Easy Does It

The new television advertising campaign for Staples Inc. (Framingham, Mass.) will focus on ease of shopping in its stores rather than on the breadth of merchandise selection, which had been the office supplies retailer's theme for about 10 years.

The old slogan, “Yeah, we've got that,” will be replaced by “That was easy.”

“Our job is getting people to drive by Office Depot and OfficeMax and go to Staples instead,” said John Karlson, senior vp for strategic development at Martin/Williams (Minneapolis), Staples' advertising agency. “The way to do that is by making it easier to get through the store, within the format of the large superstore.”

“The next frontier is about the ease of the shopping experience,” said Shira Goodman, Staples executive vp for marketing. “What [customers] are telling us today is that 'cheap and complete' is necessary, but not sufficient.”

Staples superstores average about 22,000 square feet and carry 8500 office products.

“Because of the huge variety of products, people might perceive that it has become complicated to shop at Staples,” said a marketing/advertising consultant. “So to say 'That was easy' could diminish the image that it ain't easy.”

The 1430-unit chain is the second-largest office supplies retailer in the U.S., behind Office Depot (Delray Beach, Fla.). It spends $50-$70 million a year in TV advertising.