So does anyone else see this as…
2 minute read
September 13, 2007, 2:41 PM
Does anyone else see Wal-Mart’s new slogan of “Save Money. Live Better” as reminiscent of Target’s “Expect More, Pay Less” slogan? I find it amazing how much Wal-Mart has been chasing Target, trying to be like them, in the last few years. It really looks like the little kid doing everything that an older person that they look up to does. It’s kind of pathetic-looking.
Still, Wal-Mart’s gone from gray to brown. They’ve upscaled their merchandise mix. They rolled out that test store in Plano, Texas. They’ve stopped including self-checkouts in their store updates. They switched from the blue vest to a uniform consisting of a dark blue shirt and khaki pants. Target stores are brown, they have a hipper merchandise mix, they have never used self-checkouts (quoted here as saying, “Target will not install self-checkout ’cause it takes away from the customer experience.”), and they dress their employees in red shirts and khaki pants.
Yet Target still just plain old does the whole upscale-and-hip-on-the-cheap thing better. Target stores are clean, and they’re remarkably quiet. No constant announcements on the horn, and the bathrooms are generally quite clean. I would be surprised to see a filthy bathroom at Target. On the other hand, Wal-Mart’s stores are noisy and dirty. There are constant announcements on the PA system, and you practically need a haz-mat suit to enter some of Wal-Mart’s bathrooms. No fun. And that whole thing with presentation transfers itself to the product, as presentation is half the sale. That Wal-Mart in Germantown, for instance, is hideous. It’s dirty and the employees are rude. Don’t think I’ll be going there again. Presentation is everything. The Target Greatland store next to it is much better presentation-wise. Plus Target somehow keeps its stores looking like new for a long time. Compare to a Wal-Mart that looks like crap in two years and then has to go through an extensive remodel to look somewhat new again.
To me, whether it’s true or not, with all these being-like-Target moves, it’s making Wal-Mart look like it’s the also-ran of the group, trying to be like the hip kid that gets all the girls.
And for the record, Target is still another big, evil corporation without a soul, and Target is not necessarily any better than Wal-Mart in many regards, but right now, they just don’t carry all the PR baggage that Wal-Mart carries. But they do present a better product to the customer, making them perhaps the lesser of two evils…
Web site: From the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Wal-Mart's new Target-like slogan
Song: Eh... whatever.
Quote: And they're giving up the happy-face! Sad... now what will we use to define such evil characters as Lord Waldemart?
Categories: Walmart