Loblaw Cos. Ltd. is, at long last, facing off against a strategy shift at its new Maple Leaf Gardens digs as the grocery store chain aims to do what the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey club couldn't in the grand old building: Recapture former glory.
By setting up shop in the Maple Leafs' former home, Loblaw hopes to rebrand itself in the minds of Canadian consumers as a "foodie temple" and what better way to do so than by situating its flagship property in the revered Maple Leaf Gardens? Or so goes the theory.
Mark Satov, founder of Satov Consultants in Toronto, says it's less about the flagship location and more about executing on a broad scale.
"Grocery is a local business. So if I live in Richmond Hill (Ontario), I may never see the store at Maple Leaf Gardens," he says. "You may (drive business) in other locations because of the buzz you get from a flagship location but that's not what one needs in grocery."
A critical element for the Loblaw revitalization effort on a national scale needs to start with the chain's employees.
"In a turnaround situation, especially a retail turnaround, you have to consider the employees. You have thousands of hourly employees that don't make a lot and they work for a company they know isn't necessarily what it once was and perhaps their pride has waned a bit," he says. "You need to signal to employees across the country that 'we're back'. That'll drive pride in employees and they'll then signal to the customers that the company is back."
He touches on a valid point: it's not a secret that the customer's shopping experience factors huge in the retail industry and the best way to get control of that is through one's staff. "Energizing the employees is really important and I've seen it in other retail turnarounds."
Another major challenge Loblaw will need to overcome in order to claim its brand revitalization strategy an overall success comes down to the operational complexity impacting the desired change.
"They're a large, distributed organization . . . with multiple product brands and formats and thousands of employees; it's hard to do," he says. "It's easy to do a flagship store and to change your brand and hire a consultant, but it's hard to actually implement that change from an operational standpoint."
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