I’m lumping these three together for the moment simply because they are all owned by the same company. That is, Aldo, Spring and Little Burgundy, three of Canada’s most common (and arguably popular) shoe stores.
For those living in the downtown core of Toronto, you might have noticed changes coming about these three stores. Over the last two years, they’ve been slowly rebranding themselves. First was Transit, now known as Spring. They’ve completely revamped their store layout and tried (I assume) to make the gap between them and Aldo seem more tangible. Most people would say the stores compete with one another. they sell to different crowds, sell different shoes and tend to come across as wholly different. Well, good, that’s what they want you to think.
Stoneridge, another member of this family has had an image overhaul as well. They are now Little Burgundy. A few people I know thought Stoneridge had gone under and replaced by this ‘new, hip’ store. Nope, just another rebrand. From the small questionnaire I did at Stoneridge a while back, it seemed they were aware their image clashed with their target market. They were trying to sell to young folk, those between 18 - 24, but weren’t quite hitting it.
This was so true. Though the shop attendants and styles were very young within the store, the outer branding was too stodgy (and the prices still scare me today).
So, if you’ve all been keeping an eye on these two, you should also be looking at Aldo, which is going through a revamp. If an episode of Design Interns (HGTV) was based on creating a new store setup for Aldo, you should have picked up on the revamp in session. right now the stores are changing (not unlike the new Nine West stores, I might add). This area of revamp is so in the public eye that it’s fun to watch. Rebranding must be the new black.
