Tag: covid

Who Needs the Big Brands ?

Posted on by markybrett

So….I think there are 2 types of ‘Mega’ Brands.

Rock Hard (Hard Rock looks better but makes no sense ) and Soft Rock (looks better and sounds OK).

Rock Hard

Equates to the likes of Apple . When a consumer goes online, or goes in store, and searches (asks) for Apple, that is invariably what they are are looking for. An Apple Product and not something that is a bit like an Apple product. I think there are few that fall into this category . Coca-Cola maybe be another. I, for one, when asking for a Coke (rather unfortunate additional connotations here) I am asking for Coca-Cola and not Pepsi nor any other Cola. I think this may fall into a bit more of a sub category HardSoft .

Microsoft, perhaps McDonalds, certain upmarket Car Brands, and in a very peculiar inverse sort of way Google. By that, I mean, many will use other search engines but will inevitably say they have Googled something. When did you ever here some one say …

I Binged (edged, chromed, safaried…..) such and such.….

Like it or not Amazon cannot be excluded from this Grouping as they most certainly do not fall into the category below as nobody benefits from the Amazon brand apart from Amazon.

Soft Rock

There’s loads of these. Big Brands which have positive impacts on generic smaller brands.

Levi’s, who hasn’t gone into a store looking for Levis when what you are, actually, doing is looking for a pair of Jeans. Hoover became the generic term for Vacuum Cleaners. Even Dyson is often used to describe bag less or cordless upstarts.

This category is littered with huge world wide brands but in most cases other smaller players benefit to a degree from the consumers awareness in the product because of the Big Brands own activities.

All these Super Brands spend hundreds of millions each year promoting their products in order to remain Super Brands. Yet some fascinating research has just been published.

http://www.inriver.com Feb 2022 via Retail Gazette

We commissioned OnePoll to
conduct an independent survey
of 6,000 online shoppers from
across the US, UK, and Germany
to share what they think about
poor product information,
availability, and findability.

As Above

There are a whole bunch of reasons why these surveys have come up with these sort of results. One, which is certainly relevant for me, is often whatever I am searching for , I don’t know of any
significant brands. I want to see whatever brands are available or more simply I have not the slightest idea of what I am looking for. At this very moment I have no doubt there will be a whole raft of consumers out there looking for Wifi Connected Swim suits so they can remain
connected whilst sunning themselves in the Mediterranean Sea and are not separated from the internet . They wont know who makes them and certainly not the brands. No, they don’t exist (-yet and yes I have checked ) but I think it works as an illustration.

Within our own industry (ie Party) a major latex balloon manufacturer’s brand has dominated the market for many years. And for good reason. They produce an excellent product and they invested heavily in marketing. However, a change happened during Covid (yes its that word again) . Supply disruption occurred. The market needed product , as there was huge demand and they found alternatives . The alternatives were found to be more than acceptable replacements . The consequence was a major distillation of the brand and a huge increase in product choice.

This effect migrated into other party products. Retailers reliant upon major brands could not get the stock they wanted started to look at other Brands who had stock. Hey Presto ! They suddenly discovered that there were other good brands out there and the product was just as good and sold as well if not better.

As above

I am not knocking good brands. I have spent most of my working life trying promote brands in various market places . My point is that I think ‘professional’ consumers i.e. `buyers should re-evaluate the brands they rely on and ask themselves are they really getting value for money . The amateur buyer i.e. the end consumer , according to the research seems to know better ……

The Future Consumer ….

Posted on by markybrett

The current UK government will have redesigned the future consumer as a very svelte like creature arriving at our gleaming, but empty, shopping centres in vast swarms of cycling health freaks. Some would have arrived in electric cars but they had not managed to build any charging points. This scenario having evolved from their policies on reducing obesity. Naturally, the whole concept will be inspired by ministerial cars being replaced by high performance racing bikes, or maybe E Bikes.

Reality is a little more complex. Most businesses (involved in selling products to consumers) spend a great deal of time looking at what the retail landscape will look like, what the future trends are, the economic future , spending habits and ways to market. Yet do they actually look at what the consumer will look like (metaphorically speaking) ?

It came as a bit of a surprise when looking for research there is not much going in . Or rather there is , and always has been, a lot on consumer behaviour but not on the holistic consumer. By this I mean, the whole package . That’s is to say behaviour, social interaction, physicality of the individual, thinking process, social awareness , family sizes, cultural approaches , education, spending power, in effect everything goes to make the everyday consumer. Yes there is plenty of research in each and everyone one of these components and I know most major retailers have some form of futurologist within the organisation. However, there seems to be little which really looks at the complete person, In so far as there ever can be such a creature.

Hence I was somewhat, initially pleased, but ultimately disappointed when I recently, read a report by an Organisation called Raconteur.net publishing a report called The Future Consumer. It spoke at length about the future consumer but much of this was based upon the effects of Covid. I would not hesitate to accept that Covid will have had an impact on the Consumer, I am not convinced it is the comprehensive Shape Shifter it is being described as. Yes, it will have moved a additional sector of society into shopping online. Yes, it will have made an impact on the way we work (though once again I am not thinking this will be as long lasting as suggested. See what happens to those working from home during a miserable winter. It focuses on and suggests fairly nebulous plans about connecting to the consumer.

Craig Inglis ,Chair of the Marketing Society Raconteur..the Future Consume. September 2020

There are other influences that go beyond Covid that are just as powerful in shaping the future consumer, Environment, climate, technology, education and wealth to list just a few. Covid has, to a degree, brought forward the timeline. There is no doubt that a section of society that were new to online purchasing during lockdown will remain online. But not all and furthermore they will not buy everything online. Those starved of the retail experience, apart from queuing outside supermarkets, suddenly missed the ability to go to shop.

I am not convinced that the issue of working from from home or rather the desire to work from home is quite as strong as all the pundits claim. Yes, there will be a change but not as big as big as people think(see previous paragraph). Climate and environment is in a very confused state as the consumer edged back to using cars as public transport was deemed unsafe.

Wealth, health and education all being linked. In that those who have a good education, tend to be wealthier and healthier. The sum effect does throw up some light for good independents, in the more affluent areas of society. The consumer has become aware of its good local independents . They have got (or at least some of them) have got used to walking to them and seeing their offer and being surprised (positively mainly , I think) . The combination, perhaps of working more from home, and in walking distance provides opportunities for the good local independent to connect to this ‘new consumer’ and build relationships that will help their business to flourish long in to the future. The less fortunate, invariably have a poorer choice of independent, if there is any choice at all. So no change there then, the less fortunate become even less fortunate.

So many retailers, amongst those some of our biggest have managed to get their predictions of the Future Consumer so wrong. M&S has got to be at the forefront , their decline started way back , probably at least fifteen years. You just need to look at their approach to online, having only just got their food offering up and running , then only a small part of it and then only through a third party (Ocado). Even the big supermarkets grossly misunderstood their customers potential behaviour when the European discounters first came to our shores (Aldi, Lidl). Consequently they are all only playing catch up.

Hands up, this is not an easy game, predicting the future consumer . You could say that there have been few that get it right. Like it or not Amazon is perhaps the one that stands out. Twenty three years ago, Jeff Bezos (technology achievements aside) seemed to know what the consumer would buy into, in the future. But then I am not sure it is rocket science (or even technological science) convenience, consumer confidence, value pricing and above all the consumer experience, are surely precursors to those who wants to retail. There are those who argue, quite rightly, that he (Bezos)does not care about much else, but we are talking about consumer perspective and here he wins hands down.

IKEA is perhaps another. When they first expanded there was plenty of flat pack furniture around but not in the way that IKEA envisaged it. Nor in the environment they created . ‘The plenty’ no longer exist . IKEA enabled the consumer to visualise a new environment and consequently helped in developing a new consumer . The same perhaps could be said about Terence Conran(in the UK) in the sixties and seventies. Not that he sold flat pack furniture but he saw how the furniture consumer was changing . Unfortunately, when he sold the company, the new company did not continue with that vision. But Conran cannot be considered a global shape shifter moreover his influence was on a relatively small sector of the market. I suspect there are few consumers, in the developed world who do not know of Amazon or IKEA. There are, of course, other future proofing brands available. Those non future proofing may not be around for as long as they think.

Whilst gently lambasting Raconteurs research , I did feel the diagram below was helpful in illustrating some of the effects of Covid on the existing consumer and data such as this, needs to be considered when looking for the future consumer

Raconteur..the Future Consume. September 2020

There are no options. Or rather there are two. You do nothing or you at least take the opportunity, especially in the current climate, to look around at the changes you can see happen in front of you and take a view on what may happen. Back to no options. If you do nothing , nothing will happen or rather , as sure as eggs is eggs, things won’t improve there is a very good chance they will only deteriorate. If you look around , make some guided assumptions and act accordingly, you have an opportunity, if not to get ahead of the game at least keep up with it.

Consumers, by definition, include us all

John F Kennedy

That being a truism, we all change, develop and evolve . As we are all consumers the same principle applies . If we wish to sell stuff to ourselves we need to have some idea how we change and develop. If as a retailer you don’t someone else will .

Now, more than ever, retailers have got to look long and hard and what tomorrow’s consumer is like. For those that don’t it will not be difficult to predict their future, however short lived that maybe.

To Mask….or Not to Mask? A very serious question.

Posted on by markybrett
Unashamed bit of product placement ! This should sort out a bit of protection. This will get the High Street moving (but perhaps not in the way we want). But it would look great on a Zoom (there are other makes of online Video Meetings !) Meeting.

This is not about the rights or wrongs of wearing a mask . If science says that it is of benefit then I accept it. It is not about our personal freedoms or civil liberties, if wearing one protects others then we should. However, why haven’t we been told to wear them 4 months ago. Why was it not made mandatory immediately as opposed to waiting 3 weeks from shop opening? Businesses were already prepared, it is only the consumer who had to get prepared (like go and buy one. That said there is huge confusion as to what sort of mask actually works and what not to do if you do wear one) ). The science evolves so say the Government. Well how come it evolved a darn sight quicker in the rest of the world.

My argument is to look at the reason why they have come up with this late stage retail requirement and its possible impact.

I can think of only 3 possible reasons for the mandatory wearing of masks within stores:

  1. Public safety
  2. Political
  3. Economic

One hopes number one is paramount. Well, as we all know you don’t have to wear them in bars or restaurants; somewhat impractical. However, if there is a risk of infection you are likely to spend a lot longer in a bar or restaurant and even with social distancing more likely to have interaction with strangers, than you are in a shop. The new regs state that store staff don’t have to wear them . If we are to accept the science that the mask is to protect 3rd parties are we to assume that store staff are less likely to have the virus than the store customer ? I don’t think science has made that claim. So I am not convinced that Public safety is number one or if it is then I think this a bit arse about face. Which of course would surprise no one.

If it is number 2 , Then I am perplexed as it can’t see much political gain here. Perhaps there is enough pressure about the Government’s mixed and cockeyed messaging that they thought they should align with popular opinion. Assuming popular opinion believes that it is a good thing.

Number 3 sort of makes sense, if they think that it will give the consumer more confidence to go into shops and spend. I don’t. Yes there are naturally those who are very concerned about their unmasked fellow shoppers. Yet my gut feeling , and subjective research suggests otherwise. Non essential shopping is partly a leisure activity and I am pretty certain it will stop the consumer going for leisure or casual shopping if it involves masks.

It’s the don’t have to , and it is not much fun so I will get it online attitude , that will only push more consumers back onto online and not go into the retail store. There will be, of course, those who will be more confident in a masked up situation, but I still feel they will be far outweighed by thinking I really don’t need to do this. So I wont.

There is a lot of confusion out there with the consumer, and this is not helping and one thing about which I am pretty sure it will not help the retailer.