Lots of time will be spent this week picking apart the speeches at the Democratic Convention in Denver.
The real winner, though, is the company that put its name on the building – Pepsi. Add up all of the mentions that the Pepsi Center will get this week in bona fide news reports and it certainly helps the company’s return on its naming rights investment. So, obviously, it’s a great branding opportunity.
But, as they often do, branding and journalism are colliding. Check out this blog by the Poynter Institute’s Al Tompkins (we brought you his vlogs a few months ago).
His unscientific survey of broadcast journalists shows that most will refer to the paid name of a building by its branded name, on the air, whether they like it or not. Why? Because it is the name, and the only name, of the building where the story takes place.