London-based insurance broker Willis's upcoming occupation of space in Chicago's Sears Tower means a name change to the landmark Chicago building to Willis Tower. The name change officially goes into effect today.
In a Crain's Chicago Business interview, Willis CEO Joseph Plumeri talked about naming rights, possible job relocations, and the fact that Willis will be competing on the home turf of giant competitor Aon. He stated that Willis did not pay extra for naming rights; it was included in the deal leasing 142,000 square feet, which will house 500 Willis employees.
Commenting on possible sensitivity around the renaming, Plumeri said:
You can call it the Big Willie, and that would be fine with me…I don't mean that in a comedic way. (Chicago) is a town of neighborhoods and it's a town of nicknames. And people in this town, when you call something by a nickname it's not meant to be demeaning, because I come from the neighborhoods. It's meant to be a term of endearment. So if they did that, that would be fine.
Hmmm. Aside from the salacious implications of a 110-story skyscraper being called Big Willie, Plumeri is apparently oblivious to the tenacity of Chicagoans about their traditions.
Take Marshall Field's, for example. When Macy's steamrolled into town and bought the venerable State Street department store in 2006, the deal included a name change and a complete rebranding. The public backlash was so intense — and Macy's lost so much profit and goodwill — that management was changed several times, to little effect. Three years after the takeover, a May 2009 NBC poll shows that Chicagoans still hate Macy's, and that hate is reflected in Macy's declining stock price.
Granted, this sort of attitude is unlikely to affect Willis's big business clients, but Willis and others could take a lesson from Macy's. Renaming a beloved Chicago landmark after what sounds like a character in a 1970s blaxploitation movie might not generate a lot of positive feedback from Chicagoans.
Hey, it's our second city complex — we're just funny that way.
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