Home Depot as the "Friendly local retailer"?

Michele at Wonder Branding point's us to Home Depot’s latest attempt to convince us they care. Their “True Stories” ad campaign is part of new CEO Frank Blake’s attempt to, as he say’s “restore the image of Home Depot as the friendly local retailer run by happy, helpful employees.”

I don’t remember the Home Depot that Frank remembers. “Friendly local retailer run by happy, helpful employees”? This is the same Home Depot that over the last 15 years has been called a “category killer”? The only thing that Home Depot has done is work on running most of the local friendly retailers out of business. I’ll admit that some of those retailers needed to go out of business, but to say that Home Depot was ever looked upon as a “local retailer” seems to be stretching it a bit.

We are being inundated by advertising that attempts to paint a picture that is something beyond reality. When Scott’s/ Miracle-Gro President Jim Hagedorn run’s an ad campaign in nursery trade publications saying he “cares about independent garden centers” yet his two biggest customers are Home Depot and Wal-Mart it just doesn’t ring true.

These attempts by large corporations to paint themselves as something they are not is the small and medium size businesses ticket to attracting more consumers. More and more consumers will want to know if the companies they do business with share their values. If their values include trust and the truth then these attempts by Home Depot and Scott’s will fall on deaf ears. When Frank Blake say’s he wants to return to an image of “Home Depot as the friendly local retailer” we friendly local retailers that are still standing know we have been on the right track all along.