2) History<br> Sam Walton, a businessman from Arkansas, began his retail career when he started workon June 3, 1940, at a J.C. Permey store in Des Moines, Iowa where he remained for 18 months.In 1945, he met Butler Brothers, a regional retailer that owned a chain of variety stores calledBen Franklin and that offered him one in Newport, Arkansas.<br> Walthon was extremely successful in running the store in Newport, far exceeding expecta-tions. However, when the lease came up for renewal, Walton could neither come to agreementon the existing stores lease renewal nor find a new location in Newport. Instead, he opened anew Ben Franklin franchise in Bentonville, Arkansas, but called it "Waltons Five and Dime".There he achieved higher sales volume by marking up slightly less than most competitors.<br> On July 2, 1962, Walton opened the first Wal-Mart Discount City store. Within five years,the company expanded to 24 stores across Arkansas and reached $12.6 million in sales.In 1968,it opened its first stores outside Arkansas, in Sikeston, Missouri and Claremore, Oklahoma.<br> 3) Recent initiatives<br> On September 12, 2007, Wal-Mart introduced new advertising with the slogan, "SaveMoney Live Better", replacing the "Always Low Prices, Always" slogan, which it had used forthe previous 19 years. Global Insight, which conducted the research that supported the ads,found that Wal-Marts price level reduction resulted in savings for consumers of $287 billion in2006, which equated to $957 per person or $2,500 per household (up 7.3% from the 2004savings estimate of $2,329).<br> On June 30, 2008, Wal-Mart unveiled a new company logo, featuring the non-hyphenatedname "Walmart" followed by a stylized spark, as it is refered to on store advertisements. Thenew logo received mixed reviews from some design critics, who question whether the new logois as bold as competitors such as the Target bullseye or as instantly recognizable as the formercompany logo, which was used for 18 years. The new logo made its debut on the companyswalmart.com website on July 1, 2008, although the old logo still appears on the corporate site,walmartstores.com. The new logo will eventually replace store logos at the companys USlocations throughout the year. Wal-Mart international have not yet adopted the new logo.
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