It’s a good thing when a brand stands for something in consumers’ minds. Nike is immediately identified with athletic shoes. Gatorade epitomizes sports drinks. Rand McNally is synonymous with maps and atlases.
That’s not enough for the Chicago-based mapmaker anymore. Rand McNally & Co. wants to be more than a reference source; it wants to be a travel store.
As a step in that direction, Rand McNally opened a prototype store in the Nordstrom wing of Woodfield mall Feb. 1.
Globes and atlases are at the back in their own gallery. In the front are travel guidebooks, maps, carry-on bags and travel tools such as neck pillows and electrical adapters. The store feels less cramped because fixtures have been downscaled or stripped away to give shoppers more room to maneuver.
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“It’s almost sparse,” says Scott Spenhoff, Rand McNally’s vice president of retail. “We wanted to freshen the design and make it more relevent to who Rand McNally is today.”
The company’s 26 stores were due for a makeover. After a push to open stores in the early 1990s, Rand McNally pulled back on retail expansion, focusing on other parts of its business. That means a good chunk of the chain is at least a decade old. The rule of thumb in retail these days is that stores need to be remodeled as often as every seven years.
But this renovation effort is happening as part of a bigger ongoing strategic rethinking of what consumers want from Rand McNally, Spenhoff says. The answer: They want convenient, easy-to-decipher information about domestic travel and getting around town.
Given that many consumers are still leery of straying far from home after Sept. 11, it may seem ill-advised to embrace travel as a new brand image. But Americans are on the road again. Airlines are increasing schedules to accommodate the growing numbers, and occupancy rates at hotels are on the rise.
Rand McNally is seeing the same trend. “Consumers are beginning to purchase travel information again. We’re seeing really nice growth in domestic map and guidebook categories,” Spenhoff says.
A day late: Florsheim Group’s woes continue to mount. The beleaguered men’s shoemaker and retailer missed a $1.2 million interest payment Friday to holders of its senior notes.
The missed debt payment is only the latest setback for Florsheim, which has been losing money for the past four years. Last month, the company’s stock was kicked off the Nasdaq small-cap market because it failed to meet minimum market capitalization and net income requirements. On Friday, Florsheim shares closed at 8 cents on the OTC bulletin board.
Debt-ridden Florsheim would appear to be a candidate for Chapter 11 reorganization, but that call would be made by Leon Black’s Apollo Management LP. Apollo and an affiliated company control 60 percent of Florsheim’s stock and hold a majority of seats on its board.
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