Opinion: Al Overton
In a sector where brands and retailers can often be seen to compete against one another, Al Overton offers his views on what it takes to work together in harmony, creating opportunity and success for all.
This statement has not made it onto Strictly Come Dancing yet, but sometimes it takes three to tango. When the music is right and everyone is in the mood it is possible for brands, retailers and customers to create interesting, memorable shopping dynamics that are a win-win-win all round. Most of the time though, it seems that brands and stores can’t help but tread on each other’s feet.
The sad truth is that there is often tension between brands and retailers with a lack of understanding on both sides. From a store owner’s perspective, my customers come into my shop for the products and great service that I offer – I stock lots of different brands according to what sells well, but my customers mostly want good service and good value. To a brand, retailers can be unpredictable, difficult-to-manage gatekeepers, but my customers are in their shops, I am spending all this money on advertising and I need people to be able to find my brand. Also, my products are much better than anyone else’s, and they are idiots if they can’t see that.
Partially this disagreement comes down to arguing over whose customer it is in the first place. For retail product brands, your customer is not the wholesaler who buys cases, or the stockist that displays it on their shelves, but the individual that consumes your product – eats it, rubs it in, wears it, whatever. Depending on your retail model it is almost impossible to have a direct relationship with them, and so you try to talk at them through marketing activity, and try to balance the ever expanding dynamic between accessibility and awareness. Do people know of my brand? Can they find my brand? How can I maximize awareness in those customers who have greatest access to my brand? The typical model for brands has a marketing function that increases awareness and a sales function that increases accessibility – by dealing with those pesky retailers.
However, what better place to promote brand awareness than at the point of brand accessibility? Rather than sending marketing messages into the ether with the hope that your brand presence on-shelf then reinforces that messaging, wouldn’t it be better to work collaboratively with the retailers? The successful launch of the Zoe Gut Shot in Marks & Spencer shows how collaboration can shortcut the awareness/accessibility challenge, and how brands and retailers can join forces to talk directly to their combined customers.
“If you allow them to, brands can be your accomplices, your champions – if you can enable them to tell their stories in your shop, those stories that will end up singing your praises as well.”
Not all collaborations are of this scale, but for brands the question is how can the marketing function be aligned with the sales function so that you can talk through the retailer to the customer in their shop? What can you give retailers that they will value, that can build a long-term relationship and a maintained shelf presence? How can you work with them to build in-store brand exposure and a mutually beneficial relationship? How can you tell your story in their store?
What’s in it for the retailers? Well, a brand is a story and a store is a big book of stories that can inspire, entertain, challenge or comfort. In a great store, each product on-shelf has its own story to tell, its own reason for being there, a reason that should be more than ‘it was on special offer at the wholesaler’. As a retailer, the stories that you choose to tell add up to the story of your shop, the story of your brand. Who are you, and what do you want your store to say to your customers when they walk through the door or follow you on social media? If you allow them to, brands can be your accomplices, your champions – if you can enable them to tell their stories in your shop, those stories that will end up singing your praises as well.
So where does the customer fit into all of this? Is the customer loyal to the store or the brand? The answer is neither, both, sometimes, often, never and always. There is no answer. As customers we shop by habit, have differing needs and priorities, are highly affected by marketing (generally without realizing) but also seek reassurance. We are attracted by brands whose stories reflect or harmonize with the stories we tell about ourselves. If brands become well-enough established, they become part of that story, part of our identity. The magic happens when the retailer, brand and customer are all aligned, when all of their individual stories reinforce and reflect one another. If my favourite store helps me discover my new favourite brand, then I become an even more loyal customer of both. And then we all feel like dancing.
By Al Overton, Wonderland Ventures