Who doesn't have an affinity for one type of shack or another? The B-52s made it famous with their signature tune, Love Shack; restaurateur Danny Meyer with his upscale burger joint, Shake Shack, and noted New England Chef Jasper White with his chain of Summer Shack restaurants throughout New England. There's something about a shack that's romantic, intriguing and inviting. There's even the lovable Shaquille O'Neal, better known to everyone as "Shaq." The man of many nicknames, all given to him by himself. You've got to love someone who nicknames himself. Anything "shack" exudes a sense of coolness and the spirit of being alive. That's why it has been so fascinating to watch the recent developments with the rebranding of RadioShack.
When first announced, through various blog and press reports, you were led to believe that Radio Shack was being rebranded as "The Shack." The reason cited was that many people already called it The Shack, from employees to the investor community. The funny thing is that I've never heard that, nor has anyone for that matter - employees included. It doesn't seem to make sense.
There is no question that Radio Shack needs to reinvent or contemporize itself. They tried this in the past by shifting from a two-word brand and eliminating one space to make RadioShack all one word. A small difference, but an effort, nonetheless.
As a brand, RadioShack is caught in a time warp. Born long before the big-box entertainment stores, it conjures the image of little transistor radios that we kept glued to our ears as kids, and under our pillows late in the evening listening to ball games back in the fifties and sixties. The brand does have some funky appeal as being the place to find parts and pieces for those radiophiles who really care. It's a channel concept that worked great at one time; but like many channels of distribution, it didn't stay current or the market climate just ate them up. The old channel adage is so true here, "Eat or be eaten."
On face value, it seems easy to change a brand to how consumers and people are referring to it. The most successful example was the shift by Federal Express to Fedex. It took some internal fortitude and moxie to spend all that money and change the name to Fedex; but after all, that's the moniker that everyone used. So, why fight it? It made perfect sense!
In recent years, a couple of others have tried to employ this "Let's call ourselves what people call us" brand game with abysmal results. Circuit City tried "The City," and you know what happened to them. And Pizza Hut tried a test with a new name, "The Hut." Calling them disasters is putting it mildly. Both seemed forced and contrived and the RadioShack to The Shack conversion falls right into that category. Forced creativity, at best. After the initial onslaught of cries of how lame this rebranding attempt is, it seems as if there has been a fallback position at RadioShack. According to various reports, The Shack will be used as a creative icon or device in headlines, signage and store events. The question is whether or not it really was a rebranding effort. It could be that it was just a great PR stunt to gain visibility and attention for RadioShack. After all, it worked with me. It generated buzz about the brand, something that has been lacking over the past decade. The emphasis of The Shack positioning is based around RadioShack's aggressive foray into cellular. They're following the money. The question is, can you change the mindsets and perceptions of people to think of RadioShack as the choice for their cellular needs? A tough challenge.
Channel dynamics have changed drastically and adversely affected RadioShack's performance. Who knows, maybe RadioShack is thinking about getting the "Shaq" as a spokesperson. It will be a Shaq attack in its finest form. That might be Shaqtastic!!
A couple of years ago I was doing research for a cellular service provider and an interesting thing popped up with 1st time buyers. They would go to Radio Shack for unbiased advice. They trusted the retail brand more than they trusted to providers to give them good honest advice and sort through the plan options.
Radio Shack has a brand essence, perhaps a little long in the tooth, but perhaps they should redisover that rather than try to be psuedo cool.
OK, to me, "The Shack" just sounds plain wrong - as does "The Hut". To those of us who have been around for more than a few, to several, decades - RadioShack will always be RadioShack.
And BTW - no one I know thinks of them as a "radio" store but as an electronics store... so IMHO the name change is seemingly both inconsequential and unnecessary. In fact, it might be downright alienating.
I believe they have enough equity in their current name that they'd be better off refocusing their approach, liven it up a bit, and bring it into the current technological environment of those in the audience they're trying to reach.
Sorry, but RadioShack will always be RadioShack... at least to this 40+'er...