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Jiffy Lube leads the way with a new sign program.
The on-premise sign industry is in the midst of receiving a $70 million boost over a 3½-year period. Virtually all the 2,000 Jiffy Lube stores will be re-imaged by the end of 2011 via the first branding mandate since its 1979 inception as the first drive-in, oil-change franchise. Marcus Duffel, group manager of construction for this subsidiary of the Shell Oil Co. (as of 2004), shared this news during the Buyers’ Panel forum at the Signage and Graphics Summit (SGS) held in San Diego in January. (The SGS conference has been sponsored by ST Media Group Intl., ST’s parent company, for the past four years.) As of the end of February, some 330 Jiffy Lube stores had been converted, with 800 more slated for the balance of 2009.
Although Duffel didn’t use the term “signature building,” that characterizes the goal, as opposed to “having a box with some channel letters attached,” which he said in a subsequent interview. “We want the signs to integrate with the architecture.”
To test the program, Jiffy Lube incorporated the new signage package into seven stores spread across the U.S. Attempts were made to eliminate any other variables. The result? Every store experienced increased sales, in the range of 10%, on average. (Cars per day is their measuring stick.) However, Duffel emphasized, this wasn’t the goal.
“Our goal was to create a new image, not to increase sales. The additional sales were a bonus,” he explained.
And helpful in soothing franchise owners faced with approximately $30,000 in expenditures per store. Duffel said most owners have fewer than five stores, whereas several others have more than 50. The biggest owner, with approximately 400 stores, recently emerged from bankruptcy, and he will have an extra year to fulfill the mandatory facelifts.
Although franchise owners have a voice via an advisory board, Duffel explained that the re-imaging didn’t need franchisee approval, nor would it have been scrapped, even if the test stores hadn’t experienced additional sales.
