Volume 2, No. 23. December 13, 2002
Naming
right
The shareholders
had reason for concern. It was their name on the line. Literally.
This week, Silver Dollar City, Inc., changed its name to Herschend Family Entertainment
Corporation (see Extra!
Extra!), a nomenclature using the revered name of the family that founded
the Silver Dollar City Theme Park in Branson, Missouri, in 1960 and has continued
to run the park and parent company as an industry exemplar.
The Herschend family, who comprise the shareholders, had been pondering the
corporate name change for several years, said company President and CEO Mel
Bilbo. The actual decision had been “in the works for a few months,”
he said. A sticking point was publicizing the family name like that.
“I was privy to listening to most of the family discuss this, 20 or 30
of them in the room, three generations now,” Bilbo said. “There were
some who were reluctant, wondering if it seemed too egotistical or that it would
be flaunting themselves.” Upon consulting the company’s board of directors,
the majority of which are not members of the family, “everyone was convinced,
and the decision was unanimous.”
With good reason. As Bilbo pointed out, “within the industry there’s
a lot of equity” in the Herschend name, beginning with Silver Dollar City
founders Mary and Hugo and continuing today with Peter and Jack. The Herschend
name is synonymous with the SDC corporation and all the values the latter represents.
Listen to Dolly Parton talk about the firm with which she partners in ownership
and operation of Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and she always refers
to “The Herschends,” never Silver Dollar City, Inc.
Ah, that’s the rub. As a corporation, the name “Herschend” carries
more value than does “Silver Dollar City.” “Unless you are in
the center of the country or within the industry, (Silver Dollar City) doesn’t
tell you who we are,” Bilbo said. That was becoming a growing problem for
a company with entertainment properties and partnerships in Tennessee, South
Carolina, Georgia, Maryland and Florida, as well as around Branson, ranging
from a White Water to Dixie Stampedes. It is also a company that is, as the
name-change portends, continuing a steady course of expansion. Most of Herschend’s
properties are not Silver Dollar Cities redux but themed venues of their own
styling, albeit with the same operational philosophy and family focus of the
original.
Which is why Bilbo is equally pleased with the new name’s middle words:
Family Entertainment. “We’re letting folks know that we are giving
it a family seal of approval,” he said. There’s a pun in that statement:
the seal of approval comes from a family known to be dedicated to delivering
the goods to families.
©2002, Minton Enterprises
LLC
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