Expert View: What's in a name?
Speke-based Littlewoods Shop Direct has recently changed its name to Shop Direct, which the company believes will reduce confusion and give greater clarity about what the group does. Its change is only of the corporate title and does not require consumers to be comfortable with the new name.
Whatever the reasons for it, one reason is not because another company was willing to sign a large cheque for several years for the privilege – which is the position that sports clubs can find themselves in regarding the name of their stadia. Everton Football Club is in the early stages of its search for a company to take the naming rights of its yet-to-be-built stadium. A mere £60m over the next 15 years should secure the deal, as long as the brand doesn’t contradict the club’s values. Even though permission for the development has yet to be granted, the coming months is the right time for the deal to be concluded. Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium very nearly became known as Ashburton Grove, its work-in-progress title, but the length of the deal with the airline, 15 years, and the fact that it was in time for the opening of the stadium meant the brand name has stuck.
This is unlikely to be the case at the GPW Recruitment Stadium, the renamed home of St Helens Rugby League Club, which first hosted a game when Queen Victoria was on the throne. Five monarchs and 118 years later, it is highly unlikely the new moniker will stick. The deal, for a fraction of the price that Everton are seeking, reflects the short length of the agreement – to the end of 2010 – but more pertinently the likelihood of the name being adopted.
The value in a naming rights deal is all in the widespread usage of the name, and this must be carefully chosen. The timing is important but there are also some companies that simply should not splash its cash on naming rights as supporters and the media will seek to shorten the name at every opportunity.
Companies with short and snappy names – Ricoh, Walkers, Galpharm, Stobart, O2 – are all easily followed by ‘Stadium’ or ‘Arena’ while some that can be shortened, such as the Kingston Communications-sponsored KC Stadium in Hull or the Echo Arena, also work well. But it was entirely predictable that the Friends Provident St Mary's Stadium in Southampton and Gillingham’s KRBS Priestfield Stadium would lose the sponsor’s prefix on almost every occasion.
It is a lesson that companies eying up the three major stadia planned for Merseyside in the next few years, for Liverpool, Everton and St Helens, should pay heed to before committing to an expensive long-term deal.
Alex Turner
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