Anchor Blue's Extreme Makeover
Ontario, Calif.–based teen retailer Anchor Blue had been brightening its financial picture since early this year but not the look of its stores. The mall-based retailer had been featuring the same steely industrial design it instituted in 2000, one year before the privately held company slipped into double-digit same-store losses.
Jan Genovese, Anchor Blue’s vice president of marketing, was hired in August to give the store a new look, but there was a catch: The company’s visual display budget would not be increased. Undaunted, Genovese got to work and revealed Anchor Blue’s new look in late October at the company’s visual set store, where the company tests deacute;cor ideas, in the Montclair Plaza shopping center in Montclair, Calif.
The ultimate goal of the makeover was to make Anchor Blue’s interior design appeal to the retailer’s demographic: middle-income 16- to 19-year-olds who enjoy fashionable clothes but are not interested in being fashion leaders.
“We have great value propositions and a West Coast vibe that’s laid-back, fun, sexy and inclusive,” Genovese said.
Genovese created a brighter look for the 6,500-square-foot Montclair Plaza store by:
bull; Covering the dark, iron-colored fixtures and store columns with festive green plastic and painting the black-colored mannequins a brighter flesh tone.
bull; Dividing the store into a girls’ side and a guys’ side with genderspecific light-pink and sky-blue signage to make the store more navigable.
bull; Adding risers and bins so more products—including fragrances, wallets, candy and novelties—can be displayed neatly.
bull; Putting items formerly in fitting rooms, such as bus benches with the Anchor Blue logo, in the back of the store to attract customers to the rear of the shop.
bull; Installing new photography depicting West Coast teens enjoying small parties.
bull; Changing store background music to upbeat sounds from popular artists. Wilmington, Del.–based record label EMI Group North America Holdings Inc. is Anchor Blue’s music consultant. “The No. 1 issue was if someone could change the music,” Genovese said.
One focus group for the makeover comprised 20 store managers. Vermillon Design and Rowen Warren, both based in New York, advised Genovese on changes.
Chief Executive Officer Michael Bush said the visual changes instituted by Genovese have been a success. He credited the campaign with helping boost the store’s conversion rate—the rate at which the store turns people walking through the shop into people making purchases—by 32 percent. The increased conversion rate has helped Anchor Blue earn gross sales of $250 million in 2004 and same-store sales charting in positive single digits, according to Bush.
Bush vowed to maintain the company’s current goal of increasing the number of Anchor Blue stores by 10 percent to 15 percent annually, with the ultimate goal of reaching 350 stores by 2006. Company owner and leveraged buyout specialist Sun Capital Partners Inc., based in Boca Raton, Fla., put the company up for sale on Oct. 15. Bush said the pending sale will not change the company’s direction. —Andrew Asch
