'You'll find it at Arakawas'.

For more than 85 years, Arakawas was a Waipahu institution. "If you don't know what you're looking for, you'll find it at Arakawas," was one of their many catchy slogans. Let's look at the marketing tactics that made it a community treasure.

know your customer

Zempan Arakawa

"Arakawa got to know all the workers and what they needed," says marketing maven Julie Percell. "He ran errands for them. This understanding proved useful when he went into retail a few years later. He knew his customers."

merchandising to da max

In 1909, Arakawa and his wife, Ruth, left the plantation and opened Arakawa Shoten on Waipahu Street. They sold kau-kau bags, footwear, work clothes and dresses for the women. They popularized palaka, which reporter Susan Yim called "the pattern of the Islands." Palaka is pidgin for "frock," which is an outer garment.

The country store became well known for having everything a home needed. Furniture, appliances, kitchenware, toys, sporting goods, sundries, clothing and dry goods would hang from the ceiling and walls and clutter the aisles.

Their logo and advertisements all said "Waipahu." "Our identity was tied to Waipahu," says youngest son Goro Arakawa. "When people thought of Waipahu, they thought of Arakawas. We had many opportunities to open stores in Kapahulu and Kalihi, but we decided to expand the Waipahu store and get people to come to us. We'd run ads that said, 'Only 10 minutes from Hickam.' We wanted to make it seem like a pleasant outing. Of course, you had to drive like hell to get here in 10 minutes!"

cock-a-doodle-doo

A jingle is an audio representation of the company. "We felt a rooster crowing conveyed that country feeling we embodied," Goro recalls. "We used it in all our radio and TV ads. 'Arakawas on historic Depot Road ... cock-a-doodle-do ... in Waipahu,' we'd say. It was attention getting. People would smile and joke. We'd say, 'When we crow ... it pays to listen.'"

To garner publicity, Arakawas had rooster-crowing contests live on KCCN radio from its parking lot. People would wear rooster costumes and compete for prizes. "A nun from Canada won one year," Goro recalls. "A Portuguese guy was so good, we used him in the ads. Everyone thought it was a real rooster."

finish well

Arakawas closed in 1995 after 85 years in business. "We saw the handwriting on the wall," Goro recounts. "Wal-Mart and Costco were changing the retail landscape. My brothers and sister were all in our 70s, and retail is a younger person's game." They closed with style, holding a well-planned, classy event, with speakers, music and POG lei.

Bob Sigall teaches marketing at Hawaii Pacific University and owns a company called Creative-I. Contact him at: Sigall@Yahoo.com.