The Finish Line Seeks Simplification to Focus on Core Customer Business That Drives Brand Loyalty

At Loyalty360, we regularly speak to brands about the theme of simplicity and how it helps customers engage with them, how it helps customers understand how to efficiently use a specific loyalty program, how it lends itself to a seamless shopping experience, and how it can leverage the strengths of a specific marketer.

At The Finish Line, that latter point can be seen by the brand’s decision to explore strategic alternatives, including a potential sale, for its JackRabbit stores. JackRabbit is the company’s specialty running store chain.
Dianna L. Boyce, senior director, corporate communications for Finish Line told Loyalty360 that this move “allows us to better focus our resources and efforts on building the fundamentals of our core business.”

There it is again: Simplification.

The Finish Line is a premium retailer of athletic shoes, apparel, and accessories. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Finish Line has approximately 980 Finish Line-branded locations primarily in U.S. malls and shops inside Macy’s department stores.

JackRabbit was formerly known as The Running Specialty Group (RSG), an operating segment of The Finish Line, Inc. A little more than a year ago, The Finish Line announced a strategic, gradual rebranding initiative to evolve its entire family of specialty running destinations under one unified brand – JackRabbit. The transition occurred in six store locations in the New York City market ahead of the 2015 New York City Marathon.

The Finish Line officials had planned to roll out the JackRabbit brand across the country surrounding key running specialty events. The JackRabbit.com site serves as the e-commerce site for all re-branded stores.
JackRabbit sells itself as a community of running enthusiasts who hold a passion for living an active lifestyle. JackRabbit offers personalized shoe fitting and gait analysis services to help you find the perfect footwear, apparel, and other accessories that will help keep your fitness endeavors fun.

JackRabbit’s tagline is: Where FIT Happens.

To augment the simplification theme, consider this excerpt from an article written by Loyalty360 CEO Mark Johnson earlier this year from a keynote session he attended at the Pegaworld 2016 Conference. The session was titled, “There’s Never Been a Better Time to Digitize and Create Customers for Life,” and the featured speaker was Gilles Leyrat, senior vice president of customer & partner services, Cisco Systems.
During his keynote session, Leyrat talked about how digitization has transformed a $50 billion company and stressed the theme of simplicity.

How did Cisco achieve excellence in digitization?

“Simplify, simplify, simplify,” Gilles said. “It’s so critical. If you don’t, you’ll increase your costs. Take your collected data and do real-time analytics on those. It’s truly about using the intelligence, the making of a team, and doing something very valuable for the company. It really works. It allows you to change the game in terms of how you’re operating and the way in which your people are working. Make sure you drive a delightful experience. You will build a customer for life.”

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