Since I spent yesterday in self-pity mode, I missed the big story that made the cover of all the major dailies here - the renaming of Marshall Field's. As in political decisions, the side that cries "treason" is probably the opposite from the one you want to be on. Using ALL-CAPS in a major metro daily is also a reliable indicator.
As a born-and-bred New Yorker who is awful by nature of sharing an island with Federated, I think I can offer some useful advice.
This is the Pan Am building:
Pan Am, as you might have noticed, doesn't exist any more. Their building, which sits at the foot of Park Avenue near Grand Central Station, is still there. It's a very nice building. You can see it for miles in either direction. Since there is no more Pan Am, the building has been re-christened by Met Life and a new name has been put up to replace the deceased airline's moniker.
It's been more than a decade since the Pan Am building became the Met Life building. The sun still rises over Long Island and sets beyond the Hudson. The Mets still choke and the Yankees are still irrationally loathed by the rest of the country. Jon Podhoretz is still an idiot.
I haven't lived in Chicago long enough for the last wave of complaints about a name change or merger, but I have "lived through" the demise of Woolworth's, Chemical Bank and the K train. In retrospect, all the wailing over childhood memories and traditions sounds stupid. Every time.
You know what really does suck, though? Federated closing corporate offices of the companies it buys, thereby costing people their jobs. This stuff happens, obviously, but it certainly does sting a little bit more when it actually affects your livelihood. It makes the people moaning and bitching about not being able to shop at their favorite childhood store anymore seem downright petty and selfish, actually. Stupid public, always picking slightly the wrong issue to harp on.
Anyways, I think you're right about the general public being stupid to freak out about this. If they had shopped at Marshall Fields (itself a nationwide conglomerate snapped up by May Co., who didn't change its name, not too long ago more often, then it might have been successful enough to ward off takeover bids. And yeah, they'll get over it.
That said, can you imagine the hysteria if they ever try to change the name of the Macy's flagship? I think there might be Ghostbusters-level freakouts in the streets of Manhattan.
Well I think B. there hit it on the nose.
"Can you imagine the hysteria if they ever try to change the name of the Macy's flagship? I think there might be Ghostbusters-level freakouts in the streets of Manhattan."
Manhattan would freak if Macy's became anything other than Macy's. Why shouldn't native Chicagoans freak if Field's becomes anything other than Field's? And for it to become Macy's? ANOTHER city's great department store? Field's is Chicago's Macy's. Field's has some unique features of its own...Mrs. Field makes a damn good chocolate chip cookie, that's for sure. Is that the same Field family? I have no idea - but to change the name and carry on like nothing happened...it's too much for the average citizen...
I'm not talking some high level exalted philosophical issue here - I'm talking commerce and brand names and brain washing and PR - the new owners of Field's don't know Chicago if they think Field's brand-loyalty will automatically shift to the new store name. It will take some doing. There will be some huffing and puffing and boycotting...something that doesn't cut it in today's economy.
Keep the people happy. Let them keep their identities that have been prescribed by corporate conglomerates and drilled in through socialization in school and through the media. Don't fuck it up. It's taken a century to perfect. Keep it Fields.
http://www.keepitfields.org/
I realize I'm throwing in a late comment, but for Federated, they really couldn't care less if Chicago takes to a newly named Fields. Out of the entire midwest where Field's stores are located, I believe only 8 are in the Chicago metro area. Why pass up an opportunity to rebrand the entire midwest just because a few people in Chicago are going to whine about it.
I think you folks miss the point. Chicago is fiercely dedicated to its history, much more so than New York, or say Cincinatti. Field's is a quintessential part of that Chicagoan's outlook of wanting to maintain and preserve the past while pushing ahead. That is why Chicago is the great Archtecturual Jewel of America. (Sorry New York!).
Everybody remembers going down to Field's for the Christmas displays, looking in awe at the elegant building -- far better than anything in New York or other cities -- and entering a special realm, made in Chicago for Chicago.
Macy's ain't that. I been in Macy's, I have shopped in Macy's, and Macy's you ain't no Marshall Field's. It's like replacing a Lincoln with a Cordoba.
The satellite stores in the malls can go Macy's, no one really cares about those, the exception being the the Far north suburbs Field's, which is clasic as well. But the downtown store HAS to remain Field's. Frango and all.
It has a brand that is unmatched, it'sname is WHY people shop there and it will kill it to rename it Macy's. It is one of the stupidest marketing moves ever. When the downtown store nose dives and gets a 30-40% drop in sales, that will be obvious.
Opining by ignorant yokels about rebranding and other tired MBA cliches is just what is going to render this a brilliant move, right up there with the New Coke. Comparing a more than a century old relationship between a city and its premiere store spanning generations to the slapping of a new name on a much better than average modern skyscraper is just the kind of shallow analysis that the modern tends to be about. Trump would approve.
My guess: Field's name will be back in a year or two.
Macy's on Randolph? No way, no how.
Hola faretaste
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