Sears Canada rebrands with ‘bold’ new logo

Aimed to symbolize turnaround

Sears Canada Inc., the once mighty retail giant, announced it was rebrandi n g We d n e s d ay w i t h a “clean and contemporary logo.” The new look, which evenly spaces the five obvious le tters, S-E-A-R-S, before a punctuating red stencil of a maple leaf is, at first glance, perhaps a bit nondescript.

“The new Sears (Canada) logo: because being boring is better than being ugly.”

That tagline was offered up by Strategy magazine marketing reporter Josh Kolm in a tweet.

But the simple look might be the point, says marketing expert Alan Middleton. Sears Canada’s straightforward approach with this rebrand, a major departure from its iconic blue lettering halved by thin white stripes, may well be the best fit for its e ffor t to reinvent itself with a more diversified online business and smaller physical footprint.

“I will give Sears Canada 10/10 for the reinvention effort they are putting in,” said Middleton, a professor at York University ’s Schulich School of Business. “They’re coming from a long way behind with ever strong competition from The Bay, Walmart and most importantly the omniretailers like Amazon and Alibaba.”

Middleton said the new design aligns the brand The old blue-and-white Sears Canada logo was adopted in 1984. Sears Canada’s new logo shows “reinvention,” says board member Brandon Stranzl. with the most important thing for Sears Canada’s current strategic objectives: its stated desire to grab a sizable foothold in online commerce, reduce its dependency on physical stores and buttress its credibility as a streamlined business.

Noting the “bold, confident new logo,” he stressed that the success of the visual break from the past will be determined by these bigger and more complicated factors.

“What will be the key will be how good their online customer experience is, not just directly but through their catalogues: awareness, the e-journey and the pricing,” Middleton said.

Adding that there is an abundance of marketing activity at this important backto-school time, Middleton said Sears Canada’s success will also hinge on how quickly it can afford to expand its new store concepts — which the company has dubbed Sears 2.0 — and associate their planned new layout and customer service models with the new branding.

This will be the fourth major logo the company has had since 1953.

It’s had variations of the current and best known blue and white version since 1984, which it took on when it formally changed its name to Sears Canada Inc. The most significant change since was the addition of a small maple leaf in 1996 to distinguish the company from its American counterpart.

Originally named Simpsons-Sears after its two founding parents in 1953, it changed its logo in 1973 to drop Simpsons in order to its founding in avoid confusion with existing Simpsons stores.

Sears Canada has been ailing with declines in traffic at its physical stores and has struggled to establish an online shopping experience on par with competitors.

“We are proud to unveil this symbol of reinvention for Sears Canada,” said Brandon Stranzl, Sears Canada executive chairman, in a release. “Sears is changing, and our new logo asserts the modern and streamlined image and consumer experience for which we are striving in-store and online.”

In June, the company reported that in the first quarter of 2016 its loss climbed to $63.6 million or 62 cents a share from a loss of $59.1-million or 58 cents a year earlier. Sears Canada’s overall revenue fell to $596 million from $697 million.

Same-store sales at the Toronto-based retailers “core” outlets — 95 department stores and 39 home stores — were down 6.9 per cent and overall same-store sales fell 7.4 per cent.

Sears Canada also said it had raised its cost-cutting target in an attempt to return to profitability, aiming to lower annual costs by as much as $155 million. Last year, the company slashed costs by $125 million, and more cuts will likely mean store closings and layoffs. mislabelled as Egyptian cotton. It also terminated all businesses with the supplier. A Welspun representative didn’ t immediately have a comment when reached by Bloomberg News. Part of a roughly US$3-billion conglomerate headed by Balkrishan Goenka, Welspun said it manufactures every fifth towel sold in the U.S. and counts J.C. Penney Co. and Macy’s Inc. among its customers.

Welspun fell another 20 per cent to 65.85 rupees on the Mumbai exchange Tuesday. The 36-per-cent, two-day slide — the steepest since 1999 — cut the company’s market value to 66.2 billion rupees (US$990 million).