OfficeMax Magic

Bob Thacker says his plans to make us love OfficeMax are right on target. An exclusive Q&A interview by Tim Manners.

Hub, September 1, 2008 — Twenty years ago, when he was a marketing chief at Target Stores, Bob Thacker says he used to hear the same thing all the time: “Target? Are you kidding me? It’s a discount store in Minnesota. It’s kinda dumpy.”

Well, it took 20 years to turn around Target, and Bob was right in the thick of that transformation from “kinda dumpy” to “pretty darn cool.” Today, as chief marketing officer of OfficeMax, Bob is once again relishing a Target-sized challenge. “We’re the third-place brand in a category that has no differentiation whatsoever,” says Bob. “Office supply stores have long been dubbed as dull and uninspiring. But if you do things that are totally unexpected and surprising, it suddenly begins to breathe humanity into a category that has no humanity.”