Dairy Queen Offers To Help The Weather Channel Name Winter Storms

The Weather Channel announced today that for the first time it will start naming winter storms. While this may seem like a ploy to generate additional revenue from naming rights, execs insist that it's simply about generating recall and awareness and according to The Weather Channel, named storms generate more of it. This doesn't mean advertisers aren't already trying though (see below).

TWC officials say the move to name winter storms will create more awareness because of the rise of social media.

"Hash tagging a storm based on its name will provide a one-stop shop to exchange all of the latest information on the impending high-impact weather system," says Tom Niziol, the Weather Channel's winter weather expert.

TWC officials point to these additional benefits for naming storms:

- Naming a storm raises awareness.

- Attaching a name makes it much easier to follow a weather system’s progress.

- A storm with a name takes on a personality all its own, which adds to awareness.

- In today’s social media world, a name makes it much easier to reference in communication.

- A named storm is easier to remember and refer to in the future.

With the announcement from the Weather Channel that blizzards this winter will be named, one prominent advertiser wasted no time in making its pitch to acquire the naming rights. Dairy Queen did some quick thinking and jumped on the news by issuing a press release with an offer to cross-promote storm names with its popular Blizzard line of products.

“Obviously a blizzard is a serious weather situation. But we thought since the Weather Channel is naming blizzards, we would lend them our Blizzard Treat names should they need them,” said Barry Westrum, executive vice president of Marketing for Dairy Queen. “Because our signature Blizzard Treats are world famous, we feel it’s our civic duty to make this offer to the Weather Channel.”

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