Jan 20, 2015
Did Target ever really come to Canada? Not according to their Mission Statement.
Leases in less than optimum locations, a weak supply chain and runaway ambition in opening 133 stores may have all ganged up to doom Target in Canada. But, there’s one corporate failure that intrigues me even more. Target ignored its own mission statement. ‘Our mission is to make Target your preferred shopping destination in all channels by delivering outstanding value, continuous innovation and exceptional guest experiences by consistently fulfilling our Expect More. Pay Less.® brand promise.’
Target must have known, before coming to Canada, that it wouldn’t be able to offer U.S. price points or U.S. selection. It also must have known that those were the two things Canadians loved about shopping at Target south of the border. So, here’s the $5.4 billion question… if you can’t get those two fundamental promises right, why bother coming to Canada at all? The cheap chic appeal of Target didn’t travel well.
Maybe more than anything else, Target’s ungracious exit from Canada shines an uncomfortably bright light on the whole exercise of creating mission statements in the first place. I think for many companies, mission statements and the accompanying brand promise are just corporate accessories that they feel are a mandatory part of a website or annual report. Leaders and managers only seem to pay attention to them when it suits them and ignore them too often and too hastily when a shiny new opportunity arises. The result, yet another announcement in the media of a shuttered company. In this case, one that was ill-fated from the start by it’s seemingly altered promise of expect more, pay more and receive less, in Canada.
At Spyder Works, our brand promise is encapsulated in Building Business by Design®. Design, of course, referring to the thought and intention behind the creation of a new idea or direction. Whenever we are creating something for a client, we test it against that statement. Ensuring that whatever we create is single-mindedly focused on our client’s own promise to their customers.
Category: Business, Spyder Works
