Dick's New Destination Store

A 17,000 square-foot turf field is adjacent to the Dick's new 100,000 square-foot Eastview Mall store. 

I am happy to write about something happening in my neighborhood. Dick's has decided to erect its first destination store concept at my local mall, Eastview Mall in Victor, New York (a suburb of Rochester, NY).

As malls and retailers are struggling with how to pivot as more and more product sales are conducted online, Dick's has decided to explore the path of offering substantially enhanced customer experiences as a part of its retail brand.

This will not be your typical sporting goods store. The concept is to merge product with service, experience and community building. Imagine a place that offers a turf field by summer, an ice-skating rink by winter and a running track and rock climbing wall all year-round. Imagine workshops and training sessions for athletes of every type and all ages. Imagine team practices at the store. Imagine advice on how to create your own home gym. And imagine a juice bar, movie nights and birthday parties as a part of the concept. Every department within the store will have an experience element built in. 

And, as another example of its community-building, this Dick's store will conduct a community contest to name the field. 

This should begin to give you an idea of how brick-and-mortar retailers must evolve to compete with the convenience and cost-savings of online product sales. 

Successful brands have always focused on emotional and experiential customer benefits over functional benefits. And the most successful brands have created a sense of community based on shared values. They have become the home for tribes of like-minded individuals. And retail brands that follow this path have become destinations.

While elements of this have been tried by retailers before, this is a first for a pure sporting goods store. For instance, several sporting goods stores have featured rock climbing walls. Orvis offers classes on fly tying, casting and other fly-fishing skills. Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World format has indoor ponds, fish aquariums, restaurants and archery ranges and teaches classes on everything from fly fishing, dutch oven cooking and archery to hunting and GPS navigation. Its largest store, Bass Pro Shops Pyramid in Memphis, TN is housed within a 321 foot (32 story) high pyramid structure. 

And looking further afield, consider the Build-a-Bear Workshop brand, which creates a complete experience around customizing one's own teddy bear. Or the Rochester-based grocery store brand, Wegmans, which grows stronger and stronger every year by constantly creating and innovating new customer experiences within their stores. 

I am looking forward to how this concept evolves, what will work and what will not work as well, what will be added and what will go away. But, rest assured, I think Dick's is on to something. This is the only way brick-and-mortar retail will thrive well into the next decade.

Customer-Centric Brand Strategy

Too many companies still think of marketing as the thing to do to sell more products. The products are a given and marketing plans are created and executed to sell more of the products the company produces. In this way, marketing is a tactical afterthought. 

But what if the purpose of the company was to meet (and even anticipate) the needs of one or more specific customers? What if that company focused on a limited number of very specific customers with very specific needs? And what if that company used research to better understand (and again, even anticipate) those needs? And what if the company's focus was to meet more and more of that customer's needs through additional products and services?

What do I mean by focus? Bass Pro Shops focuses on people who fish. Orvis focuses on people who fly fish. Arena and Speedo focus on swimmers, and especially competitive swimmers. Lane Bryant and Avenue cater to plus-sized women. Paul Smith's College is for students who love the outdoors and especially the Adirondacks. Brigham Young University caters to LDS college students. zZounds.com caters to musicians. 

But what if their growth strategies were not focused on targeting new markets for the same products and services but rather, creating new products and services to better serve their specifically targeted core markets? To become invaluable to a specific set of people creates tremendous brand loyalty and even advocacy.  And, more importantly, it insures that the brand remains current and relevant leading to a much longer life. Specific products and services can become obsolete over time. Meeting important customer needs in an ever increasing and evolving set of ways does not. 

Instead of a product-centric strategy, consider a customer-centric strategy. 

Brands and Baseball Caps

Brands are often used as self-expression vehicles. And baseball caps are a simple way to do this.

People use baseball caps to communicate their interests and affiliations. They use them to demonstrate their support or pride. Baseball caps can project a certain image or social status. People use them to connect with other like minded individuals. Baseball caps can also communicate personal accomplishments and personal passions.

I thought it would be fun to present you with a variety of baseball caps. Think through the type of individual who would wear each cap. What are his passions? What is he trying to communicate? Why did he buy a cap with this brand on it? What is his likely social and economic status? Will it identify him as a certain type of person? Will the baseball cap attract certain people and turn others off? What are each brand's associations? Are you familiar with some of these brands and not others? Does that say something about you? Are some of these brands insider brands? Think about how much a brand can say about a person who uses that brand as a badge.

Brands Command Time Premiums

Marketers talk about brands commanding price premiums. In fact, the ability to command a price premium is a primary indicator of a brand versus a commodity. Less talked about are time premiums. 

Some people have a lot of time but little money. Some people have a lot of money but little time. Some have neither time nor money. And a lucky few of us have both extra time and money. 

In calculating brand value, the numerator is the bundle of tangible and intangible benefits delivered by the brand, while the denominator is a combination of the time and money required to to interact with the brand. 

Strong brands can command time premiums. When Wegmans or Trader Joe's opens its first store in your area, people flock to those stores, spending a great deal of time there. The same is true of Costco, Bass Pro Shops and a number of other high-demand retail brands. Just as people want to spend time with popular people, they also want to spend time with popular brands. How much of a time premium does your brand command? Do people go out of their way to spend time with it? Do they linger? Do they find any excuse to spend time with the brand again and again?

Time premiums are as much of an indicator of strong brands as price premiums are.