Brand Failures

292 Brand failures
to the stores in cleaning them up. Trouble was, he failed to let 270
million shoppers know that Kmart is a new store for the American
family. Meanwhile, 270 million American shoppers kept nursing the
image that Kmart was a dirty place and had too much stock.
Whether or not Kmart will be able to recover from bankruptcy and take on
its stronger-than-ever rivals remains to be seen.
Lessons from Kmart
Realize that price gimmicks won’t win long-term customers. ‘The problem
was that Wal-Mart and Target were out there pitching low prices, broad
inventories, hip products, and pleasant shopping experiences while Kmart
was banking everything on random in-store discounts,’ reported Business
2.0 magazine. Kmart needed to communicate a reason for consumers to
shop there – and shop often.
Don’t neglect advertising. A retailer undergoing a great deal of change needs
to tell the public about it on a regular basis. Instead, Kmart cut its
newspaper advertising.
Be better than the competition. This is a tough challenge. Wal-Mart is a
retailing giant, while Target has been called ‘quite possibly the best run
company in the world,’ in Sam Hill’s book on branding, The Infinite Asset.