What’s Next? The Statue of Trump?
The appearance of a board game named after Donald J. Trump raises the question of whether he has finally named too many things after himself. The answer is an unequivocal, “Who cares?” But that doesn’t end the debate.
Trump: the Game, just introduced by Trump and the toy company Milton Bradley, joins an extraordinarily long list of places, objects and entities for which Trump is the eponym.
In the name industry, eponymy is the practice of naming it after yourself. Those who claim expertise in the hazy field of corporate identity say Trump is an eponymaniac.
This condition is not altogether new. Ol’ George Westinghouse lives on on millions of refrigerators. There are all those Ford sedans, Gallo bottles and Firestone tires. Disney places and things keep multiplying.
But Trump has recast the whole game.
“I certainly can’t think of another example of a man who has so ubiquitously imposed his name on such a wide range of products and services,” says Clive Chajet, the chief executive at Lippincott & Margulies, consultants in corporate identity.
They include the Trump Tower, Trump’s Castle, Trump Parc, Trump Plaza (all three of them), which are all fancy buildings, some with casinos. He has proposed a $5-billion Trump City, which would have a lot of buildings.
The Trump Shuttle is the name of his airline, Trump Princess is his yacht, Tour de Trump is the name for his upcoming bicycle race, “Trump: The Art of the Deal” is the name of his book, “The Donald Trump Story” is the name of the forthcoming movie, and “The Trump Organization” is how they answer the phone.
Trump has even affixed his surname all over his fleet of private planes and helicopters, a step considered imprudent by many corporations because it makes their aircraft a visible target for terrorists, customers and other troublemakers.
If some call this mindless egotism, others, including Trump, credit Trump with marketing genius. Starting with the opulent Trump Tower, he managed to link the Trump name with luxury and glamour, making the rest possible.
“The naming of Trump Tower greatly advanced his career. He became associated with the ultimate in luxury and quality. That made it easier to get financing for the next project,” says Ira Bachrach, president of NameLab Inc. of San Francisco.
It is no surprise to learn from Trump’s executive assistant, Norma Foerderer, that Trump doesn’t have an identity consultant: “Mr. Trump is that person.” But it is getting hard to tell one Trump from another, and that could spell dark days ahead.
Chajet says it was a big mistake to attach the Trump name to the “pedestrian” and “utilitarian” New York-Washington air shuttle, a crowded, cattle-call sort of flight that doesn’t even take reservations.
Bachrach adds: “The more you dilute the name, the more apparent it is to people that it is just a rubber stamp being used indiscriminately, and the less it is perceived to have a unique attribute of Trumpness.”
Trumpness is not yet in the dictionary, but trumpery is. It means “something showy but worthless.” A trump is the strongest suit in a card game--perhaps its most familiar meaning--or “a good fellow,” according to Webster. But to trump something up is to concoct a false charge.
However ambiguous its connotations, the Trump name is very good for eponymy, experts say. It is punchy, has no obvious ethnic baggage and is short enough to fit on the tail of a Boeing 727. Says Bachrach:
“If his name was Donald Rabinowitz, we would never have heard of him.”
In searching for egos to match Trump’s, some think of Chrysler’s Lee A. Iacocca. But unless you counted his wife and daughters, Iacocca has never named anything after himself. Perhaps mindful of the late Edsel Ford, Iacocca turned down those who wanted to call a Chrysler-Maserati convertible by the boss’s real first name, “Lido,” an aide confides.
Speaking of daughters, Adnan Khashoggi, the bankrupt Saudi arms broker, was sweet enough to name his yacht after daughter Nabila. Trump, who bought the Nabila for $29 million and could have named the vessel after daughter Ivanka, wife Ivana, mother Mary or sister Elizabeth, instead christened her Trump Princess .
Nautical tradition would rule out Trump Prince .
The board game, a Monopoly-style diversion with Trump’s likeness on the money, moves Trumpness into the risky arena of cheap consumer products. Any clown with $25 can buy one.
Trump, thank goodness, will give his royalties to charity.
Some find a political rhythm in the notion that Trump has finally gone too far, because President Bush has decreed that possessions are not the measure of our lives anymore. If Trump and his style are symbols of “the worst of the Reagan era,” offers editor Ann Welch of the newsletter Executive Trendwatch in Alexandria, Va., he may have peaked.
“He’s running counter to the mood in this country,” she declares. “If you’re a congressman going from New York to Washington, would you want it to be known that you’re flying the Trump Shuttle?”
