upgrade over whatever the forgettable former phrase was. And I know that, when the hounds are snarling in the background, public officials usually find sanctuary in the conventional nomenclature.

John Laird is The Columbian’s editorial page editor. His column of personal opinion appears each Sunday. Reach him at john.laird@columbian.com.