The venerable geeky shop RadioShack has decided to 'upgrade' their image and is currently marketing themselves with the oh-so-hip "The Shack" moniker. Same store, same we-have-everything-you-need stock of electronic gewgaws and connectors and bits and pieces, just a new, hipper, younger image.Well, they think it is, I guess.
It's pretty lame, if you ask me. Their marketing department has missed the actual demographic pretty widely if they are trying to attract a younger market segment. 'RadioShack might sell mobile phones now but they are primarily a techno-nerd source for parts and bits you can't find anywhere else.
The new name, 'The Shack', is not cool, it's awkward in the way that your parents tried to be all cool and shit when you were growing up. Embarrassing, maybe, trying just a little too hard to be "hip" and use all those words that 'young people use today', without quite recognizing how weird they sound. The first thought I had was that the marketing decision was made by a 50-something white guy in a business suit. (Of course, the whole campaign is probably the brainchild of some edgy new marketing company where the median age is 20, so I'm completely off base)
If they were actually tuned in to their real demographic, they'd have renamed the entire operation Electrode Hut.
We'd all get the joke. And we'd think they were pretty cool for doing it, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment