Goodwill
Mother always said, “You are where you shop!” (We have Scottsdale moms, what can we say.) Well, tell mum this ain’t her Goodwill anymore. Gone are the dingy, depressing stores that have ingrained the thrift store stereotype. Gone is the branding and marketing so reminiscent of the Soviet Union. The colorful displays, modern signage, and, yes, patronage of upper-middle class suburbanites can ALL be attributed (at least in part) to the work Park&Co has done with Goodwill of Central Arizona.
Approached in 2002 after a $17 million Goodwill retail sales year, Park&Co was faced with the challenge of tripling that figure and altering public perception in just five years. The rebranding odyssey was extensive, focusing on changing the culture of Goodwill stores. The first question was, who is a Goodwill shopper, exactly? It was generally assumed that the store’s patrons were low-income “need shoppers.” Agency research, however, revealed something surprisingly different. Young to middle-aged women with higher incomes made up a significant minority of Goodwill shoppers, and attracting more of this demographic became the focus of the new campaign.
A television spot titled “Fancy Meeting You Here,” featuring two women friends who run into each other shopping at Goodwill, illustrated the point that not only is it socially acceptable to hunt for Goodwill bargains, it’s common practice among those you would least expect. These ads “outed” the closet Goodwill shopper and shouted that there’s no shame in hunting for that low-priced treasure. Other TV ads showed Goodwill looking for one specific item, then leaving with everything but the kitchen sink they were after in the first place. Okay, it’s not the most efficient shopping trip, but that’s not why one goes thrift shopping in the first place—a point made in the voiceover: “You never know what you’ll find, but you know you’ll find something.”
One of the unique challenges of charity-based retailing is that stores must appeal to the public in order to generate sales AND items to sell. In order to shore up Goodwill’s donations side, Park&Co created simple, poignant print, TV and radio messaging that put a face to the benefit a clothing donation provides. Radio listeners heard actual Goodwill beneficiaries describing how the workforce program changed their lives. Print and outdoor ads asked the public to “Donate that lamp and brighten her future.” TV spots showed how lives are transformed when people receive the training needed to support themselves and their families. Park&Co also forged a relationship between Goodwill and the Arizona Diamondbacks. The partnership put Goodwill’s smiling “g” logo out in center field, got Goodwill ads in game day programs, allowed Goodwill to sponsor a market-wide San Diego vacation promotion, and brought D-backs players into stores. A donations drive at Chase Field collected 100,000 pounds of clothing, while the San Diego promotion generated $66,000 in direct sales revenue.
One of the most striking branding changes was made inside the stores themselves. Goodwill’s problem wasn’t so much “need” shoppers, it was that they needed shoppers. In-store signage and décor was updated and a chic, modern look was applied to racks, registers, walls and dressing rooms. Store layouts were altered to create better traffic flow and coffee bars and kids’ corners were brought in to amp up the appeal of new stores. All this made Goodwill a much more attractive retail option for not just existing customers and the new target audience, but all potential shoppers.
By the end of 2005, Goodwill saw sales climb to $34 million, doubling the company’s output from three years prior and putting them on track to reach their five-year goal. Park&Co shared in the success, landing the 2006 Community Partner of the Year Award as well as the 2007 American Marketing Association Award for Campaign Effectiveness.
With a little help from the right marketing partner, Goodwill has become the mother of Arizona thrift stores. And that’s something even mama can be proud of.
Successful Brand Repositioning
(McKinsey & Company)
Many marketers are rethinking their brand’s positioning because competitive pressures, new channels, and changing customer needs have eroded their brands’ positions of strength. However, increased marketing expenditures to reposition brands often fail to produce any improvements in either overall image or market share. Our experience has shown that companies should focus on achievable rather than aspirational positioning, and that three steps can help ensure success:
Ensure relevance to a customer’s frame of reference.
- Be fully aware of the brand’s “frame of reference” so that a repositioning strategy will resonate with customers.
- Look at a combination of customers’ attitudes and the situations in which the brand is used to obtain the most powerful customer insights.
Secure the customer’s “permission” for the positioning.
- Recognize that permission amounts to a reasonable and logical extension of the brand in the customer’s eyes.
- Leverage a brand’s unique emotional benefits to carry customers from their current brand perception to the intended one.
Deliver on the brand’s new promise.
- Identify the pathway of performance “signals” that will convince customers of the new brand positioning.
- Develop product/service programs to ensure consistent performance on these signals.
- Track and assess performance against customer signals prior to launching the new positioning.
- Adopt an “interim positioning” to establish brand credibility and performance.