In the article, understanding retail branding, by Ailawadi and Keller (2004), it is discussed how over the past ten years branding has gained more management precedence. With promotions and private labels on the rise, it can either be viewed as the increase in retailer power, or that competition and pressure between warehouse or discount stores and traditional retail stores is increasing. It is important for retailers to create their own equity, or value, to set them apart from their competitors. Many times, competitors sell the same brands and items, but if a retailer can differentiate themselves it can improve their revenue, profits, and their leverage with manufacturers. The manufacturer brands and their equity have direct influence on the …show more content…
The HBC began its rebranding process by publishing ads in media outlets that pertained to three different generations which maintained its history aspect but also with a mix of newer-aged style of advertising which helped push the modern agenda to its customers. Although history was a main backbone of the company, that was not the case for provinces like Ontario that the company had just recently expanded to. In places like these, they needed to make a name for themselves and build a good reputation and establish an identity in which the company could start from. The strategy in Ontario was to go more by the older identity of HBC which had a greater reputation than the more modern version that was on the cusp of taking off. This allowed for the population to have an idea of what kind of department store they were going to be getting instead of “The Bay” debuting in the Province without much steam behind its name. The HBC faced many more challenges in different provinces of Canada – all unique to each province – but the main goal was trying to allow the history aspect of HBC to start the momentum that the new image would hopefully take and run with despite dealing with critiques of the company’s impending change (reference