Comments on: Sears Tower Changing Name to “Willis Tower”

By: Doug Easterly

Doug Easterly — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:46:03 +0000

In actuality people will still refer to it as the Sears Tower just as they will call the new skyscraper being built at the World Trade site Freedom Tower even though it is officially to be called One World Trade Center (boo!!)

By: Andrew Calvo

Andrew Calvo — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 04:01:26 +0000

Thanks for your comments Jim. While I do agree that name changes do have an effect on a brand and its popularity – Marshall Fields is a great example – I don’t see how the changing of the towers name will affect tourism. People are still going to go to the building for what it is – the “tallest building in the western hemisphere” not because of what its called, what color it may be, or who the buildings tenants are.

In any case, major buildings like this will never completely lose its original name – the MetLife building in New York City is still commonly referred to as the “Pan-Am Building” or even “the former Pan-Am building” after being officially renamed in 1993.

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 13:57:39 +0000

Despite being a famous building, the Sears Tower has always struggled with vacancy. The fact that there’s newer, state-of-the-art office buildings (and arguably with better locations) in the Chicago market only made things tougher for The Tower.

However, I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the tower’s renaming as inconsequential. The Midwest marches to the beat of its own drum, and when iconic institutions are rebranded the results are rarely stellar. Case in point: Macy’s acquisition and subsequent renaming of Marshall Fields. Sales suffered dramatically, and when they finally recovered the recession hit. Granted, that’s an apples-to-oranges comparison, but when things are renamed their mindshare tends to reset to 0 with the public.

The real loser here is going to be Chicago tourism. The Sears Tower is an iconic building, and serves as a major city tourism feature. With this renaming there will be some negative impact to tourism, which means less revenue for Chicago during a time when it needs it the most.