As a retailer-owned hardware cooperative, True Value Company provides guidance to almost 3,000 individual owners (or "associates", as it calls them) nationwide. As the economic downturn battered many of the cities and small towns with True Value stores, Carol Wentworth, VP of marketing, says the company recognized the need to refocus its messages to its most important stakeholder: the associates that represent the company.
"With so many associates, it's possible to have a lot of different messages out there touching ...