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S

What makes consumers buy where they do?Not price, not quality, not service, but

r

The Personalityof the Retail S tore

By Pierre Martinea u

e One of the leading retail grocery chains inChicago has been exceptionally successful in thenewer communities and particularly in the suburbs In one neighborhood after another, stores of thischain far outsell competing stores offering the sameservices, the same merchandise, the some prices,the same parking capacity, the same amount of ad-vertising . Why such an overwhelming preference ?

e One midwestern dealer has become a lead-ing seller of foreign sports car s without advertisingeither special "deals" or the engineering superiorityof his cars . Now does he manage to do it ?

tI One Chicago quality department store has tre-

mendous customer draw for the middle-class Negro,far more than all the other department stores puttogether . Some actual research on the underlyingcauses of this consumer behavior stresses the ab-sence of any classical price considerations or func-tional factors . Again, why the preference ?

What is it that draws the shopper to one storeor a gency rather than another? Clearly there isa force operative in the determination of a store'scustomer body besides the obvious functionalfactors of location, price ran ges, and merchan-dise offerings . I shall show that this force is thestore personality or image - the way in whichthe store is defined in the shopper's mind, partlyby its functional qualities and partly by an auraof psychological attributes

. Whereas the reta ilerthinks of himself as a merchant concerned withvalue and quality, there is a wide range of in-

tangibles which also play a critical role in thesuccess or failure of his store

Power of the Imag e

What kinds of intangibles are imp ortant?What is the effect of a retail store's personality?For answers, let its turn to the customers them-selves - and, to make it spe cific, to the cus-tomers of the three retailers c ited at the begin-ning of the article

In the case of the grocery chain, for instance,one new unit developed over twice the sales ofa new competing store of the same size and de-scription. Research showed that the women ofthe community characterize the store as "cleanand white," "the store where you see yourfriends," "the store with helpful personnel .This chain unit conveys a pleasant feeling ofindependence to the shopper . The aisles a respacious and not cluttered . In short, shoppingin this store is a pleasurable experience irsteadof a routine duty . It is significant that not oncedid any of the shoppers interviewed mentionlower prices, better bargains, or greater savings .

The tip-off to the automobile dealer's successis in the agency personality he has created

This dealer is a former yacht captain, so tha the developed outside the rituals and mythology ofautomobile retailing . Instead of belaboring "deals"and carburetors, economics and functions, he hasimbued his establishment with the symbolic ap-peal of the foreign sports car

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48 Harvard Busine ss Rev ie wAll the salesmen are British - no matter what

they know about car mec hanics, as long as theyare recognizably British . Reinforcing their accent s,they wear linen slacks and blazers with "SportsCar Club of America" emblems

Also, the dealer energetically promotes sports carclubs for different age groups , and he writes acolumn on sports cars in the classified advertising In short, he has built and is constantly reinforc-ing a symbolic image congenial to a particular cus-tomer group

In the example of the department store, theconsumer group ascribe their preference to onatmosphere of acceptance for them . I get awarm feeling of acceptance," "It makes you feelgood to go shopping there," "I like it because itseems to have a warm atmosphere," and similarcomments typified most of the customers' ex-planations . By contrast, Negroes dislike otherstores in the neighborhood because of the feel-

ings of rejection they have - even though themanagements have been trying to serve them

Retailers vs . Shoppe r s

Despite all o f this, the typical reta iler's pro -motions and advertising proclaim price cuts andhuge sav ings to the shopper, as if that were t heonly con sideration in a buying decision . Tirestore advertising, liquor sto re advertising, fur-niture advertising, appliance advertising - allhave the same monotonous c hant . Chain drug-store advertising is typically a bargain potpourriof nondrug items such as alarm clocks, saladbowls, TV tables, flashlight batteries . A grocerbuilds a beautiful store in a modern shopping

center an d promptly plasters his windows withgaudy signs giving it a fire-sale atmosphere

Yet research indicates that women do not be-lieve there is any substantial difference betweenthe pricing of various supermarkets . They areall competitive in price, customers think, andit is impossible to make any material savings byshopping at one chain instead of another . Awoman's primary reason for reading a particularadvertisement is "this is my store ." If she glancesat other advertising, it is largely to reassure her-self that her favorite store is competitive in price Instead of comparing prices, she evaluates thesupermarket from a different set of criteria variety of goods, orderliness of the store, servicesand nonservices, personnel, other shoppers, andgoals of the owner or manager .

When our researchers talk to women aboutdepartment stores, their comments invariably

cover a wide range of elements which bear onwhether they will or will not shop in a particu-lar store. They are quite vocal about the physicalplant itself, the elevator banks, the washrooms,the location

; about the attitudes of the clerksand the other people in the store ; about servicefacilities such as credit policies and returns ;about whether the styling is extreme, conserva-tive, smart, ageless, or in poor taste ; about thedisplays and windows ; about such intangiblesas odors and colors - all these in addition toprice considerations.

Personality Identificatio nWhen the shopper looks at a store's part icular

advertising, she unconsciously asks herself thesequestions:

"What is the status of the store? Is it high-class or low-class or what?

"What can I expect of it in over-all atmosphere,product quality, and personal treatment?

ilow interestingly does it fulfill its role?

"lion' does this image match my own desiresand expectations? "

Of course, she is not oblivious to price ; infact, she may be proud of what she thinks isprice-consciousness in order to justify her choiceof a store . But plumb her mind - go beneathany pat answers - and you will find that sheis not the "economic woman" that Americanbusinessmen have so long and glibly assumed

The Typological Approa c hThe shopper seeks the store whose image is

most congruent with the image she has of her-self . Some stores may intimidate her ; others mayseem beneath her . A store may be acceptablefor one typ e of goods and not for others . Ashopper may go to one department store for bar-gains, children's clo thes, or housewares, znd toanother one for gifts or personal items . Thus :

When the question was asked in a city-widestudy about the preferred store for an everyday

dress, two mass-appeal department stores were

overwhelmingly chosen by the wage earners' wives .But when asked where they would buy a gooddress, most of the women selected different stores .In fact, one store clearly stood out as the uxury

store for the lower-income families .

Economic factors will always be important But unless the store image is acceptable to theshopper, price announcements are meaningless .The upper-status woman cannot conceive of

I

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herself shopping in the subway store o f a largedepartment store . Regardless of bargains, s heis repelled by the thought of odors, millingcrowds, poorly educated clerks . Conversely, thewage earner's wife is not going to expose herself

to the possibility of humiliation by shopping inthe quality store, whether it be Bonwit Telleror Nieman Marcus or Lord and Taylor - evenif she has the money to buy something there In other words, regardless of ability t o pay,all shoppers seek stores whose total image isacceptab le and appealing to theta individually

This concept of the store image goes hand-in-glove with a growing realization that retailinggenerally must take a typ ological approac h tomarketing . As Virgil Martin, genera l mana gerof Carson, Pirie, Scott, has stated

"It is high time we retailers recognize that wecannot be all things to all people . When we tryto do that, we end up with no particular appealfor anybody . Each of us has his own individualniche in the market place . It is up to us to deter-mine where we fit, who comprises our customerbody, and then to fulfill as completely and satis-factorily as possible the expectations of our par-ticular group and our logical market

Illusion of Mass Appea lAs a researcher with some crude tools for

describing customer grou ps along both sociologi-cal and psychological dimensions, I am contin-ually confronted with amazing disparities be-tween the retailer's conce pt of his customerdraw and the actuality . For example

t One Chicago retailer believes that his storedoes the largest volume in its product category inthe market . When we discussed his marketingphilosophy and future goals, I a sked hint abo ut thecharacter of his customer body, lie did not hesi-tate to state that the entire market was his oyster- people from all income brackets, all surround-ing areas, and all social groups

But an analysis of his sales tickets reveals thatnothing could be further from reality . An ex-tremely disproportionate share of his customers isconcentrate d in the lowest ec onomic third . Al-though his store is locat ed in the Chicago centr alshopping district and should attract traffic flowfrom all parts of the area, his customers are com-ing in a statistically significant ratio from the southpart of the city and the southern suburbs

C In making a social class analysis of the cus-

tomers of Chicago retail organizations, w e asked

' F ro m a speech, "The Dynamics of the Present," 195 7National Conference. American Marketing Association

Store Perso ralily 49

this question : "If you were going to buy new living-rorn furniture for your home, at which store wouldyou be most likely to find what you want?" Ex-I1I6IT I summarizes the answers in profile formfor two leading stores . If the customer body of

each store had been tru ly repre sentative o f thesocial classes it- the metropolitan area - or, moreprecisely, if it had corresponded with the chanceexpectancy of choice based on the numbers ofpeople in these classes - the result would haveshown up as the horizontal broken line oppositethe figure too . But in neither ca se did it turnout this way, as the thick lines show . Store A ap-pealed Strongly to people in the upper and middleclasses, and Store 13 appea led strongly to shoppersfront the lower social classes

Exntarr i . Cus-runsen P ROFILES : STORE CHOICESOF PEOPLE IN DIFFERENT SOCIAL CLASSE S

(Observed choices as percentage of expected choices )

210

:o 0

ISO

,0 0

so

Yet the advertising director of Store A, a leadingdepartment store with a brand range of price linesand a basement store, was astonished to learn thatnot every person read his store's advertising . Andthe executive vice president of Store B, one of a

chain of retail furniture stores, was on recordas saying : "\Ve sell everybody . We have storesthroughout the area, we advertise in all the mass

media, we have furniture in all price ranges "Not b y any stretch of the imagination do these

stores have universal appeal . Each organization issuccessful, yet each is attracting out of the marketa distinctive customer group

Stores of Distinctio nThe foregoing examples are not unusual ones

A lengthy list of customer profiles in many cate-

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50 Hcrrrrud Business Revie w

gorics and along several dimensions makes itperfectly clear there is no such thing as a storeimage with equal appeal for all income groups,all social classes, all ages, all types . The stor ethat is successful in the new communities andsuburbs has competitive difficulties in the milldistricts and the lower economic areas, and viceversa . The compe titive pricing structure maybe the same, but the elements of the store imagewhich are so attractive to one group of shoppersare not attra ctive to another group

It has to be this way . Different classes anddifferent type s of shoppers have different psy-chological ou tlooks o n the wo rld and differentways of life . Each segment of t he market looksfor a different emphasis . In general, the lower-status shopper looks at goods in a functionalsense ; she wants the stare image to reflect hervalues of concreteness, practicality, and econ-omy . She is concerned with quality of the rater

chandise and dependability of the store . Theupper-status shopper, by contrast, is interestedin whether the symbolic meaning of the storereflects her status and her style of life

Take, for instan ce, the Marshall Field storein Chicago . It is much admired by perceptivecompetitors because all or the organization's ac-livities are consistent and reinforce its strongsymbolic character . The advertising, windows,merchandising events, resta urants, architecture,store policies, and attitudes of the sales per son-nel - all say the same thing symbolically . Ashopper may feel she cannot afford to buy there she may feel more comfortable in the atmosphereof another store, but s he knows pr ecisely whatto expect . Marshall Field epitomizes eleganceand sophistication . It create, a mo od that helpsto transform the shopping trip into an exoticadventure . It is described by shoppers as a"little world in itself" where the shopper canbrowse and enjoy her fantasies

But just as the Marshall Field store rcpre-sents-'so much to on e kind of shopper, so doesScars, Roebuck & Co . have tremendous appealto another kind . It is c onsidered the friendliestand most comfortable department st ore in Chi-cago, with outstanding strength in all kinds ofappliances, household staples, paint, tires, andchildren's wear . The type of woman consideredtypical of Scars' customers is p ictured as bard-working, careful, practical, and home-minded Sears has created a pu blic image of itself as afamily store, both in the type of merchandiseit carries and in such intangible meanings as

warmth, comfort, friendliness, honesty, depend .ability, and even unselfishness . Whereas thewire is more apt to go shopping alone at MarshallField, it is not uncommon for the Sears shoppingtrip to be a safari for the entire family

Sears, Roebu ck and Marshall Field are thetwo largest department stores in Chicago, yettheir store images are entirely different . Thevery merchandising strategies and perso nalityaspects which are so successful for Sears are notuppermost for the Marshall Field audience, andvice versa . The upper-status woman expects arespect an d a restraint from the salesclerk thatwould be interprete d by the wage ear ner's wifeas formal and forbidding . On the other hand,the family atmosphere and the great emphasison savings which attract the Sears customer aredistasteful to the Marshall Field shopper

The Dull Personalit y

What happens to the retail store that lacks asharp character, that does not stand for some-thing special to a ny class of shoppers? It endsup as an alternative store in the customer's mind The shopper does not head for such a storeas the primary p lace to find what she wants Without certain outstanding departments andlines of merchandise, without a clear-cut attrac-tion for sonic group, it is like a dull person

When we asked Chicago women o charac-terize a department store on a range of qualities,the one attribute most applied to the alternativestore was, "You don't hear much about it . Itmay spend many millions annually for adver-tising and promotion events, vet many, many

shoppers will characterize it this way . Here isan interesting story of what happened to a storethat lost its pe rsonality and then regained it

A leading southern department store originallypossessed a distinctive image emphasizing the tra-ditinnalist values of its city . The lighting and thefixtures were old-fashioned, and the total store

atmosphere was co ngruent with the city-wide in-terest in antiques, old families . old homes, old res-taurants, and historical monuments

Then the women's apparel merchandiser mod-ernized his department . He introduced new fix-tures and lighting, more high-Fashion styling, anda promotional flavor similar to any aggressive chainstore in this field . The fortunes of the store de-clined in definite progression - first women's ap-

parel, then children's, then men's, and finally allthe hard-line departments A management con sultant determined that the

store had dissipated the strongest component in its

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52 ilarrarcl flusiness Beric m

industrial designer,' took the symbols of mid-western gasoline companies to eastern motoristswho presumably were not familiar with them Their evaluations of the companies were basedtherefore entirely on the shape and color ofthe symbols . Wherever this study examined thesame symbols as our study slid, the respondents'evaluations were in almost complete agreement .For example, the company using an oval-shapedsymbol and a red, white, and blue color schemewas accorded by far the most positive evaluations The company using a triangle was rated loweston every scale . A dark color scheme used byanother company cast an aura of dirtiness overits stations . Still another design and color cre-ated a company image that was "old-fashioned"and 'inadequate " in motorists' minds

What applies to gasoline stations applies withequal force to many other types of retailers . Inthe customer's mind color schemes and designshave an intrinsic meaning . They tell him some-thing about the company as surely as the archi-tecture, fixtures, and other visual factors . Theassociation may not be logical, but it is real

Advertisin g

The reta iler's advertising is an especially im-portant factor in expressing the character of thestore . But while the retailer thinks mostly ofthe factual con trut of his advertising - item,price, timeliness, quality of merchandise - theshopper is impressed by the physical appearance,general tone, and style of the advertising aswell as by the words . just as we instinctivelysnake judgments about a nother person front hisclothing and his mannerisms . so does the shop-per believe she can abstract symbolic cues fromthe advertisement, To illustrate :

This year, in a study of retail grocery advertis-ing, aye took characteristic advertisements of sev-eral Chicago chains to different parts of the coun-try where the shoppers were totally unfamiliar withthe stores . When the judgments of women whoknew nothing whatever about the stores werecompared with the opinions of Chicago women

familiar with the stores, they were in rem r.rkablychose agreement

Retail advertising has become a language un-to itself . It accurately conve ys to the shopperwhether the store is exotic and high-style, adependable family store, or a promotion storehammering at bargains and pennies saved . Shedecides which atmosphere is most appealing andwhere she fits . Certain elements of the adver-

tising lend themselves by logical extension tothe store itself and to the goals of the owner High-style ar t and restr aint of to ne an d typog-raphy convey that the store is expensive andFormal. The a dvertisements which are overlyblack and filled with typographical tricks indi-cate that the store is disorderly, with clutteredaisles and a strictly volume-turnover philosophy

Obviously, there is no one advertising stylewhich is best for all stores be cause eac h is try-ing - or should be trying - to co nvey differentmeanings about itself . The promotion sto re andthe predominantly mass-appea l store would bemistaken to run the beautiful advertising of theexclusive shop and the quality department store ;for a grocery in one neighborhood it might bemandatory to promote trading stamps, but fora grocery in another section of town, very un -wise ; and so on . In other words, the symbolicmeaning of the advertising has to be consiste ntwith the character of the store itse lf

Sales Personne l

perhaps the biggest single factor in the storeimage is the character of the sales personne l, inspite of the fact that so much discussion of re-tailing in recent years has virtually disposed ofthe salesclerk . The succe ss of the supermarketand the extension of self-service into other fieldshas led some to assume that personnel will some-(lay disappear from the retailing scene . We talkabout robot retailing and the necessity for pre-selling ; we say the store clerk performs only awrap-up function in (he typical store ; we detail

how the automobile salesman is now only asharp-pencil operato r instead of an aggressiveoutside salesman

Moreover, many department-store executivesto whom I have talked appear resigned to asteady downgrading in the quality of their saleshelp . They feel they cannot compete in thelabor market with other industries and are there-fore forced to take whatever is available

Yet the fact remains that shoppers almost in-variably evaluate the personnel in discussion ofspecific stores . Even in the grocery chains thathave no salesclerks, women will talk about thecheckers and the stock bo ys, whether they ar efriendly or indifferent, cooperative or brusque As the shopper tries to imagine how her familywould like some new dish or some un'amiliarbrand, she naturally is anxious for support an d

' A Study of Consumer Response to Ott Company GasStation Signs (New York, Lippincott & Margulies, 1977)

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information from some source . She is unhappywhen the stock boys are so engrossed in theirtasks of refilling shelves that she feels her ques-tions would interrupt them and be resented .

In the case of department stores, clerks are

mentioned more often than any other image-creating factor . Here are typical comments :

"A salesperson's personality makes the store . "If the clerks are courteous and friendly and

act as if they enjoy their work and their mer-chandise, I enjoy shopping

"The employees make you feel at home oruncomfortable in a store by their attitudewhen they wait on you . Sometimes if youdecide not to buy, they can make you feellike you'll never go back

"I was just browsing in the millinery depart-ment of the store when a snippy saleswomanasked me not to handle the merchandise . Thatwas enough for me . I would never return

there again

In contrast to the impersonality of the down-town-store salesperson the relationship betweenclerk and customer in the outlying center canbe more personalized. The fact that both usuallylive in the same community or general areamakes the clerk more p erceptive to the shopper'sattitudes and wants . As one shopper said

"You get to know the same salespeople in thelocal stores, and they know just what size andstyle and price you want

I believe that the courtesy and adequacy ofsales personnel is one of the decisive factors inthe growth of the outlying and suburban store .fn the words of another woman

"Why shop downtown when the local storesare so much friendlies?

It is ironical that at the very time when abetter educated and discriminating shopper ex-pects more from the store and the clerk, man-agement is dragging its feet in upgrading sales-people . The stores a re more beautiful and Inter-esting ; they have escalators, air conditioning,and improved fixtures ; they have buyers rangingfar and wide to offer the broa dest merchandis-ing selection . But what abou t the salespeople ?

Trends in Behavio r

Perhaps a great many retailers will considerthis concept of the store image as vague and in-

Store Personality 53

exact . While they may find it pleasant to knowthat there is such a thing, they are far too muchconcerned with the operat ional problems of be-ing good merchants to devote any mental energyto it . But I believe that somebody in top man-agement should think about these intangiblesof store reputation and public attitudes . Some-body high up should ponder whether t he over-allstore image is positive and appealing or negativeand dull, and whether it is In tune with whatshoppers want today . The image play s an in-creasingly vital part in the fortunes of business

Some of the reason s for this are economic -for instance, the increase in discretionary spend-ing power, or the rise of new types of compe-tition . Such trends make the subjective ele mentof choice more important at the same time thatthe consumer is presented with more alterna-tive ways of spending his money . But there areother reasons why top management should give

more attention to the company image - rea-sons that are not so obvious . Some of them ap-ply with particular force to department stores ;some are of interest primarily to o ther types o fretailers . Let us se e what they are

Suburban Shoppin g

Today with the customer flow in most greatcities moving outwa rd toward the per ipheryand the beautiful new shopping centers, withso much of the population moving away fromthe heart of the city, the retail e xecutive is con-cerned with placing stores in various strategicoutlying locations . Just as the manufacturer isweighing the risks of product divers ification,

so is the retailer studying the uncertainties ofgeographical diversification . In the central shop-ping district of the past, he did not have toconcern himself with store personality so muchbecause a ll roads figuratively led to Rome . Allshoppers found their way to the downtown area

Now the situation is quite different . The ex-ecutive has to take his store image into fairlystratified communities whose shopping expecta-tions and style of life may be totally out of keep-ing with the traditional image of his store . Inone instance, when a promotional bargain storewas located in a community o f ambitious, mo-bile, well-educated young families, these peopletook the store as almost an insult to their set ofvalues . In another situation, a high-status anda low-status store both entered a middle-classcommunity, and both were rejected becauseshoppers said, in effect, "I don't trust them .

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54 Ilorrrrrd Business Revie w

The problem is far more difficult than merelylocating a store where there are population c on-centration s and doing research to learn whatkind of a personality to give the new store sothat it will "fit in ." The bra nch store a nd the

suburban store partake of the personality andcharacter of the big downtown st ore . Eventhough management may build very attrac tivebranch stores which in themselves would be con-gruent with the new community, these storescannot dissociate themselves from the core mean-ings of the main store image, which are deeplyetched into the shopper's consciousness . If, forexample, merchandising techniques and promo-tional appro aches have made the downtownstore su ccessful with lower-income families, abranch will operate under a cloud in a smartnew suburb . And, conve rsely, when the high-status store Incites a branch in a fairly prosper-ous mill district, the advertising which is build-ing an image of sophisticated modernity for themain store's customers is also visible to shoppersin the mill district, who shy away from such astore image

The spectacular growth of the outlying shop-ping center has created another problem . Veryoften this center has included whatever storesthe real estate promoter c ould interest, quitewithout regard to how their images fitted to-gether . As a result, the stores in litany centersare pulling against each other . The smart high-fashion department stores a nd apparel storesfind themselves in centers with drugstores, gro-cery stores, and a miscellaneous assortment ofsmall shops negating their image, so that thecenter becomes a hodgepodge to the shopper

If the opposite is true - if most of the storeimages rim reinforce e ach other - a "shopping-center mood" will result that will make thesestores more successful than they could havebeen operating by themselves . But any storesthat are out of character with the over-all imagewill have A harder time than they would other-wise . As an illustration, one grocery chain ishaving difficulty in a vcry suc cessful centerwhich is dominated by stores that create a moodof elegance, ornateness, formality, and slicerluxury throughout . The shopper coming to thiscenter is dressed for the occasion and not likelyto be attracted to a routine grocery store

Earlier I stated that the question of the imagewas one for top management

. It should now beeasy to se c why this is so whenever store loc a-tion is the issue . It makes no sense to ask a

group of executives to operate a br anch in a newlocation until careful attention is first given tothe store personality they will be working with It can bless their efforts or plague them Eitherway it is a factor of tremendous importance

The New Custome r

In a study of the new community shopper,based on four rising communities which I feltwere typica l of different so cial classes an d in-come groups, I noticed two large-scale trends

i A new set of family values is developing There has be en a shift from the philosophy of se-curity and saving to a philosophy of spending andimmediate satisfaction, to rise of the child-centeredfamily, more self-indulgent spending, a tendencyto equate standard of living with possession of ma-terial goods, and great emphasis upon communityvalues

,Q The influence of the store image is increasing

People place great stress upon their interactionwith other people - talking and socializing withothers . Ilow do they react to the growing imper-sonality of metropolitan life? Cutting all her ties

with friends and family to move to a new city or

new suburb , shopping in stores where she cannotknow the owner or the clerks or where there mayhe no clerks, the shopper compensates for less per-sonal contact by personalizing the store . She be-haves in considerable measure toward this inani-

mate object as if it were a person It ;)ccomes asymbol to which she can form deep attachmentsor dislikes . A department store, like a person, ischaracterized as "modern, practical, casual, and ex-citing ." A grocery chain is c haracterized as "young,progressive, growing, Friendly . Another store iscalled "dull," and still another is described as if it

were someb ody she did not like .

The Na tional Association of Retail Grocershas conducted seminars for its member storeswhose sole theme was the importance of devel-oping an appea ling and distinctive store pe r-sonality . Throughout the country there areCountless instances of imaginative independentssuccessfully competing with the chains becausethey have crea ted their own character in manyand diverse ways . One Chicago grocer recentlyopen ed a "kiddy theater" which adults ca nnotenter without crawling on hands and knees The youngsters sit entranced on benches watch-ing cartoons while mother enjoys her shopping

Brand Product sMuch of what applies to stores also applies

to products and packages . Package designers

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startle our moral sen se when they say that to-day's consumer is more interested in the pack-age than in what is inside ; she takes the contentsfor granted . Styling and decor a re the key tothe automobile sales picture today, not engineer-ing . Refrigerators present the "sheer look ." To-day even the most prosaic products are offeredin a choice of ninny colors

All of these are externals which have nothingto do with economics or function, yet whichare demonstrably important in the sales fortunesof the brand .

Service O rganizationsCompany image and personality arc also im-

portant to the success of service organizations Here the primary differences between compet-ing companies arc generally not matters of priceand service so much as they are stereotyped atti-

tudes in the public mind . Whether true or n ot,they exercise tremendous influence upon buyerchoice . For example :

Airlines offer the same rates and much the sameservices. Yet a Chicago Tribune study of the air-lines serving Chicago shows very wide differencesin their company images . In fact, no two of theseven airlines studied have anything like the sameprofile

United Airlines is accredited with a broad rangeof rich meanings : safe, up-to-date, good for travel-ing with children, efficient st ewardesses, extreme lydependable, excellent food, comfortable, excellentpersonal attention, luxurious service, and attractiveinteriors in the planes

Capital Airlines has a v ery different image,

stemming largely from its use of Viscounts : fast,quiet, smooth, good views, comfortable seats, apultramodern, progressive line

Interestingly enough, the same feelings were ex-pressed by those who had flown in Viscounts andthose who had only heard about them . This con-firms findings of other studies that the attitudestoward a company image are not necessarily formedfrom experience . Rather, they may be shared ideasrelayed by word of mouth

A Point of Vie w

Management is a ccustomed to look at shop-ping in an atomistic way - in terms of how

'For an explanation of the contribution of the be-havioral sciences to this problem, see Pierre Mauineen,Motivation in Advertising (New York, McCraw-Hill Book

Store Personality 55

ninny items were bought in what stores anc atwhat prices . It should and must analyze retail-ing in this way . But it must n ot forget that sta-

tistics on sales provide only a partial basis forintelligent decision making . It must not be socaptivated by the logic of figures that it over-looks the nonlogical basis of shopping behavior Whether the customer is buying airline tickets,gasoline, hardware goods, or department storemerchandise, his actions defy analysis in termsof after-the-sale- statistics alone . To understand"why," management must look for deeper in-sights on customer behavior

I have focused much of this article on depart-ment store custo mers not becau se they are dif-ferent (they are, after all, the same p eople whobuy automobiles, life insurance, and so on), butbecause studies of them offer some of the mostdramatic evidence to support my points . Wehave found that the cus tomer genera lly thinksof shopping as a total experience which runsthrough a number of departments in a n umberof stores a nd ends when she (or he) returnshome . This is particularly true when she shopsdowntown or in a major shopping center requir-ing some travel and time . She faces many e x-traneous problems : How does she get there? Ifshe drives, where does she pa rk? Which storedoes she go to first? Is it the store where sheplans to buy, or will it be the comparison point?If she expects to be gone for lon g, what abou tthe restroom and restaurant facilities ?

Curiously, the lowest-income shoppers men-tioned the holiday aspects of such a trip mor e

than any other group, probably because theirroutine lives are closer to humdrum practicality .

The shopping situation must therefore includemany things not directly associated with specificitems but closely connected with various pat-terns of consumer behavior . As the shopper fitsthe stores into her planning, site manipulatesstore ima ges in her mind - not images of thiscounter or that department but impressions orpictures of entire stores . In large part, whereshe goes and what she buys depends on thesubjective attributes that are part of these storeimages - atmosphere, status, personnel, othercustomers, Consciously or unconsciously, tieysway her expectations an d direct her steps .Company, Inc

., t957) . Chapter XV -, and Joseph W. New-man, New Insight, New Progress, for Marketing, HBRNovember-December 1957, P. 9 5