Apparently the Nets have hired a new ad/marketing firm to sell the New Jersey Nets' "Brooklyn brand." One has to wonder how long the firm will be on the account. Why?
AdvertisingAge reports:
Stoute's Plan to Market the Nets? Kissing Up to Brooklyn
Translation CEO on Borough Pride, City Rivalry and Bruce Ratner as a Modern-Day Robert Moses
Nets officials have been busy hyping Brooklyn as an iconic globally-recognized brand. Translation Founder-CEO Steve Stoute, whose agency is handling marketing for the team, said the New York City borough is marketing gold. "The power of the Brooklyn brand is so resounding. It means so many things: hard work, gentrification and diversity, music, culture." And while there are still critics upset over the use of eminent domain to make way for the Barclays Center where the team will play, Mr. Stoute said Brooklyn residents should "be ecstatic" about the move.
...
Ad Age: Another factor in all this is that the Atlantic Yards project has been steeped in controversy. What will you say to win the neighborhood over?
Mr. Stoute: I think that there's always going to be people who resist change. It's a human reality. I look at what they had to go through and say it wasn't easy, but it made sense. It was there to improve, to uplift, to contemporize, to bring back sports to the borough. It's the Barclays Center of Brooklyn. It's of the people. This is Bruce Ratner's gift to them. He is our generation's Robert Moses. (Emphasis added.)
Whoa.
If Mr. Stoute and the Nets think it is a good idea to compare Bruce Ratner to the most notorious power abuser in American urban history, we can't disagree. Although, say what you will about Moses, he did oversee public works, rather than purely self-aggrandizing, for-profit real estate deals.
As for Ratner's munificent "gift" to the people of Brooklyn aching in their stomachs for the return of the Dodgers—when Ratner returns our homes, businesses, streets, tax dollars, zoning laws, democratic processes, and our Constitution we'll be sure to send him a big thank you note.
Note to Mr. Stoute: If you want to market the Nets and "use" the "Brooklyn brand," it's probably best to discard the words Bruce and Ratner from your vocabulary, and probably wise to leave out the Robert Moses comparisons as well.
