Among the 500 new brands becoming available next week at the showcase Marshall Field’s department store on Chicago’s State Street, Yahoo will sell its own Yahoo-labeled hard goods as well as promote its online services in its computer lounge on the store’s main floor. Yahoo says the move is a way to promote its brand in a traditional retail setting, while Marshall Field’s, a unit of Target Corp., says the Yahoo-dedicated area will provide an entertaining service to its customers as it jazzes up its store with additional products.
The 355-square-foot Yahoo lounge, colored in the online company’s trademark yellow and purple, will offer multi-media presentations as well as several computer kiosks where store customers can browse the Internet and learn about Yahoo online services. The lounge, with its own dedicated Marshall Field’s sales staff trained by Yahoo, will also sell Yahoo-branded products including digital cameras, webcams, computer keyboards and speakers. Yahoo has been selling similar products since 2000 in stores such as Target, Wal-Mart, Rite-Aid and Toys ‘R Us, but Marshall Field’s is the first with a dedicated Yahoo lounge.
In addition, the Chicago Marshall Field’s will provide Yahoo with its own street-side display window, where passers-by will be able to view a live video display of the Yahoo lounge and a web page featuring a Yahoo online service. A street-side button will activate a recording of the Yahoo trademarked yodel.
Marshall Field’s says the connection with Yahoo complements its current drive to revamp its product line with new brands attractive to a broader audience, while Yahoo says it exposes Yahoo to a new group of customers. “We’re trying to showcase our online products in a traditional retail setting and extend our brand offline,” says Angela Crenshaw, senior licensing manager for Yahoo. She adds that Marshall Field’s, as a long-established department store popular with older generations, offers the opportunity for Yahoo to present its services to people who might not otherwise frequent an Internet café or a computer store. “The beauty of the marriage between Marshall Field’s and Yahoo is that we’re reaching the offline clientele that they have and they’re reaching our online clientele.”
Yahoo will focus on a different online service in the store lounge each month, the first being its Launch digital music section on Yahoo.com. Subsequent months will focus on its Games on Demand broadband subscription service for computer games and its Yahooligans online educational section with products and resources for children, parents and teachers.
Marshall Field’s is planning to open additional boutiques in the Chicago store, including one for General Motors Showcase Cars. Marshall Field’s operates 62 stores in eight states. Neither Yahoo nor Marshall Fields would say if they plan to open Yahoo lounges in additional stores.
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