Thursday, June 18, 2009

Fast & Loose with Metro Areas

The inherent cultural differences between Durham and Raleigh can be seen in how respective news media located in these two respective metro areas depict them.

Raleigh is in the three-county Raleigh-Cary MSA, but the media over there often appears to ignore that and for some reason drops Cary.

They are probably some of the people who say that “everyone” calls it Raleigh. But if they could see some of the research on that point that I’ve seen over the years, they would realize it is obnoxious to most.

This is also an excellent example of why any branding expert will tell you being on the back end of a hyphen is the first step to being invisible.

On the other hand, the four-county Durham, NC MSA, which includes Chapel Hill, was not assigned a hyphenated designation by the Census - but the news media here often modifies the designation and adds a hyphen anyway.

Interesting juxtaposition. One very exclusive. The other inclusive.

No comments: