Just the other day I heard that a number of involved individuals were getting together to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the emergency landing of that commercial airliner in the Hudson River.
Why this event called for a one-year anniversary banquet is beyond me, but even more curious is the way that we always have to come up with names or titles for events like this. In this case, we can no longer just refer to the event as “that crashlanding in the Hudson last year.” No, we now have to refer to it from this point on as “The Miracle on the Hudson.”
So seriously have news announcers intoned these words over the past few days, that one might think that Congress or the president had officially declared the name of the event as we would name a national holiday.
I live in the Spokane, Washington area, and some eight or nine years ago–who knows, maybe it’s been longer than that–we had a fairly severe winter storm that coated much of the region with ice. One of the local network affiliates, in their neverending quest to have the most original and creative television graphics as they report an event like this, came up with an icycle-encrusted logo that appeared on the screen every time they were about to do an update.
“ICESTORM!” proclaimed the cold, blue wordmark on the screen. Not, “The Ice Storm” or “The Spokane Ice Storm” or even, “Severe Winter Storm,” just “ICESTORM!” Before long, all the other television stations and even some national networks began to adopt the phrase “ICESTORM!” in reference to this event.
Today, several years later, if we get a good winter storm that promises to coat one locality or another with ice, somebody at the TV news desk during the 6-o’clock news will invariably ask the meteorologist, “So, is this going to be as bad as ICESTORM! ?” Not, “how does this compare to that big storm in ’02 (or whenever it was). No, the weather event for that year will always be known as “ICESTORM!”
In like fashion, the 2009 plane crash in the Hudson River will now forever be called “The Miracle on the Hudson.”
Reason is, we love to name things. Mountains, highways, airports, holidays, events, inanimate objects; we juct can’t help ourselves. If something promises to get enough publicity over a long enough time, we can even sell sponsorships.
My favorite examples are the sports stadiums all across the country with names reflecting some corporate sponsors. Like, the American Airlines Center in Dalles, or the Staples Center in L.A., or Wachovia Center in Philadelphia. In case you wonder why these places are named after corporations, consider that American Airlines pays the city of Dallas $6.5 million a year for that name on the Stadium’s front door.
Bowl games, too, are blessed with little reminders of the sponsor’s name every time the sports announcer tells us where the game is being held. Some examples: the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, the FedEx Orange Bowl, the Konica Minolta Bowl, the Outback Steakhouse Bowl, and the Chick Fil-A Bowl.
What really makes me laugh are the sponsored midst-of-the-game announcements like the Birds-Eye Vegetables 30-yard line report, or the Citibank 2-minute warning report. Or the Viagara line-of-scrimmage commentary.
Given our collective penchant for sponsoring virtually everything, it won’t be long before news events are also given sponsorships. Soon, we in the Spokane area will be hearing reports about the “Schuck’s Auto Supply ICESTORM!” In New York next year, viewers will no doubt watch the “Hormel Chili third anniversary of the Miracle on the Hudson.”
Finally, you shouldn’t be at all surprised if one September not too many years from now, somber processions and nationwide memorials accompany our remembrance of the Planters Peanuts 911 attack.
Tags: 911, Bowl games, corporate sponsorships
