Every time the cash register rings, an angel loses its wings.
My hometown, Altoona, Pennsylvania has apparently sold its soul to the devil. What’s the going price for a city of about 50,000 residents? About $25,000.
Fruit Juice or City . . . YOU decide!
According to Business Week, the City of Altoona has officially changed its name to POM Wonderful: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold in exchange for $25,000 for the next 60 days.
How in the hell am I going to fit that on an envelope?
1313 Mockingbird Lane, POM Wonderful: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, PA 16601
I just don’t see it catching on.
Does everything associated with Altoona have to change its name?
Is the hospital now The POM Wonderful Regional Health System?
POM Wonderful Savings Bank?
The POM Wonderful Area School District?
Are babies born in the next sixty days going to have POM Wonderful listed as their city of birth?
Do I still need to pay Altoona City Taxes for the next sixty days, or do I have to send the check to POM Wonderful?
Isn’t this just wonderful?
According to the article, only five people were protesting. I guess we’re all numb to crap like this or we just don’t care. And after all, surely the police department will find a way to waste use this cash windfall to make things safer for me.
The purpose of the documentary is to start a national conversation about the naming trend.
I’ve already noticed this in the arena of sports, from the naming of ball parks down to the naming of a power play in hockey. You have the Lexus Half-time show and College Gameday brought to you by the Home Depot. Will baseball follow the trend with the seventh inning stretch brought to you by Preparation H? Or the Tough-actin’ Tinactin ball scratch? Where will it all end?
The Rapture, brought to you by Verizon. The AT & T Armageddon. The New York Times End of Times.
Call it what you want: sign of the times, basic greed, an advertising gimmick, or just plain old-fashioned stupidity.
Just don’t call me POM Wonderful.
Then again, scratch that. I’d temporarily change my name in a heartbeat for $25,000. People have called me worse names than that for free!
theeyelife 
LOL. Steve Sheetz, chairman of the board for Sheetz Corporation, spoke to my marketing class two days before this was announced. He talked about Sheetz being somewhat “edgy and controversial” in their advertising. Little did I know!
So is Pom Wonderful presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold showing in any movie theaters in Altoona no scratch that…Pom Wonderful Presents, etc., PA?
If so I’d like to head out your way with a few marketing colleagues to view it!
Let me know.
Carolyn:
Interestingly, I don’t see it playing in any local theaters, but there was a “private” viewing at the Jaffa Mosque a week or so ago.