Driving the door

True Value has a stated belief in the five Ps of retailing: people, product, place, price and promotion. Most of those Ps figure prominently in one of the co-op’s more ambitious marketing and merchandising efforts in recent years—a national approach to driving traffic.

Starting this spring, the co-op will launch a series of limited-time, nationwide promotions to be fueled by Sunday newspaper and television advertising. In a departure from the past, the program will feature specific item and price information on deeply discounted specials.

According to Carol Wentworth, VP marketing for the Chicago-based co-op, the promotions reflect a more aggressive approach to “driving the door,” through national advertising. “We’re kind of moving into uncharted territory,” said Wentworth. “We don’t really know how high up can be.”

The co-op plans three week-long promotions in the spring and one more in the fall.

The sales events will begin with a national print campaign in the Sunday papers, and national television advertising airing Tuesday through Friday. The idea is to let the awareness build through the week.

“It’s a major departure: creating a sense of urgency right now to come in,” said Wentworth. “We picked three weeks in the spring that are our highest traffic retail weeks. It will be a very exciting spring for us.”

It will also be a spring in which customers are looking for value, whether they be at the bottom end of the economic spectrum or the top. The star attractions will be best-selling merchandise deeply discounted to about the half-off level, she said.

In the past, the company’s advertising has focused on building the brand. The spring campaign will continue those themes with inclusion of the “Start Right. Start Here.” slogan. They will also include the message of in-store expertise and customer relationships. But the twist is the item and pricing information nationwide.

“We thought 2009 was the right time to add an element of promotion into our brand-building campaign,” Wentworth said.

The co-op is also stepping up its distribution of coupons through mass media magazines. Last year, True Value distributed 60 million coupons promising $5 off a $25 purchase. This year the company plans to distribute a full 100 million of the “$5-off-$25” coupons.

“All of us feel it’s time to be aggressive,” Wentworth said. “You have to continue to invest in the long term and build the brand. This is the kind of year where you have to do things kind of differently.”

The company declined to reveal the categories to be targeted but did describe them as historically strong sellers.

The national marketing experiment isn’t the only theme playing out at company headquarters. The company’s merchandise team is steadily capturing more POS data from its dealer members, said Mike Clark, True Value’s senior VP and chief merchandising officer.

Across the True Value network, there are more than 1,500 members giving the co-op POS data, and there are 1,300 members that have been supplying data for more than a year—providing crucial year-to-year benchmarking information.

“As we get better understanding of what’s happening at retail, that’s going to make us much better as a wholesaler,” he said.

Two areas where Clark is particularly optimistic this year are paint and lawn and garden—two core strengths of the company. Paint is benefiting from a national brand strategy and the rollout of a new “color center” program for members. Clark said early adopters of the color center offering, with its warm fixtures and bright paint chips, saw double-digit increases throughout their paint departments.

True Value manufactures its own private label paint in Cary, Ill., and private label is an important business. The brands—Sherwin-Williams, Dutch Boy, Benjamin Moore—bring a more compelling story about color selection and help “put our best foot forward in the store,” Clark said.

Clark explained that lawn and garden in normal years is a core strength for True Value members. In 2009, the company is nursing 70% adoption of its Green Thumb lawn fertilizer and lawn seed program. It’s looking to grow its watering category with a new lineup of garden hoses.

And Clark is also eager to see how innovations in lawn seed will affect sales. Suppliers have made advances in technology that allow seeds to boost germination with limited moisture. And the company’s Greener Options banner includes a slew of environmentally friendly weed killers.

“We’re pretty optimistic about what’s going to happen in lawn and garden,” said Clark.

And as the company’s vendors well know, line reviews are an ongoing process. During a recent visit to the Chicago headquarters, the company was conducting line reviews across a variety of categories in nearby Cary, Ill. The company organizes its merchandise across nine categories. “We have to hit on all nine cylinders,” Clark said.

True Value recognizes that the recession strikes a challenge for its members. Many retailers around the country are cutting back and hunkering down. Wentworth sees an opportunity.

“We’re not cutting back,” Wentworth said. “We’re investing in marketing in 2009. When the economy gets tough, those who are strong and aggressive and continue their current level of spending or even increase it—many studies shows those are the guys who come out stronger. That’s our approach.”