Euro Apteek not only is one of the biggest pharmacies we came across in Tallinn, but it is centrally located, right next to their national monument celebrating first independence. Of course we couldn’t meet the owner of the pharmacy, but when asked why is the drug store named this way,the pharmacist on duty told us it’s just a catchy name to raise confidence and set a standard. Indeed it does. The EU is associated with some kind of regulations and control over the use of certain substances that drugs are made of. But do we really rely on this every time we buy a medicine? Or is it just a psychological effect the euro name has on our confidence and trust development? Either way, the customers were plenty and pretty satisfied.
The 2nd eurospace we found in the Old Town is Euro Park. As you may have figured out, it is a paid parking lot. Vital in the old city centre where most of the restaurants and attraction points are found. Again, because of the automat, there was no one (owner or worker) we could ask why this name was chosen. But we could figure out that the parking lot was full not because the name would inspire any form of security that might (or might not) be associated with the Euro name, but because there were not so many parking places in the Old Town. So the necessity was probably the main drive for choosing to park the car there, as the prices shown on the board were not that small(15 EEK=1 EUR).
Tere tulemast or welcome (to Europe place?). We found this place, called euroexchange…It doesn’t mean that only exchange can be make with euro currency, but they called the shop like that maybe because with the name looks more “official”, and as the case of the pharmacy, it raise confidence. We focused in the rate and why there is not commission. Maybe 0% commission is because Estonia will adhere to euro in Jan 1st 2011 and a flat rate was imposed.
These were only a few examples of companies using the word Euro or the European Union sign in Tallinn. We have decided to only include the ones that we could somehow manage to communicate with the employees or the customers. We were fascinated by the number of the examples that we had come across and we discussed what might be the reason of it. Tallinn is a very touristic city; we saw many tourist groups during our visit in Tallinn and of course business owners want to with business with both these tourist groups and the locals. To do that they should come up with a name that would appeal to both locals and tourists. Assuming the most tourists would come to see Tallinn within Europe, it would be a good idea to show them familiar names and logos to appeal them by using the European names and logos and take advantage of the bond that EU tries to create. Considering that these names and logos are also recognized by the locals, they can also appeal the local customers as well and European names and logos maybe the only thing that has the power to do so. From this we concluded that EU has somehow succeeded to spread those names and logos and managed to affiliate some European ideas and trust with these names and symbols or at least there are many shop owners out there who thinks of that way because otherwise they wouldn’t like to choose these symbols and names for their shops. Seeing the existence of these shops also proves that people have some kind of trust to these symbols and names otherwise they would run out of business. Seeing these symbols and names used voluntarily by people is showing that EU’s efforts to create a European consciousness have succeeded because there are some people who are making business by focusing on people who affiliates themselves with this symbols and logos and seeing the plurality of these shops and them being active proves this success
Can Olgu Erderen
Paula Rosu
Javier Ruiz Soler
Paul Bongers
