Staples Case Study

Growth Through a Refined Target Audience

The Challenge

Although Staples was the inventor of the office superstore category, it was rapidly becoming undifferentiated from competitors and even falling behind as customer complaints outpaced kudos eight to one. Staples feared it was not going to meet its aggressive growth goals if it did not explore new business and brand opportunities. The launch of a new brand positioning by Office Depot, a key competitor, and increasing competition from retailers like Wal-Mart and Best Buy, which were expanding their assortment, had heightened its sense of urgency.

Our Solution

Staples and Prophet worked together to design quantitative research to better understand, effectively segment, and target the office products market. The research found that despite having high awareness, there was significant room to drive penetration in key categories across target segments. Furthermore, no one was providing a truly “hassle-free” experience that customers' desire, creating an opportunity for Staples to own this in customers' minds. Prophet used exploratory qualitative research to test and refine repositioning hypotheses that emerged from this analysis. Together, Prophet and the marketing and business strategy teams at Staples developed a new brand strategy and helped identify key performance gaps that needed to be addressed in order to effectively deliver on this strategy.

Results

Since beginning to implement this strategy as reflected in the "That Was Easy" tagline and many operational improvements, Staples has turned its business and brand around. Sales have increased by an average of 10% each year, and they overtook Office Depot as the #1 office supply superstore in the U.S. In 2005, its profit was up 18% and Staples now receives twice as many compliments as complaints.