Starship name a gimmick that took off

By MARTIN JOHNSTON

In 1992, nurses thought the name was a joke. Now the decision to drop the name Starship has provoked an outcry.

What has happened in the intervening years is that New Zealanders have got used to the name, which has worked well as a marketing tool and a hospital image-softener.

But back then the hospital's nurses lambasted the label, picked by marketing man and now Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey after he rode one of the hospital's "spaceship"-like lifts.

"They thought it was a gimmick," a Nurses Association organiser said at the time. "They did not think it was the actual name. Most of them are absolutely embarrassed."

Paediatrics Professor Barry Taylor, of Otago University, admits he too, like many others, thought the name was unsuitable marketing hype in 1992, but says the health sector and families have embraced it.

"Starship" was intended to capitalise on the unusual design and pastel colour scheme of the building to give the hospital a science-fiction-like identity.

It was hoped that children would think of it as an interesting and non-threatening place to go, and that it would even attract tourists.

Mr Harvey said yesterday that he came up with the name after overhearing a Maori boy of about 10 in one of the windowed lifts, which travel in a glass-walled shaft and look over an airy atrium.

"We were looking down as we whizzed up and he said, 'It's like being in a spaceship'."

Mr Harvey had, as an Auckland Hospital consultant, been toying with following tradition and calling the new children's hospital, opened in 1991, after Princess Diana.

Its predecessor was called Princess Mary Hospital.

His marketing strategy came up with "Starship Children's Health: South Pacific".

The word hospital was omitted because of its connotations of sickness and death.

Auckland was left out because of a wish to emphasise the hospital's national and Pacific Islands catchment and eventually - it was an era of commercialised healthcare - to attract fee-paying patients.

Hospital managers said they were following the example of many overseas hospitals in marketing their product to attract sponsorship.

Starship was expected eventually to raise between $5 million and $10 million a year in sponsorship.

The Starship Foundation, which has attracted fundraising stars like Lucy Lawless and Suzy Cato and corporate backers including Sky City and Mercury Energy, says it raises more than $3.5 million a year using the Starship brand.

Marketing experts say the name was catchy and creative.

Rick Starr, senior lecturer in marketing at Auckland University who has his own branding company, New River, said the novel name appealed quickly to children, parents and staff.

Dr Douglas Carrie, another senior marketing lecturer, said at first the name had sounded "bizarre" but it had grown on the city and its people.

"Sometimes the best brand names were those that are unusual, memorable and short. It's got all of those."

Gary Taylor, who was chairman and Deputy Commissioner of the former Auckland Area Health Board, was sceptical at first but believes the name has proved itself over time.