TOYS R US FOUNDER CHARLES LAZARUS
Last week one of the retail hall of fame entrepreneurs passed away. Charles Lazarus, who founded and built Toys R Us into one of the retail box store powerhouses died (maybe of heartbreak) just a day after the company announced that it was closing and liquidating all of its retail stores. Most retail analysts attributed it to the growth of Walmart, Amazon and the warehouse stores. To be sure, this increased competition certainly played a factor in the company’s demise.
However, I believe that, like so many of the other retail disappearing acts of the past several years, it was 
really a case of having, updating, and maintaining an effective brand strategy that led to the lack of interest by so many customers over the past couple decades. Most big box category-killers (like Toys, Circuit City, Office Depot etc.) opened up to the “wows” of customers who had never seen so much of one category in one place. Unfortunately, as successful brands know, you have to consistently strive to improve and react to the customers in order to maintain their relevance. Price alone only gets you on the playing field. Selection improves on getting trial. But becoming and maintaining a brand that people love, that’s what builds an enduring brand.
Toys R Us had lots of toys, for sure. But their price image never seemed to keep up with their inventories. Nor did the customer service. Nor did the operational excellence as the stores became worn down and tired. There are always new innovations in the toy market and yes, TRU always had the latest trends. However, they never seemed to create an excitement that was present in the department stores during the holidays in their hay day. The company built a destination store near Times Square in New York that rivaled the excitement of FAO Schwarz around the world, but never was able to translate that excitement in its hundreds of branches in the suburbs of American cities. It’s marketing never went beyond it’s original “I don’t want to grow up. I want to be a ToysRUs kid” campaign. Despite efforts to revive the theme over the years. There was no enticement for parents and grandparents to come back and not much youthful excitement of the kids to convince them to go back as well.
GEOFFREY THE GIRAFFE THE BRAND’S SYMBOL
My long-time retail marketing peer and good friend, Ernie Speranza, former TRU CMO, agrees and he also indicated that the decision to establish Babies R Us as a separate chain was also a mistake. The opportunity to get parents coming in to Toys R Us locations when the kids were born and create a shopping habit as well as an awareness of toy trends and news was missed as Babies R Us did well but failed to translate as the kids grew up. The company had the opportunity to be the destination for disposable diapers and the sales volume that meant. Instead Walmart , other discounters, and grocery and warehouse stores built loyalty with their inventories and prices. Of course, there is also the expense savings that having one store doing more sales with less capital and labor that would have enabled Toys R Us to spend more on effective branding and marketing to maintain a higher market share.
So, as I visited my local Toys R Us last week, I noticed the full parking lots and streams of customers who hadn’t been in the stores for quite a while. They were there to take advantage of the 60% Off going out of business sale and one last visit to a retailer that failed to grow up with them.
Click on the link to view one of the classic Toys R Us commercial and sing along!
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