Marketing Moves Speed Up at Marks and Spencer

Before Kate Bostock took over the top merchandising position at Marks and Spencer, the department store presented only two main women's fashion collections ("ranges") per year. Today, Bostock oversees eleven women's fashion ranges per year, introducing more excitement more often to give loyal customers a fashion reason to return to the store again and again. The classics and newer styles are combined to offer more choices, whether customers shop online or in the stores.

M&S's chief executive, Marc Bolland, has yet more changes in mind to add a contemporary feel to the fashion offerings without making the styles too young for the store's core customers. And Bolland is putting more into the online presence, as well as encouraging multichannel shopping. Now the store will tailor product mix to each market, instead of using store size as the guide to the merchandise. This marketing change makes a lot of sense, as it will address customers' needs rather than the retailer's needs.

M&S has joined the Facebook world (with nearly 300,000 likes), where it posts photos and videos of its newest fashion range. Currently, the M&S Twitter account (with more than 25,000 followers) is featuring Percy Pigs, the pink confectionery treat. Customers can sign up for text alerts as well.

The retailer is carefully expanding, with a new store planned for Gloucester (replacing two older stores in the area) and one in Ellesmere Port that, when opened in 2012, will be the chain's second-largest unit.

Finally, M&S TV keeps customers up to date on the latest fashions, interviews and product introductions.

2012 Olympics: Marketers, plan ahead!

The Olympic Delivery Authority and Transport for London are reminding London-based businesses to plan ahead for disruptions that are likely to occur during the 2012 Olympic Games, now 433 days away. (For more about contingency plans, see Chapter 12 of my Essential Guide to Marketing Planning.)

Some of the questions to answer in the marketing plan include:

• How will your employees get to work? 
• How will products and materials get delivered to your business and your customers?
• Will the usual media schedule and vehicles reach your customers? Will you need to change your media choices and schedule?
• Are there additional opportunities to offer special products and services?
• Will extra amounts of goods and services be needed on hand to satisfy demand or allow for disruptions?
• Will costs go up due to unusual transportation arrangements? How will this affect pricing?
• Will regular customers be unable or unwilling to place orders as usual, and how will this affect demand before, during and after the Games?

Using smartphones to pay

Have you heard of NFC, short for near field communications? Some firms think NFC will be the payment method of the future, a kind of digital wallet that allows you to wave your mobile at the point of sale and pay for your purchase quickly and conveniently. As shown above, NFC payments are available in Japan, but they're still in the testing stage in other parts of the world.

Visa is about to test a new NFC system in North America and, with Samsung, is planning a NFC programme for the 2012 London Olympics. In fact, Samsung is about to launch its Galaxy smartphone with NFC functionality.

Nokia is showing its NFC capabilities (but not actually completing payment transactions) by enabling the technology via the super-popular Angry Birds game. Research in Motion, maker of BlackBerry smartphones, has a new NFC mobile.

Having mobiles ready for NFC creates a base of customers equipped for digital payments. Now retail establishments must have the ability to accept digital payments via mobile, and the banks must be capable of processing these transactions.

A larger question is: Will customers actually use NFC? Will it be fast, convenient and secure? What extra benefits will it offer to encourage switching from cash, credit or debit cards?

Burberry, the Social Brand

Burberry has been reinventing itself and its upmarket brands over the past few years. It hired Emma Watson to be the public face of the brand and it began catering to younger customers through an emphasis on technology and media. Its latest UK store (in Covent Garden) features Burberry Brit, a brand designed to appeal to younger, fashion-conscious customers.

Now Burberry is reaching out to its markets through various social media:

• Facebook. More than 6 million people have clicked to "like" Burberry.
• Twitter. Nearly 300,000 followers read Burberry's tweets.
• YouTube. Burberry's channel has attracted more than 2 million video views.

Expanding in China, a fast-growing market for luxury brands, Burberry is polishing its image through high-profile, high-tech publicity efforts (such as the opening of a new Beijing store).

Watch for more digital activities as Burberry brings a 21st-century attitude to its brand heritage.

What next for Pringles?

Last month, Procter & Gamble sold Pringles to Diamond Foods. This marks P&G's last step in divesting its food products to concentrate on its core range of branded beauty, household and personal care items. Although Pringles was not very successful in its early years, P&G used flavour and packaging as points of differentiation and eventually built the brand through continual marketing.

Diamond Foods, the acquirer, began life as a group of walnut growers banding together to market their walnuts. Today, the company offers a wide variety of snacks, including popcorn and chips. Pringles already has a very strong international presence and Diamond Foods can use those store relationships to leverage the global distribution of its other snack products.

Will Diamond continue the special Tesco-only range of "Great British Flavours" that P&G had created under the Pringles brand? What changes does Diamond have in mind? Will Pringles soon disappear from hotel room mini-bars, to be replaced by local brands?

EasyJet: High fuel costs are an opportunity?

Counterintuitive though it may be, EasyJet sees today's sky-high fuel costs as an opportunity.

Although the airline's losses are widening, it understands that other carriers will abandon some routes because of high fuel costs--and EasyJet is ready to swoop in and initiate service on those new routes. However, the airline also says it will reduce short-haul flights if proposed emissions taxes are introduced.

The company hedged its fuel prices some time ago, which gives it some relief from the punishingly high fuel prices of recent weeks.

Keeping costs in line is essential for a return to profitability. Meanwhile, Easyjet is cost-effectively reaching out to customers via its Web site, its Facebook page (54,000 likes) and Twitter. On the other hand, it's also raising fees to improve its revenue position, which could backfire if customers rebel.

EasyJet has successfully increased its customer base, especially on flights that originate outside the UK, and expects to continue its growth by targeting business passengers. Already, half of the available seats on summer flights have been sold, a good start for the airline during the peak travel season. Yet if fuel costs continue to skyrocket, EasyJet may not return to profitability for quite some time.

Tesco: 7 Step Strategy for Growth

This is Part 2 of my look at Tesco. Chief executive Philip Clarke just announced his seven-step strategy to build on the company's momentum for continued growth:

1. Grow the UK core business, which is the backbone of the business.
2. Be an outstanding retailer, in stores and online.
3. Be as strong in all products sold as in the core food product ranges.
4. Grow retailing services (such as financial services) in all markets.
5. Put sustainability and responsibility to local communities at the heart of the business.
6. Create highly valued brands that win and retain customer loyalty.
7. Build the employee team to be able to create more value for customers and others.

Clarke understands that technology is vital to implementing this vision of Tesco's success (especially step #2). Many of Tesco's customers are already online, and the company must catch up to their needs, behaviour and preferences in all markets.

Private brands (step #6) are another key to Tesco's success, because they differentiate the retailer and offer customers compelling, tangible reasons to shop at Tesco rather than at a rival store. Clarke's plan to use private brands more aggressively is an excellent way to further strengthen the retailer's competitive advantage.

Fresh and not so easy: Tesco in the US

In 2007, after years of study, Tesco crossed the pond to open its first Fresh & Easy neighborhood grocery store in California. The UK-based supermarket powerhouse has since opened more than 150 stores in California, Nevada and Arizona, sunbelt states that were growing rapidly and had strong economies--until the recent recession.

Tesco's plan to offer fresh produce at low prices seemed the perfect combination for the US market. However, Fresh & Easy ran into fierce competition from long-established supermarkets and from discounters-with-attitude (such as Trader Joe's). The recession didn't help, either.

Having lost millions of pounds on Fresh & Easy, Tesco made some changes to gain sales momentum. For example, the chain originally planned no advertising--it prefers to communicate directly with customers via Twitter, blogging, YouTube, Flickr and the Web. Instead, it reportedly has begun an advertising campaign to increase brand awareness and preference.

Tesco's chief executive now expects Fresh & Easy to turn a profit by the end of 2013. On the other hand, management of the US conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, which owns 3% of Tesco, thinks that Fresh & Easy has more work to do if the chain is to succeed in the intensely competitive US market. It must increase revenue, attract more customers and reinforce loyalty. What does the future hold for Fresh & Easy?

The royal wedding, social media and consumer behaviour

Even as huge crowds lined the streets of London to participate in last week's wedding of the decade, even larger crowds were airing their views minute by minute via social media. Social media sites absolutely buzzed with wedding news for days, a great example of how this technology is affecting consumer behaviour.

When Mashable tracked social-media mentions of the wedding, it found that tweeters, in particular, were posting many more comments than Facebook users and bloggers. This makes sense, given how short a tweet can be, and the fact that many people tweet on the go via mobile.

The Royal Wedding figured prominently on the royal family's Facebook page. The wedding had its own official Twitter hash tag (#rw2011) used by @ClarenceHouse, the official Twitter presence. And of course there's an official YouTube page for the royal wedding, complete with wedding book for online "guests" to sign.

Google celebrated with a special home-page doodle of a royal couple in horse-drawn carriage, acknowledging the world-wide interest in the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. It added a wedding cake to its YouTube page, as well.

UK and US media contributed mightily to the social media buzz, with reporters live-blogging, tweeting and posting on Facebook journalism pages before, during and after the wedding. They invited members of the public to share their thoughts on media blogs/Facebook pages (as well as with their friends and others). Surprisingly, most of the wedding-related tweets were, in fact, from US commenters, although UK social media users were extremely active in sharing photos, memories and more.

Without a doubt, social media has emerged as a highly effective influence on the thoughts, feelings and actions of customers. Any marketer that doesn't engage brand fans through social media is missing an enormous opportunity.