Brand Loyalty Be Damned - John forwarded me an article from the Wall Street Journal this morning noting that Federated has elected to finally change the names of all of its local-in-name-only department stores to come under the Macy's brandname. For no apparant reason, this issue is a personal pet peeve...I don't understand why grocery and department chains have this reluctance to change the names of stores they aquire. If Safeway is selling their housebrand Safeway Select products at Vons in Los Angeles and Dominicks in Chicago, why not just update the signage on the front of the store too? In the long run, it's got to save money on advertising, imprinted bags and nametags for the employees, right? Let's hope that Foleys, Robinsons-May and Hecht's take their cue from Macy's (but they have my personal approval to leave Filene's Basement as is).