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Galen Weston Should Blog
By Mark Evans | February 15, 2007
Jennifer Wells had a good column in yesterday’s Toronto Star in which she lamented the fact struggling but still dominant grocery retailer Loblaws had “become middle-aged, sexless - and this is the worst part - funless”.
Part of the cure, she said, is raising the profile of 33-year-old executive chair Galen Weston (”young, handsome and hip”), who’s family controls the company.
How do it is obvious: Weston should start blogging. What better way to communicate with constituents: investors, analysts, media, consumers, employees than to have a public vehicle to talk about Loblaws’ strategic plans, the competitive landscape and, most important, new products.
In making presentations about blogging, I use Loblaws as an example of a consumer-facing company that have embraced blogging already. It has a highly popular in-house brand, President’s Choice, that is very blog-friendly. Instead, Loblaw has continued to focus on printing increasingly zing-less colour brochures featuring President’s Choice products. As Wells mentions, a lot of people use to look forward to reading these brochures; now they head to the recyling bin pretty soon.
By blogging, Weston can become the new face of Loblaw, and show consumers the company has personality. At 33, he’s hopefully Web-savvy and understands how new media such as blogs can be a powerful corporate communications tool.
That said, I’d be extremely surprised if Loblaws embraced blogging. Its strategic challenges include fixing an inventory systems that has gone haywire and the looming threat of Wal-Mart moving into the Canadian grocery market.
From a P.R./media perspective, Loblaws has always been conserative (one spokesman handles all media calls, and the answers tend to be no-frills and punchless). Then again, 33-year-olds have a way of doing crazy things sometimes.
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