Morrisons online and convenience stores - the great catch up

The supermarket business is a fascinating one. People have short memories but I can remember walking into supermarkets that just sold food. In a relatively short space of time UK supermarkets have grown significantly in size, products and profits. You can now buy everything from pharmaceuticals to clothing to homewares to technology and music. In food itself they have created own range labels, chilled food and whole new ways of buying alcohol. In a relatively short space of time they have changed our high streets.

Continuing this growth, which delivers the profits that keep shareholders happy, is difficult and needs constant innovation. Supermarkets moved to online retailing as a new route to grow. Then, having taken things away from the high street, the supermarkets are now taking them over as well. Our papers are often filled with news of campaigns to stop another supermarket store opening, especially the new high street based convenience style stores such as Tesco Express Sainsbury’s Local. So while three of the top four supermarkets have driven ahead with online services and convenience outlets, one has been conspicuous in its absence; Morrisons. 

Morrisons is not having a great time at the moment. It has recently posted a 7.2% fall in pre-tax profits to £879m for the year to 3rd February. This is its first fall in full-year profits for six years and like-for-like sales were down more than 2%. As part of this announcement its Chief executive Dalton Philips announced that it is pushing ahead with rolling out its new convenience stores and, more importantly, it will finally launch an online offering.

With both of these areas they are playing catch up. They have already opened 12 “M” branded convenience stores, have bought 62 other sites from the administrators of HMV, Blockbuster and Jessops and want 100 opened by the end of this year. As a comparison Sainsbury’s has over 500 of its ‘Local’ convenience stores already.

However it is online where they really have been caught out. Online food shopping is growing at about 20% per year and Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s attribute it as a source of strong growth for them. While the announcement from Morrisons is not surprising there is a question of what took them so long. It now hopes to have an operation in place by January 2014 and announced that it has been talking to online food operation Ocado about sharing technology and knowledge to help it achieve that.

Learning from others’ mistakes is fine but playing catch up in a market that is moving so quickly is extremely difficult. Morrisons does not have a loyalty card like the Tesco Clubcard which uses data from that to populate its online offering with what a customer normally buys in store. In this game they have proved that big data matters. Where they might have an edge is in m-commerce with Ocado reporting that 28% of its orders are from mobile devices.

Morrisons is a long way from its first store opened in Bradford in 1961 by Sir Ken Morrison and one of the PG Tips chimps who cut the tape. Whether these new initiatives are the right thing to do is not in question; whether they have left it too late is another though. Hopefully partnering with experience, especially with someone with experience in the biggest growth area of mobile will give them the kick start they need to catch up.

Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant @timyoungman

The horsemeat scandal – PR and brand opportunity? Every little helps.

While tax avoidance creates a certain level of emotion in people the thought that you might have been eating horse, well that’s another story. The horsemeat scandal has created brand issues way above what was seen last year. People still bought Christmas presents through Amazon while tutting at what tax they had just helped them avoid. The thought that you might have eaten something you thought was beef and actually could propel you to glory at Newmarket, different matter.

The two areas that I have found most interesting is how those affected companies have reacted and what those outside of the scandal are doing to capitalise on it. While most of the supermarkets have been affected and long standing brands like Findus have borne the brunt, I want to focus on the reaction from Tesco for the first part of my interest.

From an online point of view, Tesco has taken the brunt of the mentions regarding this scandal. It has far outstripped the other supermarkets and even Findus in online news coverage and social media mentions. With this in mind it probably has the biggest mountain the climb to regain the potential knock to its consumer confidence. What it has done so far though has been quick and effective.

Rather than spreading the blame everywhere but themselves, they apologised quickly and announced investigations. This was quickly followed by a series of announced measures clearly communicated to its consumers especially online through email. This communication was personalised and came from the top, all from the group chief executive, not delivered from an unknown Tesco PR person.  

The last email sent to me as a clubcard holder came with the clear concise, and in my opinion, excellent subject line “we are changing”. In it they once again admitted guilt and outlined simply and clearly the range of measures they are putting in place to stop this happening again. Compare this to how Starbucks handled the tax avoidance scandal and you have a case study in how to do it well compared to how to do it badly.

The next area of interest is what those outside of the scandal are doing to capitalise on it. The big winners from this are, and will be, local food producers, especially your local butcher. My own local butcher, Archers, has already seen a rise in trade as people move to a source they can trust. Our papers are full of similar stories which personally I find extremely encouraging. However the ability to truly maximise this opportunity I hope that local butchers take some time to think about how they market themselves.

Are they actively promoting providence of their meat, even if it’s simply a blackboard with the farms where it comes from are listed. Are they using this as a way to build a bigger database of customers, especially email addresses, that they can then build an ongoing relationship with? Why not give an offer in return for customer details so people have a reason to share and then send them newsletters with competitions, special offers and even recipes giving these new customers more reasons not to go back to the supermarkets.  

It’s not just butchers that can capitalise on the current shift in consumer mood. All local food producers should now be sitting down and thinking how they can make the most of this situation and grow their own businesses. With some thought and effort they can now tap into an opportunity and as they say “every little helps”.

Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant follow on Twitter @timyoungman  

Agile marketing and news jacking - marketeers do love buzzwords

Marketers love buzzwords and new ways of working, it’s in our nature. Last year the big buzz was all about content marketing. This year there is a new kid on the block called agile marketing.

Agile marketing got its name from a type of software development where small teams work quickly on projects, releasing updates in smaller “sprints” rather than big lots, testing and improving as they go. The theory behind agile marketing is to take that style of working and apply it to modern marketing methods.

So instead of a full year’s plan of working, “agile marketers” set out a summary annual marketing plan with themes and overall objectives. Then each month they create more detailed plans of work and review activity weekly against what the current need is and against the annual themes and objectives. That’s the theory anyway.

Of course like all things the theory is quickly swamped and forgotten and already agile marketing is being used as a catchphrase for any quick marketing efforts. Especially brand messages linked to the latest news agenda. In 1952 it took 2 days for the news of the Lynmouth flood disaster to reach the national press. Today we expect that if something happens around the globe we hear about it instantaneously as reports are posted and tweeted across social media and picked up by news channels.

Brands are constantly looking to put themselves in front of us wherever we are in both the real and digital worlds. To engage with us they need to deliver fresh, relevant messages hence you see an increasing amount of messaging linked to the news agenda. The two best recent examples of this come from Oreo Cookies and Specsavers.

On the night of Jan 23^rd in the Capital Cup semi final, Chelsea player Eden Hazard kicked a ball boy, cue massive media coverage. On Friday 25^th Specsavers had full page ads in most of the national newspapers showing an image of a boy in a vest saying "ball boy" next to a cross, and then below it, the image of a football with a tick and then the optician’s tagline, "Should’ve gone to Specsavers". Clever, topical and most importantly agile.

A bigger global example came from Oreo cookies that, when the lights went out at the Superbowl, sent a tweet out with the message:  “Power Out? No Problem” accompanied with a picture of a cookie with the line “You can still dunk in the dark.” Most impressive about this was the fact that Oreo’s agency 360i had a team ready for anything on the night. This meant that they tweeted a print quality creative designed, captioned and approved within minutes.

To me agile ways of working should be adopted in part but not in total. Sometimes speed encourages people to forget core things like proper objective setting and measurement and writing strong briefs (if only for yourself) as part of proper planning. Those should always be at the core or your marketing efforts. If an opportunity does arise to promote your brand quickly you do now need the flexibility and set up to react.  The next big thing is here and has already been taken over; even the link to news has now got its own term, the frankly awful “newsjacking. We never learn.

Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant follow on twitter @timyoungman

The reality of creating brand campaigns in 2013

In a couple of weeks I have the honour of being a guest lecturer at the University of East Anglia speaking to a lecture hall full of eager business students. The title of my presentation is the rather esoteric “From inspiration to implementation: the reality of delivering a brand advertising campaign in 2013”. I am of course hugely looking forward to this as not only do I have a passion for giving presentations it is doubly exciting when it’s on a topic that I am extremely passionate about.

Creating the presentation has reminded me how the pressures of modern business means that often you forget key learnings from your education and how they are still relevant. I am sure that those students will have spent time learning about different business and marketing models. I am looking forward to their faces when I tell them that the reality they probably face may contain lines such as “we need more people through the door, sort it”, “our sales are dropping help!” or “it’s a tough time and marketing is just a cost so the budget needs to be saved”.

Luckily here at Archant Towers, our business is about marketing and connecting motivated buyers and sellers, we understand its importance but I know it’s not always the case. We might be facing a triple dip, but those companies that take the time to understand their customers’ wants and needs and communicate with them effectively and cleverly across multiple channels will still succeed. If they have remembered marketing basics like product, price, promotion and place.

Writing the presentation reminded me that it’s more important than ever to set yourself clear objectives, write a brief, even if it’s just for yourself. We are in a world where your message can be placed across hundreds of different channels and quickly lost among the thousands others we are bombarded with every day. Often you have just 1 second to grab someone’s attention so make sure that your creative is standout and remember that clear concise copy is an art form that should be treated as such and refined and refined again. Most importantly measure against the objectives you set yourself whether increase in sales, footfall or whatever and learn from that data.

Marketing has never been so complex with always-on communications, much higher pressure to prove ROI, the sheer volume of data to analyse, and ever more specialisms and channels to understand. My message to these students is that modern marketing is hard and complex and hurts your head on a daily basis. That it forces you to constantly learn new skills as new areas become the norm, from social media to content marketing. That unless you specialise you have to understand everything. From data collection and analysis, to digital techniques to good old fashioned copy writing, design and planning and yes, brief writing and objective setting. However, because of all of this, it is exiting, challenging and rewarding and to me the best job in the world.

Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant follow him on twitter @timyoungman

HMV - a future childhood memory or a opportunity for brand revitalisation

Looking out from Archant Towers to a sea of white brings back childhood memories of days off from forced school closures playing in the snow in Cromer. Memories of your youth often have key points that not only stick in your mind but also often come up in conversations with friends such as “what was the first record you ever bought?”

I can clearly remember going into Woolworths in Cromer with my mum to buy Ultravox’s Love’s great adventures which started a love affair with music I still have. Sadly, I now doubt that my boys will have that same experience and memories. I cannot believe that a click on a box on a website will illicit such strong emotions some 30 years later. This brings me to the current retail stalwart to struggle; HMV.

HMV opened its first store in Oxford Street, London in 1921 and currently has 231 stores all of which are now under threat as it moves into administration. The future of HMV is now clearly in the balance and there is a strong potential that it could go the way of Our Price and Andy’s Records as fond childhood memories. This despite the fact that last year, according to Verdict Research, HMV accounted for 22% of all music and video sales in the U.K.

Most commentators are putting the blame squarely on the rise of music e-commerce combined with the growth in online services such as Spotify and iTunes. Those certainly are major factors but they have their own pressures. A major online only competitor was Play.com which has recently ceased to be a straight etailer, caused by the closing of the Low Value Consignment relief tax loophole which meant that prices were cheaper as they were imported from the Channel Islands. But the fact remains that most of the people I know purchase single tracks or whole albums in digital form only if only to reduce storage space in their houses.

Other contributing factors have been glossed over such as the fact that as a nation we are buying less music than we did 10 years ago. The fact that music retailers faced competition not just from the internet but also from the supermarkets and their purchasing power, a major reason for many independent music stores closing. Despite all of this could HMV have done more to survive?

That is a difficult question. Certainly you could argue that it could have reacted earlier and more strongly on the threat from online. You could also argue that the stores could have had more focus and become more experience focussed. However when revenue pressure starts and you move down the “pile high discount” model its a difficult one to escape and to move to creating a store that people want to visit rather than are afraid about knocking over piles of cheap DVD’s.

What HMV still does have though is brand value in its name and peoples emotions regarding the brand. On the day of the announcement #HMVmemories started trending on twitter, you didn’t see that with Comet. I truly hope that someone recognises a potential here and starts again with the brand. However they will need to be strong in retail, marketing, branding and also digital and companies who have managed to master all of these are extremely rare.

Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant follow him on twitter @timyoungman

2012 a year of marketing highs and lows

As another Christmas rushes towards us and before we have had our fill of excessive gluttony and Morecambe and Wise repeats a brand New Year will be upon us. So before I take my decorations down, cry hootenanny and think about returning to work again I wanted to use this last column of 2012 to remind you all of what a very good year 2012 has been for marketing.

To start with a great lesson in life is to learn from your own and especially others mistakes and there have been some real beauties this year. My favourite lesson in reputation management and the need for proper understanding of the art that is public relations came from Starbucks. The corporate tax avoidance scandal centred on three companies; Amazon, Google and Starbucks but its is Starbucks that has taken the bulk of the flak in column inches. I am totally convinced that within a couple of years this will be used by lecturers to students as a case study in how not to manage a PR crisis which is not a bad thing.

Social media, if done correctly, can be an amazing asset for a brand. Done badly it can create huge headaches and of course its often brought about by the brands themselves. You cannot help what people say about you and social media gives people a forum to do that in public like no other. However actually asking your twitter followers to complete the sentence “I shop at Waitrose because…#WaitroseReasons” is asking for trouble and funnily enough that is what they got. I don’t have enough space to list the more amusing responses, feel free to read one of my previous columns or just Google to see them, it does prove that Waitrose customers are a very funny bunch.

So if they were my favourite mistakes, my highlights were nothing short of spectacular.  To start it has to be the London Olympics and brand GB. Before the games, we pessimistic Brits were rightly concerned how successful it would be. However within 10 minutes of the opening ceremony it was clear that the next month of Olympics and Paralympics showed us and the world that the UK not only can put on a worldwide event but can lead in fields as diverse as engineering, creativity and of course marketing and sponsorship.

My top highlight though was a man who thought it would be a really good idea to get carried 23 miles into space in a capsule and then jump out. What Felix Baumgartner did was quite incredible but what Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz did in my mind was almost equally impressive. This was something that could have gone very, very wrong. However in the end over 8 million people around the world watched Felix jump. This was followed by countless column inches and hours of television coverage let alone the millions of comments on social media all mentioning “Red Bull Stratos”. For an investment of a few million, the marketing coverage this generated has been estimated in the tens of millions. It has indelibly linked the brand in the mind of a generation and set a new level of what can be achieved with a marketing event. Exactly how the founder Mateschitz and his marketing team had planned.

So 2012 had its highs and its lows but its highs way outweighed the lows. We can only look forward to 2013 and what a new year will bring. Happy Christmas readers!

Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant follow him @timyoungman

Tim Youngman - The ITV logo change and brand positioning

Every industry has quirks and things that to them are massively important but seem minute to the rest of society. I have managed to end up in an industry which has more than its fair share. In marketing we spend hours and days worrying and discussing about even the smallest changes to product taglines. It might sound bizarre to you but if you are the head of marketing for Ronseal and you wanted to change “it does exactly what it says on the tin” you would have to jump through more hoops than a seal at Seaworld.

One of the reasons I love my industry so much is this relative importance placed on things that to the causal observer seem so small but in reality do actually matter a lot. For example much as been made of the recent change to the logo of online auction house e-bay. Did you notice it, probably not, but it lead to one of my favourite tweets regarding a change which simply read “surely it’s just been on a diet”.

So here are some quotes regarding an upcoming re-brand “The rebrand is about cementing the relationship in viewers”, “The logo is a form of human handwriting. It’s curvy and warmer than we have been in the past and in comparison with competitors feels distinct and true to us.” That, dear readers, came from ITV group marketing and research director Rufus Radcliffe talking about a re-brand of the ITV logo happening in January.  

January will see the first major rebrand of ITV since 2006 when you will see it drop the “1” and revert back to simply “ITV”. They are also changing the logo, as the quote gives away, to a new curvy style whose colours will change according to the tone of the programme it is promoting. So keeping it current it might be brown and green when promoting IACGMOOH.

But why is this important and what’s the point. Well ITV has been through and come out the other side of a very difficult period in its history. Only a few years ago it was struggling against the growth of satellite and cable television channels, the internet and a reduction in ad rates. Fast forward to today and ITV is in good health. It increased revenues by 4pc to £1.57bn in the nine months to 30 September, thanks to sales from its production arm, ITV Studios, which rose by a fifth to £498m, helped by the success of hit shows such as Downton Abbey.

The re-brand allows ITV to clearly position itself against its rivals, nicely described by Mr Radcliffe as: “Being at the heart of popular culture is the purpose behind the ITV brand. The BBC’s is to educate and entertain; Channel 4’s is a mission with mischief”. I was most pleased to see that they did not spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on consultants to do this but trusted their own internal creative team to come up with the goods, an unfortunately rare decision when these things occur.

So this may not even register with you or you might raise a slight flicker of acknowledgement when the logo changes in January. However to some of us even if we don’t like to new logo we admire the thought and reasoning behind it and hope that it helps to continue the turnaround in a national institution.

Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant follow him on twitter @timyoungman