Little shout out this morning to the folks at the store formerly known as Radio Shack.
They created a new branding platform re-dubbing themselves The Shack last year. It received a lot of flack at the time but I stumbled across their site yesterday and was pleasantly surprised at the vigor it added to the experience for such an ‘old brand’ with ‘new’ challengers like Best Buy et al.
It appears it’s working as same-store sales are +6.7% thru October, investors are becoming quite fond of it and they have 80,000+ Facebook fans now. Not bad. Reminds me a bit of the initial reactions to the Apple iPad name.
Like that name, the Shack is a clever build off pre-existing equity and, clearly, it’s best to wait before dismissing it (versus say…The Gap? which seems less carefully conceived.) The Shack is how many hard core fans referred to it so it built on an authentic history while going through a reinvention that was necessary.
Interestingly enough, there’s an illuminating parallel here in Canada. Radio Shack – yes, the same one – was a business independent from the U.S. operating under the Radio Shack brand with warm but lapsed fans until it was bought by Circuit City who had to rename it legally. Bell, a major telco, bought it when Circuit when belly-up.
The Source is not a bad name because at least it says what it does (here’s a piece I wrote on the merits of that) but clearly it lacks the energy and hipness of The Shack. Something Bell should find a way of adding.
