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Richard Piatt Reporting"EnergySolutions Arena?"
"I don't know if I'd want to be associated with it."
"It doesn't make any sense."
That's the talk on the street Eyewitness News got yesterday about the name everyone's not used to: Energy Solutions arena.
There are strong feelings about the name itself---but also about what the company is: a hazardous waste landfill.
In the past, the company by its old name, Envirocare, had a generally negative reputation, fined in 1998 for storing excess uranium.
The new owner, Steve Creamer, has always known that bad reputation would carry over--even to Monday, when the arena deal was announced.
"When I bought the company I knew I was buying something controversial. What we're trying to do is take the controversy out of it," said Steve Creamer, owner of EnergySolutions.
Creamer's company has aggressively tried to tag EnergySolutions with a positive image, and distance itself from Envirocare. Their tag line reads: "EnergySolutions, we're part of the solution..."
Though most companies who buy this kind of sponsorship sell a product average consumers buy, EnergySolutions believes having its name on the home of the Utah Jazz shows the public a major commitment to a long term presence in Utah.
Image and marketing consultants who are watching are fascinated--and wonder how it will work.
"Obviously they've got someone who is very smart knows what they're doing running this campaign who has a strategy. And I imagine they're doing a lot of polling to see how effective their strategy might be," said Chris Thomas of the Intrepid Group.
You can see the new signs from blocks away and that's just the point. People will now be saying 'EnergySolutions' even if they don't know what the company is. That means statewide and national exposure.
The company has more plans to publicize efforts to handle nuclear waste, clean up hazardous sites, and handle future of recycling of nuclear fuel rods.
But for now, the arena is the hot-button issue--with its own image issues.
