Microsoft’s ‘New Coke’ moment – On knowing when your customer is dissatisfied

Microsoft has been trying its hand at a bit of innovation of late in an attempt to raise some of its lost brand equity, and stem the larger market decline in PC sales, which has recently started accelerating. (On a side note, Deloitte have a caveat to these figures, saying the true measurement is in usage, not units).

One of the ways this innovation has come about is in the release of its Surface product, which has interested many but earned the ire of erstwhile manufacturing partners as Microsoft has pursued its own path, making the product in-house. Its new operating system, Windows 8, has struggled to gain traction with consumers. The president of Fujitsu, one of Microsoft’s partners, declared interest to be “weak” back in December last year. The most obvious step-change from previous iterations is the slate screen that greets users upon booting up. On proceeding through this, users then come to a more familiar Windows layout.

In yesterday’s Financial Times, Microsoft said it was preparing to “reverse course over key elements of its Windows 8 operating system”. Envisioneering analyst Richard Doherty was quoted as saying it is the biggest marketing fiasco since New Coke. The only difference being, Doherty comments, that Coca-Cola acknowledged their error three months in, whereas Microsoft is pushing eight months now since launch; Coca-Cola conversely paid more attention to what its customers were saying about the product. “The learning curve is definitely real”, said head of marketing and finance for the Windows business, Tami Reller.

IDC research tells a discouraging story for businesses relying on PC sales

Today’s FT featured an editorial entitled “Steve Ballmer was right to gamble on change”. Opening with a quotation by Bill Gates, saying that to “win big you sometimes have to take big risks”, the editorial cites Kodak as a primary example of a company that refused to take risk, and ended up succumbing to creative destruction at the expense of trying to protect legacy revenue streams. We’ve written before about Kodak and creative destruction. The editorial calls for a revival of a “climate of creativity” at the company, and certainly that is what Ballmer is trying to instill, very nobly and with good reason. Zeitgeist’s bone of contention is with the following, seemingly logical statement,

“…disruptive innovations are disruptive precisely because the new technology does not appeal to traditional customers. Instead, it appeals to the customers of the future.”

We would argue that Microsoft’s customer base is made up overwhelmingly of what might be considered “traditional” customers. Users who find familiarity with a long-established incumbent, who have no interest in OS alternatives like Linux, Apple, Android or Mozilla. They are not looking for a revolution. By all means change your product, but it must evolve, not look like a completely different way of computing when you switch it on. This point is confirmed nicely by a recent piece in Harvard Business Review, which details how to get customers to value your product more. The author, Heidi Grant Halvorson, describes the importance of knowing the right emotional fit for your customers’ mindset. The article elaborates,

“motivational focus — whether he tends to view his goals as ideals and opportunities to advance (what researchers call “promotion focus”), or as opportunities to stay safe and keep things running smoothly (“prevention focus”). While everyone has a mix of both to some extent, most of us tend to have a dominant focus.”

We would argue that users that prefer Microsoft Windows OS to other systems would strongly fall into the latter category. Change is perhaps inevitable, but Microsoft are choosing a precarious path with such radical changes aimed at a group little interested in such fundamental alterations to the way they interact with such an integral device.

On Mobile Trends – 2013 so far…

While it’s difficult nowadays to write about telecoms or the mobile sector without drifting off into other areas of the TMT industry, Zeitgeist spent an evening last month as a guest of Accenture in Cambridge, discussing the successes and failures of the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. It came in the middle of a year so far that has already some significant shifts from mobile companies, in terms of branding, operations and revenue streams.

2013 has seen some interesting news in mobile. The week before last marked, incredibly, the 40th anniversary of the first phone call made from a mobile phone. This year also saw Research in Motion renaming itself to BlackBerry, with shares sliding 8% by the end of the product launch announcement for its eponymous 10 device. It saw Sky acquire Telefonica’s broadband operations, while responding to major complaints about the speed of its own broadband service. It has seen Huawei, which in Q4 of 2012 sold more smartphones than either Nokia, HTC or BlackBerry, come under scrutiny particularly in the US for its lack of transparency. Moreover, after much editorial ink spilled on Facebook’s lack of initiative and innovation in mobile, the release of the ‘super-app’ Chat Heads has piqued interest as it looks to compete with Whatsapp, Viber, iMessage et al., which Ovum reckons cost MNOs $23bn in lost revenue every year. This news mostly pertained to developed markets; JWT Intelligence’s interview with Jana CEO Nathan Eagle features some interesting insights on mobile trends in emerging markets.

Interestingly, 2013 thus far has also been witness to the beginning of more flexible contracts and payments. At the end of March, T-Mobile USA announced it would offer the iPhone to customers for cheaper than its rivals, and customers would not have to sign a contract. It effectively ends handset subsidies – something which Vodafone pledged to do last year and was punished by the stock market when it failed to do so – spreading the full cost of the phone over two years “as a separate line item on the monthly bill”, which may strike many as still quite a commitment. Customers must pay the bill for the phone in full in order to be able to end their tenure with the network. The New York Times elaborates, “Despite T-Mobile’s promise to be more straightforward than other carriers, some consumers might still find it confusing that they have to pay an extra device fee after paying $100 up front for an iPhone.” In the UK, O2 is going a similar route. At the end of last week the company announced similar plans to T-Mobile. While still keeping contracts as an option, the FT explained the company was looking to a plan, dubbed O2 Refresh, “that decoupled the cost of the phone from the cost of calls, texts and data. Customers will be able to buy a phone outright, or pay in instalments over time, and then sign up to a separate service contract that can be cancelled or changed at any time.” Although O2 said in the article that they expected customers to pay the same as they would on a standard contract, the new plans by both network providers will surely add to customer churn. Brands will have to work harder to develop true loyalty rather than relying on the lock-in feeling that adds to switching costs for many customers. Conversely, this added flexibility may make the providers feel less like utilities, creating more choice and differentiation.

At the aforementioned conference Zeitgeist attended last month, Accenture hosted an evening they dubbed “MWC: Fiesta or Siesta?”. It soon became apparent that many of the speakers invited were less than enthused with the conference this year. This was partly because there were no extraordinary leaps in technology or hardware on offer. It was also because of, as one speaker lamented, “the proliferation of suits”. Another speaker complained it was like listening to The Archers: long storylines “that ended up having no conclusion”. The very essence of the conference though is not about trendsetting, or cool new consumer devices. Mobile operators are utilities, the excitement around such an event is not going to be as visceral as that of SXSW or Embedded World. It led some to wonder whether the “real innovation was being developed in such ‘niche’ events, away from the “glitz”. Moreover, perhaps Samsung’s decision not to launch their new S4 handset at the Congress alluded to this lack of excitement, or at least a wish not to be drowned out by other announcements.

Among exciting trends on display at MWC, M2M – something Zeitgeist has written about before – was front and centre at the conference, particularly with regard to cars. Phablets continued to make their foray into the consumer’s view, with bigger screens meaning more data transfer. Zeitgeist wondered whether such a transition would put even more pressure on networks already struggling with large data handling. And although Firefox’s new OS gave some – including those at GigaOm – hope that it could provide more innovation through diversified competition in the marketplace, others, including Tony Milbourn, Executive Chairman of Intelligent Wireless, speaking at the event, thought it “underwhelming” after “lots of hype”. Bendable screens were also to be found at MWC, but those speaking at the Accenture conference like Richard Windsor of Radio Free Mobile said it was early days and much was still to be seen from this new type of phone. Its potential though, he readily conceded, was formidable. Wearable technology was a huge issue at the conference and one that Zeitgeist is particularly interested to see develop, especially as companies like Apple, Sony and Google enter the fray.

It seemed then that the Mobile World Congress failed to reflect what is turning out to be a tumultuous year in telecoms. Not only is there an increasing desire to address consumer needs – in the case of more flexible contracts and more consumer-facing company names – but as economies sputter their way toward ostensible recovery we are also starting to see M&A activity return to the sector. Time will tell whether new technologies, such as M2M or bendable screens can breathe new life into the sector.

Up in smoke: Trends in buying movies and content ownership

Like the main protagonist in The Artist, film audiences are increasingly falling out of love with physical film. A recent IHS Screen Digest webinar presented some interesting notes on home entertainment trends around the world. Most of it was far from good news for media companies.

Emerging markets are where a lot of industries are currently looking to for growth, from WPP to the Catholic church. The film industry is seeing growth here, too. China, which last year relaxed its quota on the number of foreign films it allows into the market every year, has seen record box office takings of late, with the release of Titanic being a major highlight. Russia, too, is seeing a new audience for film. On a macro level, countries like India and Brazil are seeing a significant growth in the middle classes. In other words, a group of consumers that has a larger amount of discretionary spending. Some of this spending will be allocated to home entertainment, in the form of video players, be they DVD or Blu-ray. However, this jars with the global decline in physical media spend, as viewers switch in droves to streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon’s Lovefilm. Data from the IHS webinar revealed that the global growth in video players though will not serve to offset the decline of spend on physical media.

As well as shifting from hard copy to soft copy products, consumers are also beginning to show a marked preference for renting over owning. This trend extends far beyond the film industry of course. Companies like Spotify spearheaded the idea in the music industry, the phrase “access trumps ownership” has long been a mantra there. The philosophy is affecting many lifestyle aspects, as demonstrated by The Economist’s recent front cover article. In Western Europe, rental is now the transactional consumption choice for digital movies. IHS data reported that the average US citizen rented 5.3 films last year. The company predicted that revenue from rentals will go up, returning to where they were in 2009, but in large part only because rental prices will go up. Dovetailing with the increasing consumer reluctance to buy physical discs is that the medium also appears “less and less attractive” for retailers. Blu-ray, which was supposed to revive the disc format, has not taken off in the way that was hoped; IHS data showed most Blu-ray owners still purchase a lot of movies on DVD rather than paying a premium for the HD version.

The move from physical to digital formats is troubling to media companies because, IHS report, “transactional online movie spending will not reach levels of physical spend” anytime soon. Indeed, theatrical is predicted to take up an ever larger slice of the pie (see above). This is without considering relative externalities, such as piracy, which remains a huge problem in Asia. And while consumer spending on online movies will almost double in AsPac, the share in wider consumer spending on movies in the region will not move beyond the current share before 2016.

One solace could be found in cinemas, a special haven for a medium without distractions, providing ample opportunity to leverage some of the more irrational desires and behaviours of consumers. We wrote briefly about various opportunities recently, and it’s reassuring to see the news earlier this month that Digital Cinema Media in the UK, an advertising sales house jointly owned by Odeon and Cineworld, will “in the coming months” launch a mobile app that will attempt to track cinema visits in order to feed data back to advertisers. In return, audiences will get exclusive content, vouchers or free ice cream. Given that the cinema is surely one of the few areas where you can pretty much guarantee a captive audience, this sounds like a great idea. How much it will offset lost revenues from home entertainment though remains an open question.

UPDATE (30/4/13): Data gathered can sometimes be misleading of course because it fails to report things that are not being measured. Such is the case with the current trend, recently reported by The New York Times, of sharing multi-platform viewing accounts for products like HBO Go among friends and even strangers. This trend represents a threat to revenue, but also an opportunity to create further loyalty, if used wisely. Forbes questioned the legality of such activity in a follow-up article.

Is the price right? Battling consumer perceptions in the arts

“Wine is valued by its price, not by its flavour”

- Anthony Trollope

It would be difficult to argue today that attendance and appreciation of Shakespeare’s plays are not, for the most part, restricted to the large niche of the middle classes. This is a pity, and interesting, given that his works are ridden with ribald language, iconoclastic storylines and slapstick humour. In his time, the plays were attended and enjoyed by the masses, ageless and classless. Such reach is the envy of productions performed today. High ticket prices charged by theatres – in a quest to secure enough funding every season to recoup the cost of production - must bear some of the blame. But does price, apart from acting as an immediate barrier to entry for some customers, also act as its own signifier of what the event entails, and the audience it is appropriate for?

In 2009, BBC’s Question Time hosted writer Bonnie Greer and, among others, Nick Griffin, chairman of the radical BNP. The ordeal was such that Greer was inspired to write an opera chronicling the evening’s events. Performed at the end of 2011, Greer hoped Yes would make an effective contribution to the UK debate on both immigration and racism. Such substantive content is what media like opera need in order to maintain relevance.”It’s relatively recently that opera has been seen as an entertainment for the elite”, Greer commented. “It used to be a populist medium – I’d like to play some role in reinstating that status”. This runs counter to other contemporary productions, such as Stockhausen’s operatic sci-fi saga Licht, recently performed in Birmingham. At one point, a string orchestra ascends into the air in helicopters, while later a cellist performs lying on the floor. It would be remiss not to mention the climax of the production, which, Alex Ross, writing for The New Yorker, fails to describe: ”Space does not permit a description of the scene in which [a] camel defecates seven planets”. It is hard to imagine such fare being everyone’s cup of tea. Indeed, it is this sort of seemingly self-interested, arcane and intellectually challenging art that is likely to turn people off an entire medium. Some institutions recognise this. Earlier this month the Royal Opera House hosted what they called the “first in a new series of live-streamed events to feature debate, performance, and audience questions”, around the question ‘Are opera and ballet elitist?‘.

In the past though, the Royal Opera House and other institutions have been too focused on short term gimmicks, with a focus on price, to get people through the door. The thinking is broadly logical: Why don’t more people come to the opera? / The opera is expensive / Lowering prices will attract more people to the opera. These three thoughts have plausible connections, but in reality little in common. Like ‘vulgar Marxism’, such an approach reduces the problem to its most simplistic attributes. It is a fallacy. Despite this, The Sun newspaper has in the past partnered with the ROH to offer tickets from GBP5-20. The scheme was a lottery system, guaranteeing few winners. It provides little opportunity for conversion into a regular customer. Meanwhile, both The Sun and the ROH achieve their aims of shifting brand perceptions. But there is far more that could be accomplished. The BBC reported positive reactions from those that took up the offer, “What The Sun is doing is fantastic – opening the opera up to people who wouldn’t normally be able to come”. This despite the fact that opera tickets are consistently available for GBP10 at the ROH, every season. Away from price, the English National Opera tried their own tactic in October last year, inviting people to enjoy the opera in “jeans and trainers”.  But does the problem of democratising opera really have its answer in allowing people to wear denim? It seems absurd to think that a one-off event of such a nature could really attract new, long-term audiences. Indeed, The Telegraph reported on the affair, saying the ENO was missing the point, that in fact it was the “alluring glamour” of the medium that was what attracted audiences the world over; “It turns opera into an everyday thing, rather than something exceptional and magical”, wrote Rupert Christiansen. He elaborates on the problem,

“[Opera] can make for an atmosphere that outsiders and newcomers find exclusive and intimidating: it’s as though there’s a set of rules that nobody is going to explain or even admit the existence of. This… rubs up the wrong way against the Arts Council’s understandable insistence that the granting of subsidy via taxpayers’ money should mean open access at reasonable prices. Squaring this circle is a formula that nobody has yet managed to crack.”

The outgoing director of the ROH, Tony Hall – on his way to assume a new post at the BBC – wrote diary entries published last weekend in the FT. He wrote about the recent partnership established with the Theatro Municpal in Rio. Like the ROH, they are also looking to attract new audiences: “An idea I particularly like is where every seat in the house for a day a year is sold on the day for a real (about 33p)”. On the face of it this sounds noble and effective. Who wouldn’t want to see any form of entertainment, let alone an extravagantly produced opera, for a mere 33p? But let’s think about it. Doing this one day a year is miserly. It hardly encourages upselling, or long-term commitment. What it most assuredly encourages is that one day a year the opera house attracts plenty of press coverage as people line the streets queueing for such cheap tickets. Cheap tickets for one day a year is an act that smacks of condescension. And what of the price itself? Zeitgeist has written before about the power of behavioural economics. McKinsey have an interesting article on the study. To wit, for most people, consciously or otherwise, price is an overriding symbol of value. Price is used often, especially by premium brands, as a means of framing the product versus its peers. We often make irrational purchases on big-ticket items (a car being chief among these). Conversely, when something is cheap, especially when perceived as ‘too’ cheap, the consumer questions why it is at such a price, acting with suspicion. At its simplest, pricing tickets to the opera at 33p implies that it might not be something you would enjoy. The first reaction – often the most powerful – instilled in the consumer is one of trepidation.

The Globe theatre has a simple, long-term strategy for attracting new audiences

Just as with the current government’s wrangling over minimum pricing policies for alcohol, the approach from the arts to occasionally allow the unwashed masses into their buildings misses the point. In the case of alcohol, the scheme was mainly invented to curb youth drinking, especially among the ‘working class’. But, as The Economist points out, “People on the lowest incomes, who are most price-sensitive, are surprisingly abstemious anyway; those in rich parts of the country, such as the south-east, consume copiously”. Shakespeare’s Globe does a good job of making the Bard’s plays accessible, with standing tickets for GBP5, something that Zeitgeist has taken advantage of several times over the years. It is one of the few artistic houses to have preserved this manner of watching a performance. It upholds tradition while at the same time ensuring the plays have access to a broader public. The Royal Court Theatre in London’s Sloane Square offers a few standing tickets for every performance for a mere 10p. It’s a great idea to have this option as a constant as, apart from anything else, it increases the likelihood of having returning customers who can be upsold to – or cross-sold to in the bar downstairs. Zeitgeist imagines however that the theatre could easily get away with charging ten times the amount for a standing ticket, with zero depreciable effect.

There is no doubt that a certain amount of price elasticity indeed exists with items like tickets to the opera. But occasionally releasing cheap tickets is not the whole answer. There are larger questions here on arts funding and the absence of dedicated, large-scale philanthropy in the UK that have not been discussed here, but will be important in encouraging accessibility to the arts. Earlier we mentioned the recent debate the ROH hosted asking whether people thought opera and ballet to be elitist. The problem with such a question is it immediately consigns the word ‘elitist’ to a pejorative category. One of the greatest points Jon Stewart ever made – now some years back – on The Daily Show, was that the word ‘elite’ should in some contexts be a good thing, something to be embraced. That some people excel in a certain discipline is something to be celebrated. That some art transcends others, is beautiful, challenging, creative and stimulating is something to be cherished. Instead the word and concept have become uniformly demonised. Though one could easily question ‘canon’ texts in any medium, there should be no need to mask something that is perceived as being ‘high art’, rather attention should only be paid to debunking any preconceptions about its exclusivity. Quick price gouges are most certainly not the answer to improving access to these forms of art. It takes time, relevance and above all a security in the knowledge that not everyone has to enjoy every type of entertainment. Just provide them with opportunities to be sufficiently exposed to it, without making it seem like you’re deigning to include them.

Fit to Print – Recommendations and lessons for print media

“Breaking an old business model is always going to require leaders to follow their instinct. There will always be persuasive reasons not to take a risk. But if you only do what worked in the past, you will wake up one day and find that you’ve been passed by.”

- Clayton Christensen

What do Dell, The New Yorker and the music industry have in common? All three are currently grappling fundamentally with their business models in the face of creative destruction at the hands of digital disruption. The CEO of Dell is struggling to take it private at the moment – in a proposed $24.4bn buyout – in an effort to ensure its strategy looks away from the short-term needs of investors while it restructures with a new, long-term strategy that will shift focus away from its core PC business. An issue of The New Yorker hardly makes for a quick read, but has been one of the more innovative companies among its peers to embrace and experiment with digital. We wrote about their initiatives last summer. Recently, for their anniversary issue, the publisher offered digital issues for 99c, an offer that Zeitgeist took them up on, and it was pleasing to see how well the digital edition mirrored with print one, while at the same time adding some features that took advantage of being on a digital product. Last week, The Economist published an article on the music industry, which is beginning to see glimmers of hope in its revenues from digital sales. “Sales of recorded music grew in 2012 for the first time since 1999“, although only by an anemic 0.3%. This is still better than Hollywood, which had to settle for celebrating a flattening of home entertainment revenues, after years of decline. After almost being destroyed by it, a third of the music industry’s revenues now come from digital, but they are barely keeping up with the decline in physical sales, which makes up the bulk of other revenues. Lucian Grainge, chairman and chief executive of Universal Music Group, spoke to the Financial Times at the weekend,

“The industry needs transforming. It’s for others to decide whether they want to get stuck in the past or whether they want to come on the journey… We’ve learnt an awful lot, but it’s like being in a commercial earthquake and the reality is it takes time to get out from beneath the desk where you’re protecting yourself and move forward.”

Indeed, one of the biggest issues industries must address is when is the right moment to risk their current business model in order to address change and adapt. Grainge talks about the industry need for a “constructive collision” between musicians, content owners, distributors, entrepreneurs and investors. To what extent this is happening is unclear, but it is certainly thinking outside the box, and could well be applied to other areas similarly suffering at the hands of such change. As goes the music and film industries, so goes the print industry too? How do print titles develop profitable models for generating profits in the face of such volatility in changing consumption habits and digital disruption?

New methods of media consumption have driven consumers to distraction

In December 2012, consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG) published a report entitled ‘Transforming Print Media’. The report begins on a sour note, admitting that the conventional wisdom is that newspaper and magazine publishing is “a dying business”. This is a hard assertion to counter though, and the consultancy’s own graphics show a rather alarming lack of growth in developed countries. Emerging markets, conversely, are seeing growth in both print advertising and circulation, for both newspapers and magazines. For instance, while between 2006 and 2011, the US has seen a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) decline of 12% in print advertising, China has seen an 8.5% uptick, and India a 13.9% growth. One of the immediate problems the report addresses, and one which Michael Dell is looking to neutralise is that of concentrating on short-term gain at the expense of long-term restructuring with a rigorous focus on which adjacencies work well and which do not. This can be immensely hard to justify in an environment of quarterly earnings reports and instant CNBC updates. BCG suggests implementing a strategy that will instill long-term change while also providing medium-term gains to keep investors happy. The report proposes a 3-5 year plan, and, interestingly, notes that success will rely “more on execution than insight”. Zeitgeist would counter that without both being optimal, the strategy is bound to fail. Moreover, knowing exactly who you want to target and how their methods of media consumption and interaction have altered / are altering is a critical tool for success. It also points out that new business models should not be about “trading print dollars for digital pennies”, something that the music and to some extent the film industry are both grappling with currently.

David Carey, head of Hearst Magazines, commented last year that, in publishing, “you need five or six revenue streams to make the business really successful”. One of the key points that recurs throughout the BCG report, which Zeitgeist, while working on developing strategic recommendations for the Financial Times last year, was also in favour of, was in extending the reach of the business in new directions. These directions leverage the brand equity of the company and extend into areas adjacent to the company’s expertise. For the FT, opportunities exist to extend the brand name into complementary areas of luxury with which the paper is already associated. Monocle has made in-roads into diversification by starting a radio station, which it says is very attractive to advertisers because they have a clear idea of their audience; the type of high-earning consumers who never normally listen to radio. As well as new revenue streams, Zeitgeist also focused on customer retention. One important consideration was that of both vertical and horizontal cohesion. The business as a brand must speak in a relevant, cohesive way across channels, and, in the case of the FT, speak in the appropriate way to its many different readers around the world. BCG advocates “reassessing vendor relationships; stream- lining editorial, content sharing, ad pricing, and production processes; and pooling advertising sales across titles or clusters… the right changes to financial policies— particularly to debt levels and ratios, dividends, and buybacks —can create a clear and compelling case for long-term health, can lift stock prices, and can attract more patient investors.”

Research has shown that price elasticity does not play a part for newspaper buying. Higher pricing, conversely, improves revenue

Price is a fundamental consideration too. For the FT, Zeitgeist extemporised on the importance of price. Referencing behavioural economics, price for the FT acted as an anchor. It framed the paper more by juxtaposing it with its cheaper peers than by giving it any inherent value. In reports from the last few years taken both in Europe and the US, several major broadsheet newspapers were studied. They had all raised their prices. Some of them had seen their circulation decrease. But all of them had seen increases in revenue, even the ones that had lost circulation. Zeitgeist presented the FT with an analogy; the champagne label Krug, some years ago, hiked up its price, with little notice and for no perceived reason. Production, pricing and taste had not changed. The company lost some suppliers because of this change. But overall, their revenues increased. Krug was now in the upper echelons of the luxurious world of champagne, done to coincide with a global rebrand that appeared in all the right places. BCG alludes to the price increases in its report, saying consumers will “perceive greater value in the product than the amount it is costing them… there is the ability to increase these prices by as much as 70 to 100 percent…”. The report addresses paywalls, which Zeitgeist have written about several times in the past. The key it seems is in making these paywalls permeable, not inflexible. This is one issue the FT will need to address, one its peers, like the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), The New York Times and The New Yorker, have taken steps in the direction of already. The WSJ has frequently taken down its paywall during times of emergency (such as Hurricane Sandy), or for sponsored promotions. Advertisers still play a significant role in US print advertising – a $34bn role – but it is diminishing. The New York Times reported last year that advertising revenue had dropped below subscription revenue. As worrying as this is, it should provide an opportunity for companies to focus more on producing content that the actual readers want, rather than what the advertisers want to see. Broadly, the difficulty lies in getting consumers to see the worth of a digital product versus a hard copy. Obviously this issue is not restricted to the publishing industry.

Krug champagne used behavioural economics to alter its place in the market

The importance of the transition to digital is hard to overstate. As well as issues of pricing and paywall strategy, there is also social media to consider. Here, the FT is a good example of a brand that is playing it safe, operating for the most part with a very top-down messaging strategy that leaves little room for collaborative communication. But digital production and the expectation of instant news also means that companies are having to change the way they produce content. Speaking at the Future of Media summit at the Broadcast and Video Expo recently, Editor in Chief of Time Out London Tim Arthur said their changes were “led partly by necessity and partly by desire”. BCG outlines three models that are emerging: “dedicated print and digital editorial teams, integrated teams that operate throughout the print and digital platforms, and full editorial integration”. There are several advantages to be leveraged through digital as well. Research is a big one. Time Out’s Tim Arthur admitted they never used to carry out research until their recent transformation, which included an overhaul of their digital strategy, as well as making their hard copy paper free. It was great then to hear how the company was now using multiple channels to collate data and engage audiences at the same time. Unlike the FT, Time Out was no longer engaging in a one-way conversation, and they were operating with “less arrogance”. The company changed from a content-stacked, “trickle down” approach to one that recognised different audience needs over different platforms, which is a key insight. Furthermore, the opportunities to make advertising more engaging are also quite evident. iAds for example, allow more interaction. A recent ad in The New Yorker promoted a new book with a ‘tap to read a chapter’ function.

“These considerations inevitably lead to a series of hard choices about the degree of diversification that publishers can realistically undertake”, so summarises the BCG report, which suggests controlled experimentation to work out the best model. On an internal level, the company must convince employees that this change will be for the better and for the long-term. It must also convince shareholders of the benefits, while showing real value as early as possible. Such a transformation provides opportunities for streamlining technologies and future-proofing ways of working. It should make the brand think about what its equity is, and where else it can push out to in order to drive new revenue streams. Digital is not something to be feared, it should be embraced. The opportunities for more targeted, engaging advertising, not least through the use of consumer data, which also can help provide more tailored and attractive content – content that is “useful to others” as Arthur says – will be fundamental steps to take. The music industry, which was ravaged by Napster and its myrmidons at the end of the 20th century, took an age to wake up to realisation that money could be made from the millions of people who were already downloading songs online. The film and television industries have reacted slightly faster, and initiatives like Hulu, Ultraviolet and Tesco’s Clubcard TV will help stem the tide. Print on the whole is more on top of the game. Companies like the Financial Times and Time Out are driving innovation in the sector, but must still more readily embrace change if they are to really connect with future readers. Time will tell.

Taking flight – Opportunities and obstacles in democratising luxury

I don’t think democratic luxury exists. I don’t believe in something for everyone… How can we possibly put these products on the Web site without the tactile experience of luxury?”

- Brunello Cucinelli

The democratisation of fashion took a beating this past week as news reached Zeitgeist that Fashion’s Night Out was to be no more. Spearheaded by Anna Wintour at the height of the global recession, the idea was for a curated evening; a chance for stores to open their doors late, inviting a party atmosphere and focussing spend on a calendar event. The Wall Street Journal wrote that last year, “Michael Kors judged a karaoke competition at his store on Madison Avenue, rapper Azealia Banks performed at the MAC store in Soho and a game night was held at a Kate Spade store.” The evening festivities were replicated across New York, London and other cities.
Zeitgeist happened to be on Manahattan’s Spring Street last September when the most recent FNO was held, waiting patiently for a perenially-late friend who works next door to Mulberry. While waiting, it was absolutely fascinating to see the sheer of variety of people out on the street. While the crowds were mostly composed of women, the groups ranged from college-aged JAPs and the avant-garde to hipsters and stay-at-home mothers. Most gawped excitedly as they beheld the Mulberry boutique, enticed by the glimpses of free food and drink, as well the sultry bass tones of some cool track. One elegantly dressed fashionista strode hurriedly past Zeitgeist, lamenting to her cellphone “Oh God, it’s Fashion’s Night Out tonight”.
Ultimately perhaps it was such feelings among the fashion set that caused FNO to come to an abrupt end. But Zeitgeist got the sense that, while undeniably a celebration of fashion and an opportunity for brands to showcase their attractively experiential side – particularly to those who might usually be deterred by luxury brands and their perceived sense of formality – there weren’t a great deal of people actually buying things. It’s quite possible that the whole strategy of attracting a crowd who would not otherwise frequent such stores backfired; they turned up, sampled the free booze, felt what it must be like to shop at such-and-such a label, then moved on to the next faux-glitzy event with thumping music. This then was a failed attempt to bring luxury to the masses.

On a macro scale, the cause for democratisation is hardly helped by the global financial crisis. Although over four years old, the ramifications and scarring done to the economy are still sorely felt. This is illustrated in the unemployment figures around the world, tumultuous elections and anecdotal tales of hardship. More starkly, they are being backed up by solid quantitative research that proves we as a world are less connected now than we were in 2007. In December last year, The Economist reported on the DHL Global Connectedness Index, which concluded that connections between countries in 2012 were shallower (meaning less of the nation’s economy is internationalised) and narrower (meaning it connects with fewer countries) than before the recession. Meanwhile, just this past week, the McKinsey Global Institute published a report showing financial capital flows between countries were still 60% below their pre-recession high. This kind of business environment hardly fosters egalitarian conduct, and indeed such isolationist thinking was on show at Paris Fashion Week recently, where designers clung to their French heritage as a badge of honour. Exactly at the time when art needs to be leading the way in cultural integration, as emerging markets not only continue to make up a larger part of the customer base, but also develop their own powerful brands, it seemed that designers, like the financial markets, retreated to what they knew and found safe.

The world is less connected today than in 2007

Where the ideology of democratising fashion has seen more success is of course online. We’ve written before about how luxury is struggling with the extent to which they invest in e-commerce. One of the principle hurdles is that the nature of luxury – elite, arcane, exclusive – is more or less diametrically opposed to the nature of the Internet – open, borderless, democratic.
Yet the story of Yoox – the popular and, in online terms, long-lasting fashion ecommerce platform – and its founder is one of just such democratisation. (It is particularly stunning to read of the difficulties the founder, a Columbia MBA graduate, Lehman Brothers and Bain & Co. alum, had in attracting VC funding). It also, crucially, points to the importance of recognizing multiple audiences, and how they like to shop differently depending on context. John Seabrook, writing in The New Yorker, reports that when Federico Marchetti set up Yoox in 2000, the world of ecommerce for fashion was regarded as a not particularly salubrious environment. Rather, the magazine compares it to outlet stores like Woodbury Common, fifty miles north of New York. Luxury brands like Prada and Marni could be found there, offering deep discounts on their wares, and it was for that reason – and the lack of control over their own brand – that they didn’t like much to talk about such places. This, despite the fact that they attracted 12 million people in 2011, “almost twice the number of visitors to the Metropolitan Museum”. Yoox this way too, greeted with much trepidation by fashion retailers. The article quotes an analyst from Forrester Research:

“It was a matter of principle with luxury brands that only people who shop on eBay use the internet – and their only interest was in getting a low price.”

Marchetti’s only available source of designer clothing was from last season and beyond, as no brand would sell their current collection. He curried favour with some of them though by advertising the prices without noting the discount customers were getting. Other than that, luxury brands took little or no notice.

Online shopping though would prove to be “one of the largest disruptions of the luxury-goods industry since the birth of the department store”. There are three kinds of online store today; those that sell deep-discounted goods on end-of-season wear, those that sell in-season clothing, and those that have flash sales of small numbers of clothing or accessories. It turned out there was an audience for all of these types of website. Bridget Foley, executive editor of WWD is quoted in the article saying “[T]here has been a sea change in attitude… I think [it] surprised the fashion industry… Just because you love clothes doesn’t mean you love shopping“. This struck Zeitgeist as one of the more important insights in the lengthy article. Though retailers often harp on about the importance of the retail environment, the need to touch the product, to be in an atmosphere where everything has been curated down to the finest detail, online neutralises all of that. This idea threatens those in the luxury sector, as the thinking goes that any such premium on products may seem less justifiable away from a Peter Marino-designed armchair and a nice glass of champagne. Such ideas are being challenged though. Not only is the nature of the store changing – from robotic sales staff to customers as models on the catwalk – but so is the view of the luxury customer as a homogenous, static group, devoid of context. Zeitgeist was at a Future of Media summit at the Broadcast Video Expo last week, where, as behavioural economics suggest, MD of Commercial, Online and Interactive for ITV Fru Hazlitt insisted that consumers had to be targeted in ways that were pertinent to them, not only as demographic groups, but in ways that recognised the context of how approachable they were likely to be at the time, given the programming they were watching. Fru admitted that in years past, broadcasters like ITV had seen advertising as “space to rent out”. Now they were thinking deeply about how and when is the right moment to reach their target consumer. It is the same in fashion. There is not one single way to reach the consumer; buyers of luxury goods do not want to be solely restricted to being able to buy your wares in a physical store.

Chanel are one of the few remaining luxury brands to resist fully integrating online

Behavioural economics played a role in Marchetti’s initial framing of the audience for the website as well. He hired pedigreed fashion writes, as well as artists, architects and designers to make special projects that lent the website an air of curation, of something more special and rarefied that what one might find – or more importantly the way one might feel – at an outlet mall. Marchetti wanted the customers “to see themselves as connoisseurs, even if they were really just hunting for bargains”. The New Yorker article goes into some anecdotal detail about the way people shop on Yoox, which crucially differs not only from the way they would shop in-store, but also from other e-tailers. For online shopping in general, the experience is one where you can purchase ten items, and return nine of them with very little hassle, with credit for multiple rather than a single brand, and certainly no raised eyebrow from a pretentious shop assistant. Regarding specific sites, Yoox, unlike Net a Porter, for example, does not try to force a set of looks onto the user. Behavioural economics tell us that people irrationally value something more when they’ve been made to work a bit to get it. Such is the case now shopping for luxury items, which makes clothing not in-season (i.e. not currently in every shop window), both cooler and cheaper. It’s an act not to be discouraged. A Saks representative says customers who shop online as well as in store buy four times as much merchandise as customers who shop only in the store. What will worry retailers though is that the convenience of the online store outweighs the experience of the physical boutique. The New Yorker quotes a shopper: “I’ll never buy a dress at the Prada boutique again after getting these really amazing ones on Yoox.”

As well as setting up the Yoox website, Marchetti’s company now also powers the online stores of more than thirty fashion houses, including Armani and Jil Sander. Last summer, PPR joined in too, after conceding that their in-house expertise was not up to snuff. The latest development is making designs available to any customer as soon as it hits the runway. Burberry, as well as separate sites like Moda Operandi, have spearheaded this innovative change, which is effecting editorial as well as buying methods previously seen as unshakeable. The demand for this type of instant purchasing seems to be fueled by a niche – albeit a sizable one – that is not representative of the majority of luxury shoppers. The accessibility of a brand and its products is a tricky one to tread, one which Zeitgeist has written about several times before. Tom Ford performed a volte-face this year, after debuting his womenswear collection with no press and VIPs only, relented this year at London Fashion Week by letting bloggers write about the show. Chanel still steadfastly refuses to fully engage with online shopping. The tension is keenly felt in the New Yorker article, where Amazon’s new entry into the world of fashion is referenced. The CEO of Valentino is unconvinced: “Valentino is high luxury… People going to Amazon are not going to Valentino“. This smacks a little of pride and ignorance, for they most assuredly are, though perhaps not with luxury purchases in mind… yet.

It comes back to the idea that there are myriad types of luxury consumer. The industry has not fully acknowledged as of yet that the buying behaviour of a descendant of the ancien regime in Paris is unlikely to buy in the same way as a newly-minted businessman in Shenzhen. They may know that these types of buyers exist, and they may even create different products for each. Importantly though, they are not recognising that these people may go about purchasing in a different way. It’s not just a purchase journey that has changed massively in recent years, as McKinsey’s consumer decision journey illustrates above. It’s also, as ITV’s Fru Hazlitt insists, about recognising that different people shop in different ways, wholly dependent on context. Though Fashion’s Night Out may be on permanent hiatus, and though the global economy may be sputtering along in second gear, the opportunities to leverage deep insights into consumer purchase preferences are there for the taking. Yoox, along with a deeply complicated algorithm, are trying to tap into just this. But the process must start with realising that yes, actually, someone might want to pick up that Valentino dress while surfing on Amazon.

Super Safe Super Bowl

The Super Bowl, an annual orgy of excess for those seeking to tubthump their products on television, where a 30-second spot can cost up to $4m, is taking an increasingly holistic approach to promotion, using social media to make for a more integrated offering. In the end it was Twitter that came to the fore during this year’s event, when a power cut during the game created a captive audience for savvy brands (such as Oreo) to take advantage of.

It was interesting yesterday to hear the talking heads of CNBC reviewing the success of the advertisements that played during the game (click the headline image for a link to the discussion). Zeitgeist’s thoughts were provoked particularly on the question of whether the risk of outrage from social media backlashes was now so great that advertisers were becoming far more risk-averse than in the past, preferring instead to tug at heartstrings with ads like Budweiser’s, below, which was admittedly Zeitgeist’s favourite.

Selling the extraordinary

“Everything has become more experiential”

- Dante D’Angelo, brand and consumer development director at Valentino

It is an odd state of affairs indeed for the retail sector at the moment. On the one hand, consumers are flocking to digital devices like never before, particularly for their shopping. Conversely, this means that the physical experience of shopping becomes rarer, creating more opportunities for specialism. An article in the Financial Times a few weeks ago read as if a commercial plague had swept through the UK high street over the past few years. With 4,000 stores affected, 2012 was, according to data from the Centre for Retail Research, the “worst year since the start of the credit crisis in 2008″. Names of erstwhile stalwarts like Woolworth’s, Jessop’s, Peacocks and Clinton Cards have all fallen under the knife. As we wrote at the beginning of last month, what little salvation there is lies in embracing digital technologies.

The luxury sector however has its own special, gilt-edged cards to play. In St. Tropez, the Christian Dior boutique’s ample courtyard has recently been made use of with an all-day restaurant. Louis Vuitton have a cinema screening classic Italian films in their Rome boutique. It’s no wonder such brands have also branched into the hospitality sector, the former working with the St. Regis to develop branded rooms, the latter into full-scale hotel management. Ferragamo have been involved in the hotel sector for years. Two recent examples show how companies can extend the experience for visitors, and help drive revenue at the same time.

The auction house Sotheby’s will tomorrow auction a rather large collection of surrealist art. One of the few things that definitively puts it ahead of Christie’s is that it has its own cafe, which, last week and this week, is pushing the surrealism theme into its catering (see above menu). It’s a simple, creative idea that creates a cohesive brand, celebrates a big event, and ultimately hopes to drive revenue from peripheral streams around the auction. The RA’s current Manet exhibition is taking a leaf from this tactic, opening later but charging double the usual rates for a special experience, including a drink and a guide. The other interesting news of note was a new tactic being employed by the fashion company Valentino. Not content merely with having a major exhibition at London’s Somerset House, the label is also tinkering in an innovative way with its event structure. As detailed last week in Bloomberg Businessweek, Valentino is opening a new boutique in New York later this year, during which the typical glitterati will be in attendance. However, the new idea comes in the form of the company inviting prized customers to the opening for the chance to rub shoulders with said VIPs, for a steep price. Similarly, Gucci is offering its non-VIP customers tours of its Florence workshops for the first time.

Something that Zeitgeist has been noticing for a couple of years now, recently echoed by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) senior partner Jean-Marc Bellaiche, is the importance, particularly for those in their 20s – like Zeitgeist – that people place in defining themselves by what they’ve done rather than what they own: “In an era of over-consumption, people are realizing that there is more than just buying products… Buying experiences provides more pleasure and satisfaction”. On a macro level there is significant bifurcation in the retail market; not everyone will be able to afford in creating extraordinary experiences for their customers. A recent BCG report helps illustrate this, noting that while the apparel sector as a whole saw shareholder returns fall by 1.3% for the period 2007-2011, the top ten players produced a weighted average annual total shareholder return of 19%. Expect then for retailers – those that can – to increasingly provide exclusive experiences to their customers, beyond the celebrity, whether it be early product releases, tours, or events. Just don’t expect it to come without a pricetag.

Beyond the Linear – New ways of entertaining

The days of P.T. Barnum and the sense of spectacle an audience received from seeing a live performance have long passed; codified, commodotised, sanitised and made instantly available. Or have they? The way we entertain ourselves nowadays has changed greatly, and keeps changing. But are our tastes evolving or revolving? Is there hope for such seeming anachronisms as the TV, the live performance and even the book?

Two years ago, Zeitgeist wrote a brief article on the nature of contemporary consumption of media. It began with the headline that 8-18 year olds in the US spend a quarter of their media time with multiple devices. Furthermore, almost a quarter of that age group use one other device most of the time while watching television. In 2013, this preference for multiple stimuli has only accelerated. 80% of UK smartphone owners (making up over half the phone-owning population) use their phones while watching the TV. Similar figures were reported in the US, and similar figures were also reported for tablet owners.  Such figures give marketers pause for thought as they begin to approach these complementary devices as ways to extend their brand from the television onto the second screen. JWT Intelligence has a great report on this.

However, it is easy to overstate the arrival of shiny, new devices, and the apparent death of television. The blame for this misconception lies partly with the media itself; journalism is less engaging when it merely reports on the maintenance of the status quo (i.e. ‘people are still watching TV’). Far more interesting to hear about what new objects are showing a bit of ankle at CES, and that us mere mortals might one day dare to dream of owning ourselves, at which point all other material objects become unnecessary. All the more so when the journalistic integrity is compromised by corporate meddling, as was the case with CNET’s reporting this year. It was refreshing then to read TechCrunch’s recent article with the headline, ‘TV still King in Media Consumption’. The article, quoting a recent report by Nielsen, was particularly interesting in noting the prevalence of TV when it referenced that almost half the homes with TVs in the US owned four or more sets. Startling. More startling, the average household spends six days a month watching television, far ahead of other media consumption (using the Internet on a computer, at a little over 28 hours a month, came a distant second). The FT writes,

Over the past decade, despite the proliferation of video content on the web, TV consumption in the UK has remained steady with the average person watching about four hours a day. Almost 80 per cent of this viewing is on the top five channels, virtually unchanged from 10 years ago.

Creative destruction is something Zeitgeist takes an active interest in and has written about several times before on this blog. It takes hold in some industries (and households in this case) more quickly than in others. The same Nielsen study found that over 55% of US homes still had working VCRs. Moreover, despite much editorial to the contrary over recent years, the PC has not yet been wiped out by creative destruction and remains a staple for several reasons in both Western and emerging economies. According to Deloitte’s recent publication, “Technology, Media and Telecoms Predictions 2013″, although the attraction of tablets – and now ‘phablets’ – mean powerful computing and a cheaper cost, allowing the potential for leapfrogging of PCs in emerging markets, qualitative research shows a small but significant demand remains for PC ownership. Moreover, many businesses in the West, currently struggling with the implications of BYO devices, are not about to jettison the PC either. Switching costs, Zeitgeist suspects, are at play here, as with those stubborn VCR owners. Click here for more of our thoughts on switching costs.

VCR owners though will one day cease to be in the majority. New avenues of distribution and consumption are opening up, though not as quickly as first thought in some cases, particularly in that of live, streaming TV, which has faced many regulatory hurdles. Variety elaborates, “Loudly trumpeted efforts have fallen short, victims of poor design decisions, overpriced services and/or confusion about the target audience”. Yet alternatives are there. One of the more interesting streaming TV options in the US currently is that of Dyle, with 90 stations in 35 markets. It is run by a partnership that includes Fox, NBC, Hearst Television and others. The really interesting thing about the service is that it neutralises the problem many smartphone users will have of returning data caps by streaming off a separate network spectrum, which doesn’t impact on data allowances. Nice thinking.

Is the increasing popularity of streaming, and the content viewers prefer to watch over such a channel, already beginning to effect the types of films being produced?

Though new technology has not created new tastes in content or viewing habits, it has undeniably acted as a catalyst to desires already present. Zeitgeist remembers hearing a LoveFilm representative speak last year at AdTech in London about the increasing share streaming films took in the marketplace. Nothing too extraordinary in that statement, especially from a purveyor of streaming content. The rub came when he went on to elaborate that people tend to stream films when they are in the mood for instant gratification, in the form usually of an action film or romantic comedy. The increasing popularity of streaming, and therefore the increasing popularity of these particular genres, means the way the medium is distributed may very likely have a very significant influence on the type of content in the future that is commissioned. It was no surprise then to see, on a recent cinema trip, trailers for three films that neatly fit into that category for instant gratification (see above). Zeitgeist wrote at length on the need for film studios to address arbitrary platform release windows at the end of last year. Our article was mentioned in the lead editorial of entertainment trade paper Variety. Part of our argument is beginning to be addressed already. The FT recently published news that studios had managed to stem the six year decline in home viewing figures for films last year. The article elaborates that this is in part due to the strength of digital downloads, with films sometimes being available for digital distribution before they were available on DVD. Taken 2, a superb candidate for streaming given the previous statement by LoveFilm, was released Christmas Day in the US on digital platforms, “weeks before its release on DVD”. Such thinking goes hand-in-hand with the new UltraViolet format, to which several studios are subscribing. This allows those purchasing a movie on DVD – such as the recent Dark Knight Rises – to watch it with ease on multiple platforms. Mashable carried an article last week stating that several electronics firms have now also signed up to the UltraViolet partnership. Consumers will receive ten free movies when they sign up to the service, as incentive.

The example of Netflix is an interesting one in trying to understand the balance between consumers’ desire for multiple media and instantly-accessible content, and content owners desires to drive maximum revenue from their product. The company has been making a bigger push into providing TV shows of late, and is being rewarded for it, particularly with regard to older shows. A cultural trend many a pundit has put their finger on since the credit crunch began to bite back in 2008, nostalgia has manifested itself in consumers’ desire for old shows, including Midsomer Murders and Rising Damp, reports the FT. This long tail effect is turning a tidy profit for Netflix, as well as the original broadcaster, ITV. As a complement to this, the company is also fostering new partnerships, first with Disney in December, giving it “exclusive rights from 2016 to movies from Disney, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, Marvel Studios, and Disneynature”. Then, at the beginning of this year, it inked a deal with Warner Brothers, to show new and old TV shows from the studio. It should be noted however, as with all these new deals and technological developments and marches into previously uncharted territory, regulatory wranglings have ensued, in this case with sister company Time Warner Cable. The problem in this situation is not perhaps so much that Netflix is trying hard to push its availability into lateral markets, but that it is not trying hard enough to create a cohesive platform that is available across all complementary platforms and devices. One thing which Netflix will want desperately to escape being accused of – and it has done so with much success thus far – is being a niche provider of content. Sadly, the days of the point-and-shoot camera, the dedicated games console, etc., are numbered, according to a recent report by Accenture.

It is evidently with such a strategic outlook in mind that Disney have recently announced their Infinity gaming platform. Variety describes it as an “online treasure chest”, featuring a plethora of Disney characters from over the years that can be interacted with over multiple platforms, whether on mobile or on videogame consoles. Importantly, the concept is designed to be an iterative, one that will grow and add characters over time, presumably as new IP is created. It certainly pays heed to the second screen phenomenon by recognising the need for multiple device access. It also plays off the trend started by the game ‘Skylanders’, which involves both physical toys and digital interaction. The same principle will apply with new toys developed for Infinity, which can then be used to create unique stories and drive narratives. The idea of having disparate characters from different Disney franchises is potentially a frightening one for those in charge of the individual brand essences of said titles, but the potential for success can be found by looking no further than the Toy Story films, which feature an assortment of different genre toys that mix well in situ.

We’ve discussed the changing models of consumption for most of the article, but it is worth noting briefly how our cultural tastes are also changing, brought on by technology (again), but also globalisation. Pundits are often quick to point out nowadays that there is a substantial demand for the live experience. Yet if we look at music, one of the most profound things to experience live, recent figures showed attendance to concerts had dipped. At the end of last year, in an insightful roundtable, The New York Times interviewed several talking heads, asking them to round up their thoughts on 2012 in the music industry. One of the more interesting points repeatedly made was that of the abundant opportunity that the Internet now provides for musical talent. Moreover, the Internet at large has become just as viable – if not a more viable – starting place for an emerging artist than signing with a record label:

“Now this year something’s been proven: Pop performers can become truly famous by building their careers themselves online, maybe more efficiently and faster than a major company can help them to do.

… you look at the first-week sales numbers of someone like Kendrick Lamar, who had an independent album that was digital only and is now on [the major-label] Interscope, but basically has no major radio hits, even if he is well-liked by mainstream hip-hop. He comes out and sells about 240,000 in his first week. A couple weeks later Rihanna comes out — not her first album and at the height of her pop fame — and sells a few thousand less than Kendrick did.”

The other trend, globalisation, has meant that voices increasingly other than those that are Western, are more easily heard. The irrepressible Psy had the honour of being the performer in the first YouTube video to cross one billion views. Conversely, in his home country of South Korea, ‘Gangnam Style’ has accrued a pitiful “$50,000 from CD sales and $61,000 from 3.6m downloads”. The point remains, however, that the fallacy of the West as the cradle of pop culture is being exposed. Christopher Caldwell illustrates this masterfully, writing for the FT in December.

Zeitgeist has written before about the upheaval new trends and preferences for media consumption – impacted significantly by the arrival of the Internet – have wrought on financial growth in the media and entertainment sector. Digital, in the form of Napster and its myrmidons in particular, has a lot to answer for. There was some relief then that at the beginning of the year when UK digital sales topped GBP1 billion for the first time (though still failing to off-set the physical media decline). Moreover, Boston Consulting Group predicted last month – in an excellent report entitled Changing Engines in Midflight: The 2012 TMT Value Creators Report – that by 2015 the digital services ecosystem will reach $1 trillion by 2015 (see above).

It is interesting to see where the ownership of content starts and ends across layers, and how content owners are trying to monetise these platforms and grab as much market share as possible from their competitors. Amazon recently began offering digital downloads of any CD you have purchased from them since 1998. It would be a great surprise to see if they do the same for books anytime soon. Fortunately, reading still constitutes an avenue of entertainment, for those of all ages. A recent piece by The New York Times reported that digital reading was on the rise for children. The article notes the numbers give some room for discrepancy, but states “about one-fourth of the boys who had read an e-book said they were reading more books for fun”, which is a desperately important emotional connection to maintain. While e-reading is a commendable past-time, is there any merit in pushing further, and advocating for interacting with a medium that does not involve a digital display? Such a turn of events, perhaps aided by the trend for nostalgia mentioned earlier, is presenting itself in the luxury hotel market, with physical libraries returning to shelves. It has been termed ‘rematerialism’.

So what does this all mean for consumer entertainment? There are evidently lots of new technologies being released, from smart TVs to new gaming devices, that will attempt to capture eyeballs. These devices, far from having to think of their natural competitors, still have the common television – and, as we have seen, even VCRs – to compete with and overthrow first. TV commands such a huge slice of viewing time, but it is under threat from distracted viewers who are now very comfortable – and more importantly socially accepting – of using a tablet, laptop or phone during a show. There are also regulatory implications t consider, which will most likely be shaped, ex-post, along the way. Taking consumers on a journey across multiple platforms and media in a seamless way will be key. Disney’s Infinity platform, when it is released, will hopefully serve as an excellent example to others of how to combine physical and digital entertainment.

The state of retail

The love of the bargain is what drives them… Click for CNBC’s coverage

It’s a common fallacy to think of a time before a change in status quo as somehow being magically problem-free. A Panglossian world where all was well and nothing needed to change, and wasn’t it a shame that it had to. Similarly, we cannot blithely consign the retail industry of the past to some glorious era when everything was perfect; far from it. The industry has been under continual evolution, with no absence of controversy on the way. It was therefore a timely reminder, as well as being a fascinating article in its own right, when the New York Times provided readers recently with a potted history and a gaze into the future of Manhattan department store stalwart, Barneys. Not only is their past one in which the original proprietor sought to undercut his own suit suppliers, creating a bootlegging economy by literally ripping out their labels and replacing them with his own, but it was also one where department stores served a very different purpose to what they do today. They had less direct competition, not least unforeseen competition in the form of shops without a physical presence. Moreover, today they are run in an extremely different way, with an arguably much healthier emphasis on revenue (though some might say this comes at the expense of a feeling of luxury, in a lobby now brimming with handbags and little breathing room). The problems and opportunities for Barneys could serve as an analogy for the industry of which it is a part.

Despite brief reprieves such as Black Friday (click on headline image for CNBC’s coverage), as well as the expected post-Christmas shopping frenzy, can one of the main problems affecting retail at the moment simply be that it is undergoing an industry-wide bout of creative destruction? Zeitgeist has written about the nature of creative destruction before, and whether or not that is to blame for retail’s woes, the sector is certainly in the doldrums. In the UK, retailers are expecting a “challenging” year ahead. Recent research from Deloitte shows 194 retailers fell into administration in 2012, compared with 183 in 2011 and 165 in 2010. So, unlike the general economy, which broadly can be said to be enjoying a sclerotic recovery of sorts, the state of retail is one of continuing decline. How did this happen, and what steps can be taken to address this?

Zeitgeist would argue that bricks and mortar stores are suffering in essence due to a greater amount of competition. By which, we do not just mean more retailers, on different platforms. Whether it be from other activities (e.g. gaming, whether MMOs like World of Warcraft or simpler social gaming like Angry Birds), or other avenues of shopping (i.e. e-commerce, which Morgan Stanley recently predicted would be a $1 trillion dollar market by 2016), there is less time to shop and more ways to do it. The idea of going to shop in a mall now – once a staple of American past-time – is a much rarer thing today. It would be naive to ignore global pressures from other suppliers and brands around the world as putting a competitive strain on domestic retailers too. Critically, and mostly due to social media, there are now so many more ways and places to reach a consumer that it is difficult for the actual sell to reach the consumer’s ears. This is in part because companies have had to extend their brand activity to such peripheries that the lifestyle angle (e.g. Nike Plus) supercedes the call-to-action, i.e. the ‘BUY ME’. The above video from McKinsey nicely illustrates all the ways that CMOs have to think about winning consumers over, which now extend far beyond the store.

If we look at the in-store experience for a moment without considering externalities, there is certainly opportunity that exists for the innovative retailer. Near the end of last year, the Financial Times published a very interesting case study on polo supplier La Martina. The company’s origins are in making quality polo equipment, from mallets to helmets and everything in between, for professional players. As they expanded – a couple of years ago becoming the principle sponsor of that melange of chic and chav, the Cartier tournament at Guards Polo Club – there came a point where the company had to decide whether it was going to be a mass-fashion brand, or remain something more select and exclusive. As the article in the FT quite rightly points out, “Moving further towards the fashion mainstream risked diluting the brand and exposing it to volatile consumer tastes.” The decision was made to seek what was known as ‘quality volume’. The company has ensured the number of distributors remains low. Zeitgeist would venture to say this doesn’t stop the clothing design itself straying from its somewhat more refined roots, with large logos and status-seeking colours and insignia. Financially though, sales are “growing more than 20% a year in Europe and Latin America”, which is perhaps what counts most currently.

Louis Vuitton’s ‘L’ecriture est un voyage‘ is a good example of experimental thinking and missed opportunities

In the higher world of luxury retail, Louis Vuitton is often at the forefront (not least because of its sustained and engaging digital work). While we’re focusing purely on retail environments though, it was interesting to note that the company recently set up shop (literally) on the left bank of Paris; a pop-up literary salon, to be precise. Such strokes of inspiration and innovation are not uncommon at Vuitton. They help show the brand in a new light, and, crucially, help leverage its provenance and differentiate it from its competition. Sadly, when Zeitgeist went to visit, there was a distinct feeling of disappointment that much more could have been done with the space, which, while nicely curated (see above), did little to sell the brand, particularly as literally nothing was for sale. The stand-out piece, an illustrated edition of Kerouac’s On the Road, by Ed Ruscha, Zeitgeist had seen around two years ago when it was on show at the Gagosian in London. Not every new idea works, but it is important that Louis Vuitton is always there at the forefront, trying and mostly succeeding.

So what ways are there that retailers should be innovating, perhaps beyond the store? One of the more infuriating things Zeitgeist hears constructed as a polemic is that of retail versus the smartphone. This is a very literal allusion, which NBC news were guilty of toward the end of last year. “Retail execs say they’re winning the battle versus smartphones”, the headline blared. What a more nuanced analysis of the situation would realise is that it is less a case of one versus the other, than one helping the other. The store and the phone are both trying to achieve the same things, namely, help the consumer and drive revenue for the company. Any retail strategy should avoid at all costs seeing these two as warring platforms, if only because it is mobile inevitably that will win. With much more sound thinking, eConsultancy recently published an article on the merits of providing in-store WiFi. At first this seems a risky proposition, especially if we are to follow NBC’s knee-jerk way of thinking, i.e. that mobile poses a distinct threat to a retailer’s revenue. The act of browsing in-store, then purchasing a product on a phone is known as showrooming, and, no doubt aided by the catchy name, its supposed threat has quickly made many a store manager nervous. However, as the eConsultancy article readily concedes, this trend is unavoidable, and it can either be ignored or embraced. Deloitte estimated in November that smartphones and tablets will yield almost $1bn in M-commerce revenues over the Christmas period in the UK, and influence in-store sales with a considerably larger value. That same month in the US, Bain & Co. estimated that “digital will influence more than 50% of all holiday retail sales, or about $400 billion”. Those retailers who are going to succeed are the ones who will embrace mobile, digital and their opportunities. eConsultancy offer,

“For example, they could prompt customers to visit web pages with reviews of the products they are considering in store. This could be a powerful driver of sales… WiFi in store also provides a way to capture customer details and target them with offers. In fact, many customers would be willing to receive some offers in return for the convenience of accessing a decent wi-fi network. Tesco recently introduced this in its larger stores… 74% of respondents would be happy for a retailer to send a text or email with promotions while they’re using in-store WiFi.”

These kind of features all speak more broadly to improving and simplifying the in-store experience. They also illustrate a trend in the blending between the virtual and physical retail spaces. Major retailers, not just in luxury, are leading the way in this. Walmart hopes to generate $9bn in digital sales by the end of its next fiscal year. CEO Mike Duke told Fast Company, “The way our customers shop in an increasingly interconnected world is changing”. This interconnectedness is not new, but it is accelerating, and the mainstream arrival of 4G will only help spur it on further. The company is soon to launch a food subscription service, pairing registrants with gourmet, organic, ethnic foods, spear-headed by @WalmartLabs, which is also launching a Facebook gifting service. At the same time, it must be said the company is hedging its bets, continuing with the questionable strategy of building more ‘Supercenters’, the first of which, at the time a revolutionary concept, they opened in 1988.

One interesting development has been the arrival of stores previously restricted to being online into the high street, something which Zeitgeist noted last year. This trend has continued, with eBay recently opening a pop-up store in London’s Covent Garden. These examples are little more than gimmicks though, serving only to remind consumers of the brands’ online presence. Amazon are considering a much bolder move, that of creating permanent physical retail locations, if, as CEO Jeff Bezos says, they can come up with a “truly differentiated idea”. That idea and plan would be anathema to those at Walmart, Target et al., who see Amazon as enough of a competitor as it is, especially with their recent purchase of diapers.com and zappos.com. It serves to illustrate why Walmart’s digital strategies are being taken so seriously internally and invested in so heavily. Amazon though has its own reasons for concern. Earlier in the article we referenced the influence of global pressures on retailers. Amazon is by no means immune to this. Chinese online retailer Tmall will overtake Amazon in sales to become the world’s largest internet retailer by 2016, when Tmall’s sales are projected to hit $100 billion that year, compared to $94 billion for Amazon. The linked article illustrates a divide in the purpose of retail platforms. While Amazon is easy-to-use, engaging and aesthetically pleasing, a Chinese alternative like Taobao is much more bare-bones. As the person interviewed for the article says, “It’s more about pricing – it’s much cheaper. It’s not about how great the experience is. Amazon has a much better experience I guess – but the prices are better on Taobao.”

So how can we make for a more flexible shopping experience? One which perhaps recognises the need in some users to be demanding a sumptuous retail experience, and in others the need for a quick, frugal bargain? Some permutations are beginning to be analysed, and offered. Some of these permutations are being met with caution by media and shoppers. This month, the Wall Street Journal reported that retailer Staples has developed a complex pricing strategy online. Specifically, the WSJ found, it raises prices more than 86% of the time when it finds the online shopper has a physical Staples store nearby. Similar such permutations in other areas are now eminently possible, thanks in no small part to the rise of so-called Big Data. Though the Staples price fluctuations were treated with controversy at the WSJ, they do point to a more realistic supply-and-demand infrastructure, which could really fall under the umbrella of consumer ‘fairness’, that mythical goal for which retailers strive. Furthemore, being able to access CRM data and attune communications programmes to people in specific geographical areas might enable better and more efficient targeting. Digital also allows for a far more immersive experience on the consumer side. ASOS illustrate this particularly well with their click-to-buy videos.

As the Boston Consulting Group point out in a recent report, with the understated title ‘Digital’s Disruption of Consumer Goods and Retail’,  “the first few waves of the digital revolution have upended the retail industry. The coming changes promise even more turmoil”. This turmoil also presents problems and opportunities for the marketing of retail services, which must be subject to just as much change. If we look at the print industry,  also comparatively shaken by digital disruption, it is interesting to note the way in which the very nature of it has had to change, as well as the way its benefits are communicated. It is essential that retailers not see the havoc being waged on their businesses as an opportunity to ‘stick to what they do best’ and bury their head in the sand. This is the time for them to drive innovation, yes at the risk of an unambitious quarterly statement, and embrace digital and specifically M-commerce. What makes this easy for those companies that have so far resisted the call is that there is ample evidence of retailers big and small, value-oriented to luxury-minded, who have already embraced these new ideas and platforms. Their successes and failures serve as great templates for future executions. And who knows, the state of retail might not be such a bad one to live in after all. Until the next revolution…