A few years ago, I consulted with a grocery chain in the Southwest that found its market share slipping in a highly competitive market. Our non-verbal, emotion response research revealed something invisible to us, but highly visible to customers: the chain had inadvertently created two brands.

Like all retail chains, the stores had been built at different times in the company’s lifecycle. As this chain expanded and built new stores with contemporary style, it failed to invest a smaller amount of money to ‘touch up’ and modernize older stores. The result was not only a turn-off to customers, but, apparently, a turn-off to employees. And that was the birth of a 'second' brand.

One Name; Two Brands

Our emotion research revealed that the key success factors for this chain were the performance of their employees and the physical shopping environment – not price, not meat selection, nor produce. Those were all important considerations and they were still meeting expectations. But it was the human performance and physical environment that had slipped.

In essence, the chain had created two brands – one that fulfilled customers’ expectations and one that fell short. The ‘hypothesis’ was born out in customer data where spending levels and the incidence of ‘high value’ shoppers could be found disproportionately in the stores built in the last 10 years.

Rainbow Foods has been around the Twin Cities a long time as discount grocer. One of its stores is closer than any competitor to my home, but I hadn’t been in it for 15 years. As befits a price point player, that Rainbow was run on the cheap – boxes cut open and placed on shelves, rather than contents removed and stacked. You bagged your own groceries. That’s fine, but having worked in a grocery as a kid, I enjoy my shopping experience and that wasn’t Rainbow’s thing. 

Until now.

An Apparition?

Rainbow recently built a new concept store – an anchor in an upscale retail and entertainment development in our town.

To my amazement, here beneath the same brand name and logo as the store I boycotted, was a shiny store with pithy food quotes painted above the produce, bakery and meat sections. Products from Oberwiess, the renown Chicagoland dairy with a cult-like following, were in the diary section. Employees didn’t just point their new shoppers to the products they sought – they walked them there, no matter how many aisles away.

Was this a grocery or the Ritz Carlton? Whatever, I’ve become a convert. Rainbow – make that THIS Rainbow – has become my store.

But here’s the rub – I went back to the old Rainbow closer to home the other day to see if I’d missed something – like a brand makeover. I had not. It was the same old store, albeit with a half-fresh coat of paint. But instead of those marvelous food quotes, the only decorative signs here refrained their radio tag: ‘Low low prices on the good stuff.” In short, there is zero shopping experience at THAT Rainbow. 

Who's Bob?

Just to add to the confusion, the grocery bags at both Rainbow’s carry the picture and copy of ‘Chairman Bob’ – as in Bob Mariano, chairman of Roundy’s, Rainbow’s parent. Do they really think your average customer understands the ownership operation of their supermarket? In a market where Roundy's has never operated?

Visit the corporate web site and Roundy’s indicates that they’ve opened several Roundy’s Fresh stores in the Twin Cities. However, in the store locator, none of the stores carry that designation and there’s no signage to that effect at the sparkling new one I shop.

I’m anxious to see how Roundy’s management plays this out. Right now, they’re operating two brands with the same name – astonishing customers with their new store, no doubt, while reminding shoppers of their core price play when they venture into an old store.

Marriott: A Brand Master

One attribute of brands – and brand architectures done right -- is their consistency. They establish an expectation in the minds of customers. Take Marriott. Their Courtyard by Marriott brand offers all the essentials for the business traveler, minus the full-service restaurants and bars and other upscale amenities of a full-scale Marriott.

So make up your mind Rainbow. Or Rainbow Fresh. Or Roundy’s. Or whoever the heck you are. Let's clean up the brand spill on Aisle 6 and brand your new stores to reflect their shining assets.