The Rotten Word

From RadioShack.com, er, uh, TheShack.com

I know this is old news by now, but I can’t help but chime in. As you may or may not have read elsewhere, like, for instance, at Engadget over a month ago, RadioShack is changing its name to “The Shack.”

This is apparently part of an effort to update their image in lieu of plans to reach further into the mobile sector.

But I’ll leave all the real reporting up to Engadget and other respectable bastions of tech blogging and journalism.  I am here to comment. And, after the break, I comment to my heart’s content.

Okay, so radios aren’t exactly cutting-edge anymore, and you want to avoid giving potential customers the sense that they are all you sell. That’s reasonable enough. So you’ll consider a name change, something like “TechShack” or “PhoneShack” or “Miscellaneous Accessories You Can Find Cheaper Elsewhere But Really Want to Use Now-Shack.” These all, with varying degrees of accuracy, touch upon what RadioShack is and tries to be to potential customers.

And I would argue that any of them—yes, even that last one—would be infinitely better for RadioShack’s fiscal well-being than “The Shack.”

RadioShack is where you go to play with cheaply-made electronic keyboards, or buy that router for your mom (love you, Mom), or marvel that people still buy laptops from earth-bound retail stores. It’s a store full of adapters and headphones, that stocks wires and batteries not for love of the game, but because it feels obligated to sell wires and batteries, as a part of its heritage. RadioShack is where I go to see what type of person buys those little key chain digital photo frames.

“The Shack,” on the other hand, is where little children disappear. It’s where the killer keeps his instruments. It’s the source of that weird smell that turns your stomach from blocks away. It’s where you hear the muffled sounds of horrible experiments on living tissue. It’s where you go with a stool and a length of rope to send yourself into the void.

Okay, maybe I got carried away. But suffice it to say that, although I am not an industry expert, a business person, or an analyst, I am quite certain that “The Shack” is not where you buy your cell phone or your GPS device. I know they’re reaching for “the shack where that crazy electronics whiz works his magical mechanical wonders for the betterment of all” vibe, but reaching is as far as it gets.

You want a brand name that stirs up the DIY aesthetic either legitimately or mythologically attributed to so many of modern technology’s wunderkinds? Try “The Garage.” We all know that the modern computer was born in one. We all know that workshops of all sorts, from carpentry dens to the home bases of many an auto mechanic, are found in the garage. Many of us had a garage growing up, or a friend with a garage. Usually, it just stores the family car and all the stuff our parents became too busy to use after we were born.

It doesn’t conjure any of the creepiness of “The Shack.”

I’m not saying anyone should be hiring me to update their brand—there are plenty of wonderful Philadelphians up to that task—I’m just speaking as a card-carrying customer. I want to see the market research. I want to see polls and the panels of average Joes (wink) who said that “The Shack” was a good idea for a change. I want to shake their hand.

Because they must have said it with a smirk.