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unhappycamper

(60,364 posts)
Mon Oct 6, 2014, 07:45 AM Oct 2014

Welcome to Coca-Cola Town, USA: America’s scary corporate naming problem

http://www.salon.com/2014/10/06/welcome_to_coca_cola_town_usa_americas_scary_corporate_naming_problem/



We now live in a world with KFC-sponsored manholes and McDonalds-issued report cards. Here's why it's killing us

Welcome to Coca-Cola Town, USA: America’s scary corporate naming problem
Jonathan Zimmerman
Monday, Oct 6, 2014 06:58 AM EST

For the past 20 years, I’ve been taking the train to the Market East Station in my hometown of Philadelphia. But I’m not going to be doing that again anytime soon.

That’s because Market East no longer exists, at least not officially. It became Jefferson Station earlier this month, after Thomas Jefferson University Hospital paid Philadelphia’s regional transportation authority $4 million to put Jefferson’s name on the station for the next five years.

And this isn’t just a Philly thing, either. Around the country, the names of our public spaces are being sold off to private donors. Brooklyn’s busy Atlantic Avenue subway station is now the Barclays Bank station; Chicago is selling naming rights to its “L” stops; and Cleveland recently named an entire bus route “The Health Line,” after receiving $6.25 million from the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals.

In several other cities, meanwhile, Kentucky Fried Chicken’s logo festoons manhole covers and fire hydrants. A few municipalities have sold ads on their police cars. And seven states now allow pizza chains and other companies to advertise on school buses.
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zeemike

(18,998 posts)
2. This is what a corporatism looks like
Mon Oct 6, 2014, 08:29 AM
Oct 2014

So get used to it...when they own you they want to slap their brand on your ass.

Moostache

(9,895 posts)
3. I blame stupid people...the ones susceptible to advertising in the first place.
Mon Oct 6, 2014, 09:04 AM
Oct 2014

If you base your buying decisions on name brand recognition or advertising, you are the problem.

If people based their purchases (and more importantly their VOTES) on reality - on need and on consequences - then you would see a much different approach from corporations. I agree that capitalism needs to be regulated to avoid the mess we have now, but at its core, the real problem is people are too stupid for their own good.

Dustlawyer

(10,495 posts)
4. If people refuse the new names and keep using the old ones they will stop due to backlash!
Mon Oct 6, 2014, 09:26 AM
Oct 2014

Backlash away!!!

Fuddnik

(8,846 posts)
6. You mean like the "1-800-ASK GARY Amphitheater" in Tampa?
Mon Oct 6, 2014, 09:37 AM
Oct 2014

Formerly known as the Ford Amphitheater, and most recently as the Mid-Florida Credit Union Amphitheater. I think it's something else now.

It's the place where all the big acts, like Springsteen and Santana perform.

Historic NY

(37,449 posts)
9. It worked near me when they wanted to change the airports name...
Mon Oct 6, 2014, 09:41 AM
Oct 2014

in fact it was pointed out the FAA designation was still the same when it was an army air corp field. In the end it destroys the past all for the sake of corporate advertising.

Nay

(12,051 posts)
5. In Virginia, Geico is building/sponsoring Virginia rest stops. They are fancier
Mon Oct 6, 2014, 09:31 AM
Oct 2014

than the regular rest stops, although the regular ones are by no means shabby. It's a shame that everything is being sold off this way.

proReality

(1,628 posts)
7. When cities need revenue, they'll get creative.
Mon Oct 6, 2014, 09:39 AM
Oct 2014

Corporations fight paying taxes, but when they see a way to pound their names into our heads, they'll happily fork over large sums of their profits.

marble falls

(57,084 posts)
10. The important two paragraphs from the article:
Mon Oct 6, 2014, 09:55 AM
Oct 2014

"That’s good news for business, which can engage old customers and target new ones. And it’s good for our cash-strapped local and state governments, which can make long-needed improvements to crumbling infrastructures. Everyone walks away happy. Right?

Wrong. Our public spaces communicate important lessons about who we are. By selling these spaces to private interests, we teach our children — and ourselves — that nothing is truly shared; that everything is for sale, typically to the highest bidder; and that the clutter of commercial messages is the price we have to pay to sustain our common lives."

This how Nestles has acted in buying up water sources. Corporations are mining the Commons away from us. Capitalism is not a Democratic process.

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