How would Woolworths deal with pulling Dick Smith's substantial personality from their newly acquired Dick Smith Electronics stores?
When Dick Smith sold Dick Smith Electronics to Woolworths, I was wondering how they’d remove his substantial personality from the store. Soon after the acquisition, they removed his face from the logo, making the main icon a “d” which looks a bit like a speech bubble. The next marketing campaign was “Dick Does”, where they would stick whatever they wanted to say and follow it up with “Dick Does” -- "Who has low prices? Dick Does!"
This seemed like a marketing misstep for me, but today I saw the big reveal: They had, in certain locations, replaced “Dick Does” with “Clever Dick Does”. “Clever Dick” is now no longer associated with a person. With a last name like “Smith”, and this idea of a “John Smith” being “just any old person”, I can finally see that they’re trying to fashion “Dick Smith” into an idea that means “smart everyman” as opposed to Dick Smith himself.
Well played Woolies.