Make a Left at Spoon, Arkansas

Bunch of sellouts.

In a news item YABNews stumbled across a few months ago, the Dish Network was offering a decade worth of satellite TV every resident of any town willing to change their name to Dish. Well, it looks like a village of schmoes took the bait. Clark, Texas, a hamlet of all of fifty-five households will be enjoying free cable in exchange for the naming rights. L.E. Clark, the man who incorporated the town in 2000 (and promptly named it after himself) is a little ticked. Hey L.E., maybe you should have had a cooler surname so that your residents wouldn’t be tempted to seek a corporate sponsor. Like “Dontmesswith.” Yeah, I think they would’ve kept that one around.

DISH, Texas will no doubt see a population increase and some additional press coverage. I guess it’s kind of nice to have television included in your municipally-provided utilities. And since it costs nothing in taxes to provide to the residents, it’s not going to be a budget cut casualty anytime soon. We can leave that deletion for lesser important things. Like recycling.

My capitalization of the word DISH above was not the product of a sticky Caps Lock. According to the agreement, all uses of the company name in regards to the city must be in full uppercase mode. I guess when you find out you’ll be getting 872 channels, you tend to not sweat the small stuff. But writing it as DISH and not Dish gives this town an attitude. On maps, DISH will be yelling at its more well-mannered neighbors. On a list of school district closings, DISH will demand to be announced first, and will also insist to be the first voting precinct reported by the evening news. I could change my name to CHRIS CONDON, but such bravado will seriously hamper my lifelong dream job aspiration – “stealth ninja.”

But if you think the Dish Network is in the innovative cusp of the advertising world, you’re seriously mistaken. The article cites Half.com doing the same in 2001 with Halfway, Oregon. Truth or Consequences, New Mexico initially named themselves after the game show of the same name. (Unconfirmed reports on which came first with Laguna Beach – the town or the show.)

But these are merely little fish in the big pond of brand recognition. Just last year, Bay City, Michigan was persuaded by the auction giant to add one little ‘e’ at the beginning of their name. While innovative, this ultimately was a disaster for the small port city on Lake Michigan. The entire economy went to hell, as standard pricing became a thing of the past. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, was now purchased by means of rapid-fire bidding. For bigger items, like automobiles and furniture, this wasn’t a big deal. But it hit rock bottom when schoolchildren at their local 7-11 were raising the stakes for Snickers Bars. Everything was overpaid for (48 dollars for a Big Mac?) and the residents became so poor that the economy stalled and collapsed. Realizing their mistake, eBay felt bad and donated “it” to every citizen. Thanks, guys.

Yahouston, Texas has hit the ground running, desperately trying to distance themselves from the fact their baseball stadium was Enron Field for 3 years. Yahoo! offered to provide all sorts of free service to Houstonites - like mail services and streetside map kiosks. Google has promised to match their strategy by marching to Salt Lake City in names of rechristening the state Gootah.

I know what you’re thinking – where the heck is You’re a Blog in all of this? Surely increased readership would result from the press coverage? Well, we’ll let you be the first to know that we have an offer on the table with one lucky town. In exchange for naming rights, we promise that not only will their post office bring the mail, it will also bring the funny. Hold on – I have an e-mail I need to check.

It’s official! Our little blog is now the official sponsor of one lucky town. Say hello to Khan-YAB, Turkmenistan!

I can't wait to meet all the Turkmen and Turkwomen!