Fickle California teens dictate whether fashions fly or flop - West Coasts chain stores reach out to teenage customers

Discount Store News, April 3, 1995 by Tim Healea

What's in style for today's young people changes so quickly that a fad can be born, celebrated, trashed and pronounced dead all in the span of a couple of hours on the Internet. And nowhere does the tide shift faster or crest higher than in California, where left coast retailers say many of today's hot trends begin and then ripple to other parts of the nation.

"The kids are hipper. There's more of an entrepreneurial spirit here," said Rich Silverstein, co-chairman of Goodby Silverstein and Partners, the San Francisco-based advertising agency that launched the successful Sega game campaign. He offers loads of examples of West Coast innovations that caught on nationwide, from mountain biking to roller blading to The Gap.

Even with the huge influence MTV wields in dictating the tastes of much of America's youth, various regional differences mean a Santa Barbara surfer requires a different marketing approach than a Louisiana line dancer. In fact, store-specific merchandising and marketing efforts keep many regional retailers in business despite competition from formidable national powerhouses such as Wal-Mart and Target.

Getting into the minds of young, image-conscious shoppers to anticipate what they want can get tricky, but with the high density of trendy teens in California, West Coast retailers must stay one step ahead in order to stay current.

The first lesson is to create a teen-friendly space. Gottschalks, the Fresno, Calif.-based seller of moderately priced apparel, has actually put its juniors' and young men's shops in spaces adjacent to six of its mall locations. There, with televisions blasting music videos and bright fixtures surrounding them, young shoppers feel more in their element than in a drab department store with "Muzak" piped in, chairman and ceo Joe Levy said.

Gottschalks' teen departments, called Expressions for the girls and Trend Shop for the boys, measure about 15,000 Sq. ft. and include a mix of apparel, shoes and accessories.

More experimental is Tower Records' "all-alternative" store in Costa Mesa, Calif., which offers a mix of all types of music but concentrates on selling alternative rock titles to a predominantly young clientele. The Sacramento, Calif.-based music, video and book retailer altered its music selection to suit the location, about 6,000 sq. ft. in a small urban mall that also includes the youth-oriented apparel and housewares retailer Urban Outfitters, advertising division manager Steve Nikkel said.

Because every Tower store has its own buying office, each unit can tailor its mix to its the customer base. Further, Nikkel said, store managers are encouraged to establish relationships with the local music industry. The resulting local music sections draw many young shoppers who can't find those CDs at a mall store.

Just to reiterate that location and atmosphere are essential in the West, electronics retailer The Good Guys recently announced its new Wow Store concept, a super entertainment store featuring all its usual consumer electronics goods plus a Tower Records and a Starbucks espresso bar. The San Francisco-based chain will debut the Wow Store in Las Vegas in late July, spokesman Keith Foxe said.

In the new store, anyone can take any CD or entertainment software title and pop it into a stereo rack system or CD-ROM drive, Foxe said.

The Good Guys' new entertainment concept is just an extension of its already established focus on younger shoppers. It eliminated the "I could be shopping with my grandparents" feeling by cutting appliances out of the mix, Foxe said. And in order to satisfy the buying savvy of many of its young customers, it carries a lot more models than national chains like Best Buy and Circuit City, he added.

The Good Guys also operates its store at Beverly Connection, located on the border between Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, 24 hours a day. This convenience attracts a lot of celebrities, who in turn attract a lot of kids, Foxe said.

Essentially, these retailers have discovered that creating a "cool" shopping environment not only brings kids into the store, it also makes the merchandise seem "cooler."

California retailers' efforts to promote their hip images skew heavily toward television and radio ads. Gottschalks' Levy said it buys advertising time on local cable systems for airing on MTV as well as rock, pop and alternative rock radio stations to promote the stores and the brand-name merchandise.

Unlike most CE retailers, who spend about 70% of their ad budgets on print, The Good Guys appropriates two-thirds of its ad money for television, radio and direct mail campaigns, Foxe said. Late last year it even began running brand-image ads by Silverstein's agency rather than the usual price-focused spots.

In the brand-conscious youth market, capitalizing on brand names is always a safe bet. At Gottschalks that means carrying Levi, Lee, Guess and Esprit apparel, Levy said. At the Good Guys, that means merchandising the latest Nintendo and Sega game releases in a "video game island" that allows kids to try out the titles, Foxe said.