Two geography-related marketing moves are in the news at the moment: First, the Anaheim Angels (nee the California Angels, nee the Los Angeles Angels) recently changed their name a third time to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. (Bonus cross-cultural note: that's Los Angeles de Los Angeles de Anaheim in Spanish. Catchy!)
This news didn't go down well with anyone. Not with the city of Anaheim, which claims to have provided $30 million in public subsidies to support the renovation of the team's ballpark, and which filed an (unsuccessful) lawsuit to block the name change. Not with the city of Los Angeles, which filed a brief in support of Anaheim's suit. And not with the L.A. Dodgers, who filed a similar brief and are fighting back with a "This Is L.A. Baseball" ad campaign of their own.
But with all that opposition, there must have been something in it for Angel's owner Arte Moreno. As he told MLB.com on Friday,
"[The name change] gives us an opportunity to market the whole region...All of our media comes from the L.A. metro area -- all the papers, all the TV, all the radio. The Los Angeles Times is the fourth-largest newspaper in the U.S.... Anaheim is 300,000-plus people, Orange County is 3 million, and the [Los Angeles] metro area is 16 1/2-plus million people... If you want to have a competitive franchise and an affordable experience for kids and families, you have to figure out how you're going to economically support it... How are we going to be able to take the franchise to the next step? By trying to bust out of the small- to mid-market team mold and move into a large market."
Moreno, who bought the Angels in 2003 to became the first Latino owner of a U.S. pro sports franchise, has garnered a lot of positive press over the last two years for keeping ticket prices low--and even cutting beer prices-- while simultaneously spending what it takes to land stud free agents like Vlad Guererro (who, if there were any justice in this world, would be a San Francisco Giant today.) He's also a savvy marketer, having sold Outdoor Advertising for $8.3 billion in 1999. So even though this is looks like a terrible move from an aesthetic perspective--face it, the tacked-on "of Anaheim" is just a joke--I actually support the change.
Why? 1) The logic of marketing a 16-million person metro area instead of a 300,000-person exurb is unassailable. 2) Moreno's not gouging the fans or stiffing his players, but somebody has to pay. 3) Given his track record, I trust that he knows what he's doing when it comes to separating people from their disposable income. Besides, anything that pisses off the Dodgers can't be all bad.
In contrast, I'm not so sanguine about the second name-change story in the news. California State University, East Bay, nee Cal State Hayward, recently decided to change its name in order to "reflect [their] growing regional role and proud East Bay heritage."
Just like the Angels, Cal State East Bay has changed names relatively frequently--three times between 1957 and 1972--although "Cal State Hayward" served them well for over 30 years. And just like the Angels' recent move, this change has prompted plenty of opposition as well. The city of Hayward, the local Chamber of Commerce, and the Hayward public schools all perceive the move as a slap in the face, and some alumni are grumbling as well. (The university's maintaining a name change news and FAQ page, which, to their credit, includes criticism as well as measures of support for the change.)
There are certainly some legitimate reasons for the change--the university has a campus in Concord and runs some programs in Oakland, about 25 and 15 miles to the north of Hayward, respectively. But when you consider that Hayward's median household income in 2000 was just 82% of of the comparable figure for the rest of the region (a significant drop from 1980, when the two figures were essentially the same), it raises suspicions that the university's real motive is to distance itself from a relatively blue-collar city in the image-conscious Bay Area. (Income details are on pages 23 and 24 of the city's Census 2000 Summary.)
Cal State's goals aren't that different from the Angels'--they both want a better, more marketable image--and at a time when California's once-proud higher ed system takes a beating in the state budget every year, I'm sympathetic to their plight. But in this case, I don't support the change.
Like "LA Angels of Anaheim," the renamed Cal State East Bay is also an aesthetic loser. "East Bay" is just too casual for an actual university--it sounds like a bad nighttime soap on Fox. But unlike Moreno's move, it's hard to see the real benefits of the switch. In local parlance, "East Bay" connotes year-round sunny weather (that's good); housing costs that are slightly less extortionate (also good, until you ask why); and a certain ambience that realtors call like to call "unpretentious." (The East Bay landed two cities, Oakland and Richmond, on last year's list of the 25 most dangerous cities in the U.S.. Now that's publicity!)
On the whole, I can't see what Cal State has gained other than irritating their local community and their alumni donor base--not exactly a marketing masterstroke. Maybe they should ask Arte Moreno what to do.
