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Struggling Macy’s Inc. claims it wants to “reinvigorate” its relationship with customers by improving their shopping experience. Sounds good.
How does it plan to do that? It will shut 150 department stores, shrinking its footprint to 350 stores.
It’s not clear how a loyal customer, who is losing his local Macy’s outlet, is going to buy into the corporate restructuring program, which is grandly misnamed “A Bold New Chapter.” It should be called “A Managed Retreat.”
Don’t worry, says Macy’s, because its new strategy “balances the art and science of retail and is informed by comprehensive customer research.”
What hubris!
New CEO Tony Spring is “energized by the work ahead” as he accelerates the path to market share gains.
The only market share gains that Macy’s will achieve are against dead-as-a-doorknob” Sears and Kmart, which tried the same shrink to survive game plan.
Neither Sears nor Kmart currently have stores located within 100 miles of their former headquarters in Chicago and Troy (MI), respectively.
New Yorkers will come to miss Macy’s Herald Square flagship.
On second thought, the “world’s largest store” could be someday be the site of the “world’s tallest building.”
Wake up from prison crisis, America... Hats off to The Sentencing Project and Meraki Communications Group for taking top honors in the 2024 Anthem Awards’ global awareness category for their PR effort to end the 50 years of mass incarceration in the US.
America’s 2M prison population, which is disproportionately Black Americans, has soared nearly 500 percent since 1973.
Kara Gotsch, executive director of The Sentencing Project, said the “mass incarceration crisis represents a failed system that prioritizes punishment over rehabilitation and retribution over community investment.”
The Sentencing Project’s “50 Years and a Wake Up” campaign was a partnership with ACLU, American Bar Association, Human Rights for Kids, NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice, The Last Prisoner Project, and The Vera Institute for Justice.
The campaign earned more than 6,500 news articles and broadcast news clips, and 30-plus 30 op-eds placed across national and state media outlets.
Meraki and The Sentencing Project also collaborated to on webinars, panels, and press events in Connecticut, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.
Morgan Dye, founding partner at Meraki, said the campaign “demonstrated that strategic communications can become more than a tool for disseminating information; it can be a catalyst for societal awakening.”
She looks forward to working with The Sentencing Project to “continue confronting uncomfortable truths about America’s approach to public safety, dismantling entrenched prejudices, and creating a more just, equitable society.”
Meraki, which is Greek for doing something with soul, creativity, and passion, is based in Alexandria. It has lived up to its name.
Binkley goes gently into the night… While media pundits pontificate about whether Nikki Haley should remain in the GOP presidential race following her beating in South Carolina, Ryan Binkley has had enough.
The co-founder & CEO of M&A firm Generational Group and lead pastor of Create Church, both in metro Dallas, suspended his campaign on Feb. 27 and endorsed Donald Trump.
He boasts of two key accomplishments: visiting all of Iowa’s 99 counties before Ron DeSantis, and getting 4x as many votes as Asa Hutchinson in the Hawkeye State.
See you in 2028, Ryan.
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