SKOKIE, Ill. (AFX) - As the Great Chicago Fire was ravaging the city in 1871, William Rand and Andrew McNally saved their business by burying two printing machines on the sandy Lake Michigan shore.
No such clear-cut solution emerged to preserve Rand McNally & Co.'s dominance more than a century later, when the mapmaker lost its way in the age of the Internet.
But following two ownership changes and a bankruptcy reorganization, the storied company appears to have finally regained its bearings. A sales decline has been reversed, the company says profitability is up over 30 percent since its 2003 overhaul and it is even poised to make acquisitions.
Left behind in the online mapping revolution by comparative upstarts Mapquest.com, Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc., Rand McNally is marking its 150th anniversary year by aggressively playing catch-up with a raft of new products designed to capitalize on its famous brand name.
A push into electronic gadgets and navigational software is part of the effort, including the release this fall of the Rand McNally GPS Navigator. The $500 portable navigation system is its entry in the increasingly crowded field for devices using Global Positioning System satellites.
True to its heritage, however, the world's largest seller of maps has atlases and paper maps as the backbone of the initiative. While the privately held company doesn't disclose specific figures about its business, Chief Executive Robert Apatoff says print products still account for the majority of its sales.
Anyone who thinks old-fashioned folded maps are going away should think again, according to Apatoff.
'It's kind of like saying newspapers are going to disappear,' he said in an interview at the company's headquarters north of Chicago. 'There's going to be some changes in how they're used, but people still want to open them and read them with their coffee.
'Same thing with trip planning. People will continue to want to be able to consume maps this way,' he said, even if they use maps or atlases together with hand-held devices or the Internet.
More maps are sold now than ever before, according to the International Map Trade Association. Rand McNally is by far the best-known map publisher, with competitors including American Map and Universal Map.
Oddly enough, the mapmaker didn't start out in the business it's a household name in.
The Chicago printing shop that young Boston printer William Rand opened in 1856 specialized in railroad tickets. Then Rand teamed up with Irish cartographer Andrew McNally and they branched out to train schedules and maps, eventually publishing their first road map in 1917.
McNally subsequently bought out Rand, and the McNally family owned the business for four generations until selling it in 1997 to New York investment firm AEA Investors Inc. for $430 million.
By that time, the mapping industry was being completely changed by the Internet and technology. But Rand McNally found itself outmaneuvered by startup ventures.
'They were caught looking when Mapquest and the dot-coms came in and did the door-to-door directions and the online stuff,' said Henry Poirot, an IMTA board member and three-decade veteran of the map and book industry.
The company racked up so much debt trying to keep up with its online rivals that it ended up in bankruptcy court, where a majority stake was bought in 2003 by current owner Leonard Green & Partners, a Los Angeles investment firm.
Consequences remain from the slow start on the Web.
An analysis of traffic on map sites by comScore Media Metrix found just 1.6 million visits to randmcnally.com last month, down 11 percent from a year earlier and dwarfed by those to Maps.com (71.4 million), Mapquest (48.6 million) Google Maps (23.4 million) and Yahoo Maps (20 million).
Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern University, thinks one of the biggest problems for Rand McNally is that so many maps are available for free.
'They have an incredible history and product lineup,' Calkins said. 'The challenge is the world has changed so much in the last decade that the need for their core product has really diminished.'
That's not the view of Apatoff, a veteran marketing executive who since arriving as president and CEO in June 2003 has tried to reinvigorate what many saw as a tired brand through innovation, without abandoning the company's strengths.
Rand McNally closed its 25 retail stores in 2003 to cut costs as part of the makeover, but it still sells maps and other paper products in over 55,000 retail stores in North America.
The trademark road atlas, now in its 83rd edition, remains its best-selling product by far. That's one reason the company isn't striving to become like Mapquest, Yahoo Maps or Google Maps.
'We're the only ones (of that group) that actually sell product in the store,' said Apatoff, 47. 'While we encourage people to go online, it is truly a different business model.'
Rand McNally's business model is paying off in annual sales growth of 4 percent to 5 percent, he said. Its online division also is growing in double digits, with an advertising blitz planned soon for its Web site and online store.
The company now goes beyond the basic atlas to show consumers not just how to get to a destination but what to do along the way, Apatoff said, including recommended sightseeing routes, restaurants and lodgings.
One such new product is the Family Adventure Guide & Interstate Atlas, co-developed with Walt Disney Co.'s Disney Parks and Resorts.
It also makes customized atlases for companies, just launched a motorcycle ride atlas with Harley Davidson Inc. and has introduced several new items for its education division, with map activity books, flash cards and other products now in 94 percent of U.S. schools.
The products not only provide more value for consumers but cost more, helping the company's profitability, Apatoff noted. The same holds for its new electronic products, which also are key to his vision of a 'much bigger' and more innovative Rand McNally.
'We believe we have the name that works in electronic (media), we know we have the name that works as the trusted name in the store,' he said. 'We sure like our chances to compete for another 150 years.'
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