Goodbye Marshall Field's

No, it isn't the same store it was back in the day. But I will very much miss the Marshall Field's name. I hope they don't mess up the prepared food section. I quite like a number of their salads, as well as their yummy quiches with the puffed pastry (I think) crust.

I heard a report on the radio that quoted the Federated chairman as saying that 71% of Chicagoans were neutral to positive on the name change to Macy's. I can't believe that. But then again, there are a lot of things that have happed in the last 5 years that I don't believe. Oh, well.

tcdup wrote:I heard a report on the radio that quoted the Federated chairman as saying that 71% of Chicagoans were neutral to positive on the name change to Macy's. I can't believe that. But then again, there are a lot of things that have happed in the last 5 years that I don't believe. Oh, well.

A lot has to do on how the question was posed and framed. I guess if they wanted to support their notion of Macy's being a more desireable name than Marshall Fields, then they got it. Especially if the question was how do you feel about the department store Macy's? Certainly most of us know it and my answer would probably reflect the 71% they cite.

However, if the question was posed if Macy's name replaced Marshall Fields are you very positive, positive, neutral, negative, very negative ... they would get an overwhelmingly very negative response.

Since we have witnessed the diminishment of Dominicks after Safeway bought it ... a lot has to be said how they manage the place as well.

You know, the nicest department store in Wichita was called Innes's. Somewhere in the 1960s it was acquired by Macy's, or some corporate entity long since divorced from the New York store of that name. And until the store downtown closed around 1985, people still talked about shopping at Innes's, not Macy's.

My guess is, in about five or seven years some new corporate parent will make a big deal about restoring the Fields name. They could probably do that a couple times, for the free publicity, before it gets old.

The Trib poll shows the following:

Will a name change at Field's make a difference to you?

90.3%
Yes (14027 responses)

9.7%
No (1509 responses)

15536 total responses
(Poll results not scientific)

If so, would it make you more or less likely to shop there?

3.4%
More (495 responses)

96.6%
Less (13930 responses)

14425 total responses
(Poll results not scientific)

One possibly salvaging bit of news: Federated is investigating their contracts to see if they can bring Frango production back to Chicago.

Unfortuantely, as much as people like to wax nostalgic about the Marshall Field's name, it isn't backed up by sales. The store has been steadily losing marketshare and sales volume for many years. It's a simple matter of economics for Macy's. Rightly or wrongly (is this another case of "New Your is best, everything else is crap" attitude?) Macy's feels that their name and (considerable) marketing strength will turn the tide at Fields. At least they are keeping the trademark clocks and the Marshall Field's bronze plaques on the corner of the State Street store. Marshall Field’s stores are located in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North and South Dakota. Outside of its Chicago base, I don't think the name change will amount to much in terms of customer backlash.

My gut feeling is that history will record this as a marketing disaster along the lines of New Coke. But I don’t know if that’s my true marketing judgment or an emotional response. My uncle ran Marshall Field’s in its glory years. But clearly it has been mis-managed subsequently, going through a number of owners who had no appreciation of the qualities that made Marshall Field’s great – starting with Dayton-Hudson’s takeover, moving the buying operation from Chicago to Minneapolis. (Remember one of their early bungles? Getting rid of the trademark green bags … it didn’t take them long to realize what a mistake that was.) But it’s not surprising that Field’s has been under-performing, as out-of-town owners have taken it further away from what made it what it was. And then as performance declined, these carpetbaggers tried to cut costs, cut service, and get as much profit out of the operation through reducing expenses, rather than by improving service in a way that could boost volume.

I understand the economies of national/international branding. In the advertising world, the venerable, revered Chicago agency Needham, Harper & Steers was re-named DDB – DDB didn’t have much of a reputation in Chicago, but it was a “world brand.” And the name change’s impact on their business was negligible at best. But that’s an industrial, relationship-based business, unlike Field’s, which is a business that relies on its image with consumers. It can be much more vulnerable to changes to its image. And a name change, especially away from a well-loved one, cannot help but change its image. (When I lived in Manhattan, I always thought of Macy’s as a half step above Sears.)

I think, ideally, Federated should spin off Marshall Field’s to some investor group, who would be willing to let it get back to its proven roots.

And I believe the Frango mint thing – “considering” bringing production back to State Street – is little more than a sop to the city to lessen the sting – it’ll never happen.

The bigger problem here is that traditional department stores such as Field's, Macy's, Bloomingdales, Saks, etc. are doomed. They are dinosaurs which are failing due to the new paradigm of retail shopping as illustrated by Target, Stein-Mart, and even to some extent Wal-Mart. The old school department stores can't survuve in a world where the ladies who lunch are being replaced by the ladies who work and deal with the kids.

nr706 wrote:And I believe the Frango mint thing – “considering” bringing production back to State Street – is little more than a sop to the city to lessen the sting – it’ll never happen.

Yes, I think you're right there. It was a well thought-out way to lessen the sting and even to get the burgermeester to emit vaguely supportive platitudes.

Change is inevitable... blablabla...

A

stevez wrote:The bigger problem here is that traditional department stores such as Field's, Macy's, Bloomingdales, Saks, etc. are doomed. They are dinosaurs which are failing due to the new paradigm of retail shopping as illustrated by Target, Stein-Mart, and even to some extent Wal-Mart. The old school department stores can't survuve in a world where the ladies who lunch are being replaced by the ladies who work and deal with the kids.

That's only one front of the attack on traditional 'department stores', that of the cheaper brick & mortar alternatives. Another comes from the online world where one can easily shop for the best price (and shipping) on a given product. While the purchase of certain items (clothes, for example) may be better done 'on-site' there are so many items that we once bought at a B&M that we now buy online. Items of a specific quality level or from a specific manufacturer once had more limited distribution channels; people wanting those items were compelled to head to a higher-end B&M store. These days we frequently do extensive research to determine the best quality item(s) we want, use price-search engines to find the best deals, and then have VISA and UPS deliver it to our door. Where once we ventured into a Fields for certain things and then bought other stuff 'while we were there' we are no longer compelled to do so.

Once upon a time I did all my Christmas shopping on 12/24 after 2 PM (office closed 'early') at Fields on State Street. These days it's all Amazon and similar via the 'net. I don't think I'm alone. I used to love going to Fields but the store I knew morphed a long time ago. I do agree that Macy's is making a bad call on the name change but I can't disagree that my opinion is biased and emotional.

All the traditional department stores are losing market share as they cannot compete with specialty retailers who can offer a wider variety of SKUs of that item. Look at all the critical departments that department stores cannot compete with:

Toys - ToysR'Us, WalMart
Consumer Electronics - Best Buy, Tweeter, Circuit City
Household Appliances - all the discounters
Men's Upscale Clothes - Gentleman's Wearhouse, Jos. A Banks


And when they have lost the sales, they cut back overhead ... I mean SERVICE ... and then they lose the differentiation that they have from the discounters. Try finding a sales associate at Marshall Field's suburban store on a Wednesday night at 8 pm (the time that *I* prefer to shop). And Field's is better than 90% of the Federated Store.

When you do find an employee, thet don't know the merchandise. Recently, I took my aunt shopping. For 30+ years, she sold fine china for one of the flagship Federated Department stores. We went into the department and could not find help. And when we did, the individual did not know the product. Fine chna requires a lot of service ... and you pay for it. But you don't get the service ANYMORE.

Here's Roger Ebert's take on this, from earlier this year.

Hi,

It didn't take long for a keep it fields website to pop up.

Regards,

Thirty years ago, I started my career making TV and radio advertising for department stores. I worked for an agency in Columbus and my main client was Lazarus, the local Federated store. At the time, Federated was based in Cincinnati, where its local outlet was Shillito's, but the company was controlled by the Lazarus family. Their store in Dayton was called Rikes. All had been independent at one time. In New York, they had Bloomingdales and something else, I want to say Levy Brothers, but I might be wrong. Macy's was not part of Federated at that time. The long trail of consolidation and name changing between then and now is more than my feeble memory can manage, and not of much consequence. All of the stores in Ohio eventually took the Lazarus name, and now are all Macy's.

It's a tough business. Thirty years ago we recognized that the full line department store was a dying breed. It is amazing to me that it has hung on as long as it has. It still offers some convenience, especially for someone shopping for a whole family, and the shopping experience is still more pleasant than at Target or, God help us, Wal Mart.

The reality is that Marshall Fields was a name and nothing more. What made the store distinctive--especially its service--went away a long time ago. I had a dismal experience with them earlier this year which led me to wish they would put that once proud name out of its misery. My wish has come true.

Looking for something else I found this:

A Chicago Tradition: Marshall Field's Food And Fashion (Chicago Cultural Center Foundation) (Hardcover)
by Joan Greene (Author)
Hardcover: 63 pages
Publisher: Pomegranate Communications (September 30, 2005)
ISBN-10: 0764933205
ISBN-13: 978-0764933202

Regards,

We've had a family connection to Marshall Fields for generations. It's so sad how out-of-towners have sullied it. Here's a photo of my uncle planning what eventually became Old Orchard, in Skokie. My uncle Hughston (Portia's grandfather) is on the right. When he was running Marshall Fields it was much more than a name.