Saving Marshall Field's

You may have heard that the nation's two largest department store conglomerates, Federated Department Stores and May Department Stores, are merging. The new mega-company will operate 950 department stores from coast to coast.

A lot of consolidation has occurred in the department store business over the last 20 years and now only a handful of companies operate most of the nation's department stores. Along the way, a lot of venerable names have been dropped. Most recently, Federated decided to "re-brand" its regional department store chains as Macy's, which is now the company's "national" moniker. Some of the names lost in the recent conversion were Rich's in Atlanta, Burdine's in Florida, Lazarus in Ohio, and The Bon Marche in Seattle. May still operates most of its stores under regional names, such as Robinsons-May in Southern California, Nevada, and Arizona, Hecht's in Washington D.C., Strawbridge's in Philadelphia, and Marshall Field's in Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Detroit.

When Federated announced its intent to acquire May, CEO Terry Lundgren said most of May's stores would be "re-branded" as Macy's, with the possible exceptions of Lord & Taylor and Marshall Field's. Recently, Lundgren indicated that the company would hold surveys and focus groups to determine whether Marshall Field's customers would accept a name change. One man in the Twin Cities has decided to launch a grass-roots effort on the Internet to pressure Lundgren to keep the Marshall Field's moniker and he and his campaign have recieved a lot of attention.

Check it out: www.keepitfields.org

Props to Steven Swain for tipping me off to this (Steve may be the only person on Earth who loves malls and retail more than I do).