Thursday, November 13, 2008

name game

Last night on my way home, I decided to stop off at the grocery store. I happened to have the flyers still in my car, so checked out the two 24-hour stores to determine which exit I should take in case there was something else on special I should pick up at either Sobey's or Ultra Mart. Nothing stood out, so I headed for Ultra Mart. Except when I pulled into the parking lot and walked towards the entrance I was greeted with a new glaring red sign 'metro'. The flyer said nothing about watching out for a new name. Of course, the flyer also says the name of the store is Ultra Food and Drug. No-one I know has ever called it that. Unless one read the business section of the newspapers (or indeed even read the newspapers) this new ownership and name change may be a new story for many people. There are still many who refer to the store as "...you know, that A&P, or whatever it is now...", that will likely not change for them. The instore house brand names were suddenly changed a few weeks ago from Master Choice and Equality to Irresistible and Merit, which was confusing.

All these mergers and acquisitions and resulting name changes are so confusing for us average citizens. Television and radio stations that keep changing their call letters. Highways, that change numbers and for years have a small sign under the new one saying "formerly HWY 93". Sporting events, like the Molson Indy which became the Molson Grand Prix, but is now the Honda-Steelback Grand Prix. Or the Rogers or Rogers AT&T Cup which used to be known as Player's then DuMaurier Tennis before cigarette advertising was banned. It has evolved from a Championship to an Open to a Masters and a Cup. No wonder most people will just say "did you watch the tennis?", nobody but the sponsor really cares what the name is in the title. Theatres and venues that keep changing names is also confusing. Once I and a friend were on our way to see The Lion King when he turns to me and asks the best way to get to the Canon Theatre. I'd never heard of it. He assumed I knew where places were in Toronto and I used to before all the name changes. Turns out it used to be the Pantages which used to be the Imperial (which used to be a Famous Players cinema before it became a Cineplex Odeon cinema) which was originally the Pantages as a vaudeville theatre. I have no idea what the new names are for all the buildings in Exhibition Place, and will not be surprised if or when one day the CNE is taken over by a new sponsor and suddenly becomes some long cumbersome- hyphenated-made-up name that is likely too embarrassing to say. It will forever and always just be the "Ex". Which should be the most appropriate name.

8 comments:

  1. So true! It's like the Rogers Centre, some people are adamant it IS Skydome. In fact, they're pretty aggressive about it lol

    Me I'll just continue to ask if anyone is watching the tennis ;) much easier on my little brain...

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  2. UA: it will ALWAYS be the Skydome!! That was actually the perfect name for it, stupid idea for the egomaniac to change it.

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  3. I only have that experience with supermarkets, when a perfectly good and cheap supermarket turns out to have been changed overnight into an upscale expensive one, more in keeping with the neighborhood, and I rode my bike over there especially to shop at the cheaper one, because the upscale one is already in my neighborhood.

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  4. They changed the name of the Skydome??? Where have I been? Wiser marketing minds seem to think that changing the name of stuff will make people buy. It think it just makes people mad. They once wanted to change the name of the university I was attending and where I was editor of my student newspaper. They had a lot of good pencil-necked geek reasons for changing it, so I started a campaign to stop the name change, using the power of the press. I'm proud to say we won and our university's name remains as it has been since it's inception

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  5. i did not know of this name change..wth?

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  6. It changed to Rogers Centre when the Rogers Company bought it in 2005. It was not making much money and was draining the government's finances. So they sold it to Ted Rogers who bought it for far, far less than what it cost to build the bloody thing.

    So the "little red company" changed all the blue to red. And I'm sure that if he could, he would have changed the name of the team as well lol But thankfully, they remain the Blue Jays :)

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  7. Irene: that really takes the biscuit, so to speak

    XUP: yeah,where have you been?? I'm not even a sports fan...anyway, thanks to UA it's all been explained now. Good on you for campaigning for stoppping useless stupidity.

    Raino: thanks for visiting. if you're refering to the metro thing, eventually all Dominion and Ultra Mart stores will be under their banner, but to confuse things even further (or not) all Food Basics will stay the same.

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  8. There's a music venue in Dallas which I still call "Starplex" but it became the "Smirnoff something something" and now it is something else. It's very annoying.

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