The problem with Mervyn's California was that it was a late attempt for Dayton-Hudson to turn around the chain, which had already stalled out in new markets (and probably was held back by its parent company to not cannibalize Target sales). The chain probably could've been turned around with the right management but even by the time the Mervyn's California program started, their best years were behind them. Within a decade of starting the program (which didn't even last for more than a few years), Mervyn's was out of non-West Coast markets--Florida, Michigan, Houston...and by 2009 it was all over.storewanderer wrote: ↑August 25th, 2022, 10:48 pmI don't think they have to "pay" Albertsons anything but have rights to the name in their markets.HCal wrote: ↑August 25th, 2022, 10:31 pm
Agreed, and they should move back to the old Save Mart and Food Maxx logos too. They changed all 3 at the same time, and I don't like any of them. Maybe the Save Mart one is okay, the lowercase "food maxx" is meh. The new Lucky California logo is terrible. Anyone know if they have to pay Albertsons for the rights to the name on an ongoing basis?
A logo change was pointless as Food Maxx as a rock bottom price store wasting money on new logos sends the wrong message to customers. But they seem to have put that logo up on every single Food Maxx I've seen in recent years. At this point, how many Food Maxx Stores still have the old logo on the signs? I'd say at this point Food Maxx might be the only banner that has fully transitioned to the new logo. So maybe it just needs to stay there since it is already, all the way there?
There are still a lot of Lucky and Save Mart locations with the old logos, probably the majority of the locations actually. I'd continue to move Save Mart to the new logo as they remodel stores. The store remodels are very important to helping the Save Mart banner stores.
I'd move all of Lucky to the old logo immediately. If they want to rebrand the remodeled stores with this "California" tagline (they should scrap it, reminds me of the failed Mervyns chain), they could integrate that in with the red script logo to signify a remodeled store.
Since Albertsons has renewed interest in Lucky with the former Super Saver stores, and unlike Mervyn's, "Lucky California" isn't leaving CA. (Plus, Save Mart is not and will never be pre-1999 Lucky...)