OfficeMax is Taking Advantage

OAK BROOK, IL -- Chuck Luckenbill sees his role at OfficeMax as that of customer advocate. Although just seven weeks into the job as OfficeMax's vice president of visual merchandising when he spoke April 19 at the In-Store Marketing Summit, Luckenbill was already certain that his "focus must be on enhancing the customer experience." The office-supply chain began courting Luckenbill last winter because it wanted a visual merchandising chief with department store experience, someone "who knows how to be a customer advocate," he said. His experience at Dayton Hudson, Carson Pirie Scott and Kohl's taught him that, "It's all about putting the products in front of the customer" in a way that will entice purchase."You have to lifestyle the merchandise" by, among other strategies, "relating to [the shopper's] sense of discovery... appealing to [his] sense of touch... [and providing] more convenience, more amenities," he said. "There's also an opportunity to get the sense of smell into the store." In addition to serving as the customer's proxy at strategy meetings, Luckenbill has been asked to "continue the ongoing evolution of the brand" within the store. That puts him in charge of all in-store activities, from creative development of fixtures, displays and graphics to preparation of the chain's numerous merchandise planograms.Under the direction of Senior Vice President of Marketing Bob Thacker (who joined the company in December 2005), OfficeMax has taken a more innovative, less stodgy approach to advertising the brand. "We're trying to bring all the marketing into the store," Luckenbill said. "We're trying to be creative with merchandising, and get away from" overloading the front-end with excessive displays. His blueprint is the chain's "Advantage" store, a unique design launched in fall 2005 that currently is deployed in 80 locations. "We're pushing [the concept] forward as fast as we can," and refining it as they progress, he said. "Advantage stores do not look like the other guys' [stores]," which gives the chain a necessary point of differentiation in the channel.OfficeMax will open 100 stores in the Advantage format and remodel 100 existing locations in 2007, according to Luckenbill, but hopes to accelerate the remodeling schedule so that the entire 950-store chain will be refurbished in a few years.Among the noteworthy features of Advantage stores are the computerized ink refill kiosks that give customers a cheaper alternative to buying new printer cartridges. The service "works because it saves customers money," said Luckenbill. But it also provides some entertainment to users interested in viewing the process (which is handled by an OfficeMax employee), and to others it offers 10 free minutes to shop the rest of the store or relax in the Advantage format's WiFi lounge. As for those WiFi lounges, Luckenbill said he hopes to make them "more Starbucks-y."The merchandising team is also working on the "second generation" of in-store presentation for Tul, an exclusive pen line introduced in September 2006 that represented the chain's first true venture into product design. The pens sold out within weeks of the launch.Innovation is the current mantra at OfficeMax, where 80% of employees have been hired within the last year, Luckenbill said. (A major restructuring undertaken after Boise Cascade purchased the chain in 2003, which among other things moved corporate headquarters from Ohio to Illinois, led to the turnover.) Of the 35 people on the visual merchandising team, only five have been in place for more than a year. Having such a fresh staff has its benefits, explained Luckenbill: "You never go to a meeting with an idea and hear, 'That's not how we used to do it at OfficeMax' -- because no one has a clue how they used to do it."

OfficeMax is Taking Advantage

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