Naming Rights for the Kwiki-E-Mart
July 23rd, 2007, 9 Comments »
I missed this a couple of months back, but Scotiabank recently bought the naming rights to three Canadian movie theatres, including the Paramount on Burrard Street. I believe that’s a photo of them disassembling the old Famous Players sign. The move is associated with a new loyalty card program:
“Cineplex approached Scotiabank about naming rights of some theatres and our response to it really was ‘interesting, but we need to have a reason to be there’.…We determined that we had some good common interests. Cineplex had a need to build a database and change the business model they had…and we had a need at Scotiabank to find a way to reach younger people–and by young people I mean 14-to-30-year-olds–in a much more relevant way.”
As I’ve said before, I’m not a believer in naming rights. It’s a particularly bad move when the building has already existed under another name. Nobody’s calling the golf ball in False Creek “The Telus World of Science”, and everyone will still refer to the cinema on Burrard Street as “The Paramount”.
It’s interesting that naming rights are being applied to smaller and smaller structures. How long before the local corner store gets renamed to “The Budweiser Cash and Carry”?
Coincidentally, a Coca Cola rep recently swept through our little village and dispensed free Coca-Cola-themed signs to the local bar and one of the grocery stores. Just a variation on the naming rights theme, I guess.
I read about this renaming project via this very angry rant. That dude needs to move.