Nino Avanti, Agent of Change

I’ve been intrigued by the grocery industry ever since I was a very young consultant, not yet of kindergarten age. Mother Avanti (of blessed memory) used to engage my services, to toddle the aisles of the neighborhood Loblaw store, where among the stacks of Jack and Jill peanut butter and the Pride of Arabia coffee I experienced several sensations: primarily a crushing form of boredom. Today there is a latter-day Loblaw supermarket a block away from my consultancy office, where I’ve been known to pop in for a case of bottled water, or to use the ATM or the dry-cleaning wicket, or to see if the store is as tedious as I recall from my childhood memory. It is, and then some.

So, perhaps it’s through kismet that I received a message this week from an individual who says she represents the Loblaw organization, and – hark! – she cries out plaintively for Nino’s legendary assistance in bringing renewed zing, pep and moxie to the tired old retailer. And I would love to help, not just out of nostalgia, or because I smell a robust payday, but because Loblaw is a storied name in Canadian merchandizing that could surely use a healing touch. Why, then, does it occur to me that I’d be smart to take a pass on this kind invitation?

I have my reasons. One is that this is a family-controlled business, run by a bright-eyed heir, name of Skippy Dauphin, Jnr., or something like that. I understand from mutual friends that Skip is a keenly well-intentioned laddie-buck, who inevitably would have found success on his own, even sans silver spoon: say, if he had been raised by a single-mum crack-addict in an Etobicoke housing project and his driver’s licence read plain old Hooper J. Needleman. Could be. Fate is fate, but, facts are facts, and instincts tell me that “induced change” never rhymes with “dynastic organization.”

Which is exactly not what consultants are supposed to do and say in these situations, when the HR emissaries show up pleading. You’re intended to ink the pact, pocket the mazuma, make tracks to the off-site, spin the yarns raconteur-style, give the Skipmeister and his entourage plenty of propers and a big wide-berth, sip the yoghurt smoothies and guffaw winningly, avoiding any impulse to bray. Always remember, you consultants: Guffaw, don’t bray.

Yet on this occasion, some invisible dread is holding me back. Perhaps it’s that innocuous comment buried in the invitation, where it explains, “We have a roadmap in place, we’ve committed the resources and we’re hiring the best to make it happen. It’s more than just talk.” Why say that? Doesn’t everyone know that whenever the phrase “It’s more than just talk” is dropped, the instant assumption is that whatever is being discussed is always less than mere idle chatter, and more than a fragrant accumulation of hyperbole? (And as for “hiring the best,” let us not operate under unsustainable illusions. When they say “best,” they of course mean, in Toronto idiom, “borderline adequate.” They don’t want the best. The best are all out making actual money in growth industries down in Contra Costa county. The grocer-dudes can’t even come within proximity of affording the best — and if they could, the experience would unnerve them to the core, causing them to question the very existence of man, god and reality.)

Former groceteria pitchman Dave Nichol

Or, possibly, my new friends at Loblaw are just shy, awkward senior executives uncertain of the language and protocol one uses when reaching out to an accomplished change-agent. Who is to judge? I’ve already witnessed, from a safe distance, various epochs in the Loblaw Saga, including the rise and collapse of Dave Nichol, the telegenic ex-CEO who swiped the Trader Joe’s business plan, and used it to promote his own fleshy punim on television. Trader Joe, a once-obscure chain of quirky upscale convenience stores, has now broken out of its regional base and is now one of the hottest brands in retail. The Trader, owned by Germany’s Aldi, is ferociously duking it out against Fresh & Easy, a start-up just launched in the US southwest by the UK’s Tesco. Loblaw’s management must be watching these developments with much confusion, because both the Trader and F&E represent everything the Canadian colossus can’t provide: a customer-centric experience that shoppers don’t merely endure, but love. Whole Foods Market attempts to provide consumers with the same fillip, but fails, by dint of their high prices and systemic elitism. In contrast, shopping at Trader Joe’s is almost akin to spending some time at a block party in a funky neighbourhood, right down to the proffered cheap wine and tiny snack crackers. Shopping at Whole Foods, on the other hand, is like agreeing to show up for services at your girlfriend’s parents’ evangelical mega-church: okay for some, I can see, but get me out of here now.

At the opposite pole-end is the act of purchasing provisions from a big-box retailer, such as Wal-Mart or Costco, which can only serve to remind you that you’re poor, and the world hates you. What else to read from the expressions on the faces of the beaten-down dads pushing their carts through the gray Costco bunker? “If we didn’t have all you kids, I wouldn’t be here buying crates of off-brand macaroni. I’d be spending my cash on golf, nookie, and a decent car.” Costco members pay fifty bucks a year to belong to this brotherhood of the punched-out and puzzled, and to share the wafting scent of roasting poultry and dashed dreams.

Somewhere in between these extremes is Loblaw, along with their cookie-cutter competition, which goes by the names of Metro, or Sobey’s (or Safeway, in western Canada.) Loblaw is the sector leader, which means they are always the first to install a section of bulk pet foods, Taiwanese-sourced ladies’ fashions, and last season’s video rentals, and first to remove the untouched displays a few months later. The company is driven by fickle investors and indifferent customers, and staffed by unionized employees who are quite understandably only thinking about the coming weekend.

The corporate vision? That would be to send someone into Wegman’s in Rochester a couple of times a year (or anywhere else where they appear to know what they’re doing), have them take some clandestine mobile-phone pix, and pass them over to the creative team, with no degree of urgency.

Did I mention Fresh & Easy? Stale and Mediocre are plenty good enough for Canada’s corporate heroes, just as long as you remember to pronounce those words as “Innovative and Excellent” — and provided that the share price stays north of 40.

It’s a lot to take in, but finally we’re faced with the question we’d hoped to avoid: What can Nino offer to alter the DNA of these sad-sacks? Well, we would first need to instruct them regarding that crazy new thing called Fun — a double-edged concept that, placed in the wrong hands, can become extremely dreary and dangerous. But assuming that this highly irregular idea of Fun sinks in, we’d need to move quickly through other notions that enhance the service function, such as civility, passion, imagination, modishness, and communality. I’m practically worn out already, just contemplating all the required explaining.

I see myself standing before the management team, blue in the face, yapping about the “groovy loos” on Virgin Atlantic Airlines, and articulating the need for non-disgusting toilet facilities. I picture the blank stares as I describe my idea of getting customers and employees together to pay $20 each for the opportunity to take a sledgehammer to the despised self-service checkout counters (under supervision, in an isolated area of the parking lot, for benefit of the nightly TV news, all proceeds contributed to Habitat for Humanity.) I envision the nervous chin-rubbing around the boardroom table, when I begin to talk about hiring “Culinary Champions” for each store, to toil alongside the stockroom drones, butchers, and bag-boys.

And then I find myself getting all itchy and scratchy, having become bored with the entire project before it has even begun. Just the momentary thought of Loblaw’s, and the attendant stuck-in-the-’80s color-scheme, sounds and aromas, is dull enough to make anyone think they’ve reverted to bored-out-of-gourd childhood. Thanks and good luck, but this gig’s not for Nino.