I read with interest Rob
Brown’s piece for the Huffington Post about how the social features of
mobile phones have helped kill of the British High Street. Earlier the same
week retail sales figures had shown how shops had been hit by the
Olympics — with shoppers choosing to stay at home to watch the Games
instead of going out to buy stuff. Even online sales had taken a hit.
While mobile and events may be the latest things to hit the
High Street, they’re far from the only or decisive factors, though they do
remind us of one which has emerged over the last 40 years — non-food shopping
is increasingly competing with other activities in the attention economy:
fighting for our time as we have so many other alternatives.
Other factors which contributed to the decline of the High
Street include:
- The rise in working mums since the 1960s — reducing the
daily, part-social shopping Rob refers to.
- Sunday trading, mainly by another factor — supermarkets,
which have increased their non-food offerings massively partly through using
their massive marketing power, partly gained from loyalty card data.
- The emergence of out-of-town retail parks and shopping
centres.
- E-commerce and m-commerce.
- The disappearance of the RRP and NET book agreement, which
opened up price competition.
- Rising town centre parking restrictions and costs.
- The ‘Clone Town’ factor created by High Streets dominated
by chains.
- Complacency.
So how can the High Street fight back?
Using the power of social is part of the answer — like the music
industry fight against piracy, the High Street needs to create sustainable
competitive advantage by creating things that can’t be copied or pirated and
which you can enjoy with your friends.
Music’s answer was to change its business model to making
music sales the taster or loss leader for unpirateable live tours, for which fans
will pay way more than for a CD.
The High Street’s answer will partly be about live
exclusive events with an X-factor, like the launch of a new product with
one-night-only discounts and incentives to bring friends.
Another fightback factor has to be customer service. As
much as websites can get you stuff quickly and cheapest, there’s room for the
High Street to outcompete on personal service. It’s one of the things John
Lewis and Apple have used to keep their High Street stores.
That’s part of a final fightback factor — proper CRM. We
all know the power of the shop owner who not only remembers you, but remembers
your previous purchases and taste. And is prepared to go the extra mile when
necessary.
Things like that will be core to reviving the High Street.
After all the years of doubt, rows about the site, the
budget and, more recently, security, who can now reasonably argue that the
London 2012 Olympics have been anything other than a massive triumph for Britain
on the international stage?
Aside from deliverables they couldn’t control down to the
finest detail (like contractors failing to deliver on oversold promises), my
experience of the organisation (shared by most commentators, including IOC President Jacques Rogge)
was that it was excellent.
From the Get
Ahead Of The Games transport website managing expectations about transport
delays to nudge commuters to use alternate routes or not travel…in order to minimize
problems (which worked in my experience), the Game
venues signage on the Tube and the controversial Olympic Road Network to
simple things like having more female spectator toilets than male and their
excellent maintenance, the Games were a great example of how well Britain can
deliver project-managed services — something we’ve always been good at but
which the Games will have given a great taste of to top-level decision-makers
from around the world. As Lord Coe & David Cameron have said, we showed the
world we can earn the gold medal for delivering “right” on world-class
projects.
A key part of that was harnessing the best of Britain in
the energy and motivation of the volunteers, the rightly-named ‘Games makers’. It
seems unanimous that, without exception, they smiled, welcomed and helped in
the spirit of generosity that is a key part of what makes Britain great.
Would paid staff have delivered that as well? I’m not sure
— research on what drives people suggests the altruism they were fired by is
more powerful than simple pay. That said, the paid staff I met (from police and
Armed Forces members to Tube staff) were just as polite, happy and helpful too.
The ‘spirit of the Games’ infected them too and put a smile on the faces of
everyone contributing. It was a contagious smile.
Some of that came from a key part of the British character
— support for things that are good and right. That’s what made the crowd in the
Olympic stadium applaud Saudi runner Sarah Attar for simply being there and other
crowds for supporting the athletes
who came to do their best though they had little chance of medalling.
Though none of the volunteers or staff provided their
friendly service with future benefit in mind, this experience for overseas
visitors to the Games (all round the UK, not just to London) is sure to benefit
the country in terms of future tourism and inward investment. The ‘feelgood
factor’ in London was amazing and anyone visiting will surely want to come
back. If the other cities hosting events matched that, they’ll also benefit.
That intangible feature of the Games brought most of the
nation together in joy at the performances of Team GB and admiration of the
dedication, hard work and achievement of individual athletes. Just like the
Diamond Jubilee (but without the political element that alienates the
anti-Monarchists), the ‘feelgood factor’ put a spring in our step, a smile on
our faces and helped us, at least for a while, focus on the good things
happening rather than the economic gloom we’ll all have to face up to today. Which?
found 10% felt better about life in general during the Games.
If brands can create initiatives to reproduce something
even close to that, the PR and brand value to them will be huge. But to do so they
must firstly be about genuinely helping people. Just like the Games, the PR
value comes from something created for its own sake and not just a PR stunt
purely about looking good. The PR value follows. People see straight through
token gestures like G4S’s £2.5m Forces charity donation. It was good, but
reactive and defensive and will largely be written-off unless they show deeper
commitment to help those in need.
For me one of the biggest PR lessons from London 2012 is
that the best PR events are truly authentic — things with intrinsic social
value which have PR value as a secondary benefit. Only once brands can get
that, as some have already done, will they be able to create truly great CSR
programmes which deliver long-lasting PR value. Yes, we probably bid for the
Games entirely for national PR reasons, but by making sure we did it right, the
return has been way beyond a simple box-ticking exercise that would have been
found out fast (compare with Delhi’s Commonwealth Games).
My favourite bit of the Games legacy? That it reminded us
(and the world) that Britain can still be Great. That’s invaluable. If brands
can do that they’ll reap huge rewards.
