Frank McNally on Nokia and naming rights

A few years ago, when some tourism types were trying to rebrand a certain part of Dublin as the SoDa (ie, South of Dame Street) district, I was one of those who disagreed,

Yes, the name was an echo of New York’s edgy SoHo (South of Houston) area, and it underlined this part of Dublin’s difference from the tourist reservation on the other side of Dame Street. But somehow, I thought, a name that meant baking powder in Ireland, or a soft drink in America, didn’t do justice to the area’s vibrant atmosphere.

So I suggested approaching the matter from a different direction – literally – via the area’s south-western boundary: King Street. With judicious editing, you could have the North of King Street Area, or Nokia for short: a knowing nod to the 21st-century’s defining technology, around which all social life revolves. A subsidiary argument was the possibility of sponsorship. That was soon after a certain sports stadium had been rebranded the Aviva. If local keyholders played their cards right with the Finnish phone company, I reasoned, maybe they could make history with the world’s first sale of nicknaming rights.

Alas, it didn't happen and it never will now. Five years ago, Nokia was a bigger brand than Google or Apple. But in a country famous for its distance runners, it missed the break on smartphones and never recovered. First its mobile phone wing was bought by Microsoft. Now Microsoft has announced it will drop the name from new products. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Of course the name will continue to exist on the parent company and on the Finnish town that spawned it. But there’s a poignant note even there. I gather the town was so-called from an old word for “sable”. The furry animal in question, a picture of which features on the municipal coat of arms, was thought to have been hunted to extinction locally centuries ago. Recent research, however, suggests it may never have reached Finland in the first place

Then there’s Nokia-the- town’s awkward relationship with Nokia- the-company. The latter was founded in the former, all right, but the corporate headquarters and most of the factories are more than 100 miles away.

So, to recap, Nokia the town is named after an animal that is either locally extinct or never existed, and has become synonymous with a phone brand that did most of its business elsewhere and is also facing extinction. It’s all a bit sad.

In the circumstances, I formally withdraw my suggestion to name the Dublin district Nokia. But I’m still not wild about SoDa.

So noting that the area’s eastern boundary is Grafton Street, and as a sideways tribute to one of that thoroughfare’s few remaining indigenous businesses, I propose instead that it be called the area “West of Weir’s”, or “WoW”.

Speaking of the Aviva, I used to be one of the refuseniks who vowed never to use the new bought-and-paid-for name of a stadium that would forever remain “Lansdowne”. I still make the effort, occasionally. But there’s the rub, it is an effort now. It also tends to date you.

Already, after only a few years, calling the stadium “Lansdowne” is like asking what the price of something is “in old money”. Part of the problem is that the new venue is so dramatically different from the old one. They even shifted its axis. And the disorienting effect was increased by the new access system.

You no longer travel to the ground via Shelbourne Road or Bath Avenue. Well, you do. But access now is also colour-coded. And in the frenzied atmosphere of the last-minute rush to the ground, this kindergarten language dominates. The effect is to make the stadium an abstract concept, divorced from its physical surrounds.

This was brought home to me at last weekend’s Ireland-Australia rugby match, when a few minutes before kick-off, I was strolling along Shelbourne Road with two younger relatives whose seats – as we had forgotten – were in a different part of the ground.

Then we remembered and a colour-coded panic ensued. “Oh no. I’m orange and you’re both purple!” I informed the alarmed teenagers. After frenetic study of the route map, it was decided that a dash through the green sector was shorter than the one through blue and red. And by the time I’d delivered them to the purple bit and sprinted back to the orange, it was already 17-0 to Ireland.

The whole thing (including the scoreline) was like an LSD trip. Small wonder I struggle to associate the modern stadium with the old one, where it would still have been nil-nil, if we were lucky, and where all the access routes were equally grey. @FrankmcnallyIT