Bring back the roach, he's a true symbol of Houston!!! Famed roach is only hiding The 42-year-old neon bug may return to light By DAVID KAPLAN Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/2648517 The giant neon cockroach glowed for 42 years and was a beacon for Southwest Freeway drivers. He glows no more. Bubba, the 8-foot-tall, 16-foot-wide Holder's Pest Control roach, was taken down in April, but the sign could make a comeback. You can't keep a big roach down, not when he's worth more than his weight in gold as a branding tool. In 1998, Holder's moved to a southwest Houston shopping center that would not allow the display of a mammoth insect, so Bubba stayed behind. He was eventually taken down, because of an ordinance that forbids a commercial sign when the company has left the premises. Bubba now spends his days in a Holder's warehouse. But Holder's wants Bubba back in the spotlight, said Jen Boedecker, marketing coordinator at Copesan Services, a national alliance of pest control companies that includes Holder's. A number of businesses, mostly restaurants, have tried to buy Bubba, but Copesan is interested only in leasing the sign as a form of advertising. "We'd consider putting him at someone else's site, as long as we maintained ownership," she said. "He's been like a mascot and is so highly recognized." In terms of branding, Bubba is invaluable, said Kevin Keller, professor of marketing at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College: "It's iconic and part of their equity." Bubba is "heritage," and "when positioning a brand, it's very hard to compete against heritage," said Keller, who noted: "Anything that gets on consumers' radar matters. It's so hard to break through these days." Bubba does have a way with people. When they took him down, Holder's received a number of e-mails, including this one: "I've been watching for that roach as a landmark for most of my life, and I'll miss the old boy." david.kaplan@chron.com
Dang, I guess I never looked. But then I never went around 59 and Westpark much to my knowledge. Although I did live in Mo City and did have friends in the Alief area. Dunno, but this sounds like a Jeff Foxworthy joke or something : "If your city's landmark is a giant roach.... you might be a redneck".
Yeah, I saw Bubba often as I live in Alief. Didn't know they took him down, though I've been away at school a lot.
I remember thinking when I was a small child how that sign meant we'd either just really got into Houston, or were leaving it. It became farther and farther inside town as time went on... PUT IT BACK!! (imagine that, Houstonians and area residents wanting someone to put a roach back in their home)
If you don't remember the roach, you did not live in Houston and cannot call yourself a Houstonian, you Missouri Citian
Wow, I lived at the intersection of Westpark and Newcastle for about a year and never saw Bubba. They must have taken him down by the time I moved there.
