Erie County Clerk Chris Jacobs started saving money for the auto bureaus by asking local businesses to put their names on the pens that customers were nabbing (see here).
Now Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz wants to take that tactic to the next level. His plan is to sell the naming rights to County buildings, facilities and parks in an effort to build the “Erie County brand”. The deal would include the placement of “large, highly visible, colorful” co-branded signs to grace the presence of the buildings, parks, etc. Poloncarz believes that the effort would help to put potential millions in the County coffers, while capitalizing on Buffalo’s “hipness” and building the Erie County brand.
“Realizing, during the Buffalo Bills lease negotiations, we were potentially missing out on millions of dollars annually by not monetizing the advertising value of our building and departmental assets, I believe we must seize this revenue stream. It’s high time that Erie County got into the naming rights game for all county facilities and even individual departments, and I think it will be a move that pays off for us and for our corporate sponsors,” said Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz.
According to a press release issued today, some of the partnerships that the County is eyeing up include:
… changing of the Rath Building’s name to the Cellino and Barnes Building; the Holiday Inn Express Holding Center (for that short, unexpected stay); the Comfort Suites Correctional Facility (for the guest who will stay a while); the Johnson and Johnson Public Health Laboratory; the Trojan Brand Sexually Transmitted Disease Clinic; the Roto-Rooter Division of Sewerage Management; the Accountemps Comptroller’s Office; the Budget Rent-A-Car Division of Budget & Management; the Callaway Golf Elma Meadows Golf Course; and the Hot Wheels Division of Fleet Management.
“Leveraging corporate sponsorships is a natural for many Erie County facilities, and will reverse the ever-constant trend of corporate welfare in our country. Finding new ways to generate revenue for the county is one my administration’s core missions. Our hope is that instead of the Erie County Industrial Development Agency giving a tax break for a national company to move here, we’ll soon see many national companies paying the county millions of dollars to advertise their products on big, brightly-lit signs across our great community. Our community will benefit from these partnerships and we are ready to go as we have already been approached by many companies looking to do this as a way to help us jointly build our brands,” stated Poloncarz.