Got ridiculous marketing ideas?
Following in the footsteps of Half.com's marketing ploy which made some sense at least since the town it asked to rename had some connection as Halfway (although Half.com is still a little ridiculous as a town name, come to think of it! ;), now one town has been asked to change its name to "Got Milk?" according to this San Francisco Chronicle story:
If the town of Biggs in Butte County changes its name to Got Milk?, Calif. , what's next? Will Mike Bottorff's 15-year-old, now at Biggs High School, become a graduate of Got Milk? High?
...Changing the name of the nearly 100-year-old homey town of 1,793 in the state's rice-growing region is no small matter. But when Mayor Sharleta B. Callaway got a letter recently from the California Milk Processor Board, promising some largesse in exchange -- got money? -- she thought the idea deserved an airing.
...Callaway said Biggs could certainly use a boost. The library doesn't have a rest room, and the streets badly need paving. "We could not handle an influx of people coming to the Got Milk? Museum if the streets are not taken care of, " she said.
Manning's idea is not new. The town of Halfway, Ore. (population 345), near the Snake River and Hells Canyon in northeast Oregon, spent 2000 as Half.com, Ore., having been paid $73,000 by a Philadelphia Internet e-commerce company called Half.com. The online bazaar was later gobbled up by EBay, but not before it sealed the deal with Halfway, which included the payment, 22 computers and some improvements at Lions Park.