A Super Bowl prediction: Rams fans in the area will be smiling at the end of next week’s big game in Atlanta.
During the commercials, at least. That’s the Joe Namath-like guarantee of Hyundai Motor America Chief Marketing Officer Dean Evans, whose Fountain Valley company is advertising during the game.
Most Super Bowl ads are now designed to either “make you laugh, or make you cry,” he said during the Brand Innovators panel last week at the Orange County School of the Arts. Advertisers now aim to “lean in on the emotional side,” he said.
This year, “we hope to make everyone laugh,” Evans said at the Farmers & Merchants Bank-sponsored event—noting the national climate could use some cheering up.
Also, Evans said, “Go Rams.”
Will January 2019 be known as the Blue Period for the Orange County Museum of Art and its quest for a new home in Costa Mesa?
Perhaps, although you wouldn’t have guessed much melancholy arising following a 5-0 vote from the city’s planning commission mid-month, approving development plans for the museum’s proposed location at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, on land gifted by the center.
The 1.6-acre gift initially came with a requirement of breaking ground by 2013, a date long gone.
Extensions for the agreement have subsequently been made—and expired—prior to this month’s approval: center President Terry Dwyer said at the commission hearing that his group was excited about the project “in general” and that they were working with the museum towards a new agreement, likely to be finalized in the next month.
Surprising then, that the center officially appealed the commission’s unanimous decision. Reasons for the appeal were not immediately disclosed, and center executives couldn’t be reached for comment.
Assuming the kerfuffle is resolved, the museum still has a significant amount of fundraising to do. The reported $24 million it received from the sale of its former home in Newport Beach is just a start of what’s needed to build the facility, previously estimated to cost $70 million or more.
A facility of a different type expects to make big strides towards groundbreaking this week.
OC’s Board of Supervisors is expected to announce this week a $17 million commitment to fund creation of the county’s first “Be Well OC Regional Mental Health and Wellness Hub” at a 45,000-square-foot office in Orange that the county bought last year.
The project’s backer include ex-Irvine Co. exec and former Santa Ana mayor Dan Young, ex-CEO of St. Joseph Hoag Health Richard Afable, and a slew of area hospitals, churches and others, which are said to have already raised much of the additional funds needed for the estimated $40 million project, likely to break ground this year.
