Retail Refugees

Remember Radio Shack?  If not, that is with good reason- it is the tragic story of a retail outlet who simply did not evolve with changing times in terms of service, product offering, and in-store experience.  While seemingly stable in their “suburban strip mall” existance, Radio Shack has become less and less relevant in the face of some competitors like Best Buy and the now defunct Circuit City.  Brand New posted today about their latest attempt to re-emerge for a new consumer…

“As far as I understand, the Radio Shack name and logo will NOT be replaced with this new name or “logo.” It’s simply part of a campaign to help seed this new persona, created by Butler, Shine, Stern and Partners. Which is good news, because The Shack is extremely ridiculous — even more so than The Hut — and does nothing but dig Radio Shack into a bigger hole of un-coolness. The effort is in no way aided by the unimaginative graphics and “logo” that have accompanied the launch. The type is boringly simple, even annoying in its lackluster execution. And, seriously, giant laptops to create buzz in the two cities (New York and San Francisco) where there are more people with their head buried in an iPhone per capita than anywhere else? Oh, and yes, they are plain lame. Giant pumpkins on ice sound more appealing.

Radio Shack needs a major overhaul and it should take advantage of the idiosyncratic products they carry that you can hardly find anywhere else, a sort of geek thrift store. The Shack campaign is insipid at best and harmful to the brand at worst.”

Geek thrift store… we could not have said it better ourselves…