It seems Chicago, home of Wrigley Field and the Sears Tower, has hired a marketing firm to explore the potential of offering naming rights to public property, programs, and other assets as a way of raising revenue. The city hopes to begin attracting corporate sponsors as soon as next spring. Any proposed sponsorship will have to be approved by an advisory committee made up of civic leaders, whose job it will be to ensure the integrity of the city's brand image.

Chicago isn't the only city to consider offering naming rights. New York has partnerships with Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ), and Pepsico (NYSE: PEP), and the Las Vegas monorail is sponsored by Nextel (NYSE: S). Winnipeg, Calgary, and Toronto also have similar programs.

Chicago is no stranger to naming rights issues. The city has already attempted to sell naming rights to the Chicago Skyway, which links the city to the Indiana Tollway. Many White Sox fans decried the name change of New Comiskey Park to U.S. Cellular Field, and an attempt to sell the name of Solider Field ultimately went nowhere. Many Windy City shoppers still haven't forgiven Macy's Inc. (NYSE: M) for changing the name of State Street institution, Marshall Fields.

But Chicago hasn't yet found itself in the embarrassing situation that Houston did after the naming of Enron Field. I wonder if there was an advisory committee to protect the integrity of Houston's brand image?

When Macy's recently took over the Marshall Field's name (and locations) in the Windy City of Chicago, apparently the chain didn't do too much transitional planning to ensure the new Macy's shoppers would not feel abandoned by the name change. Although it was just that -- a name change -- large companies tend to forget that customers are attached to brands more than products -- and Marshall Field's was a "brand" in Chicago.

So, in some late-show form of damage control, Macy's is now reaching out to people who used to shop at Marshall Field's but haven't been back since the name change. What is Macy's doing? Well, it is mailing letters and making phone calls -- and even sending out coupons to former shoppers who have not been back with their shopping dollars.

I continue to be perplexed when companies make a drastic change like this and disorient regular shoppers who don't know that the name change is just that. All many customers know is that Marshall Field's is now Macy's -- and this brand disorientation almost always causes customer confusion in my experience. However, with just a little planning, almost all of this can be easily avoided. Thing is -- planning is something you do beforehand, before there is a problem. Unfortunately, that's a rare SOP in today's retail age it seems.