This Thanksgiving, demanding shoppers

PSFK this week wrote about a subject Zeitgeist have taken great interest in over the years, that of tech layering over retail to create unique experiences. Our focus on this blog with regard to retail has often been the way that new technologies are disrupting traditional bricks-and-mortar establishments, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. PSFK take data strategy back to basics, pointing out quite rightly,

“To succeed retail brands need to provide what has been called over the years ‘a value exchange’. In others words, to learn more about a customer, we must always provide them something in return. This may manifest itself as discounts and other perks, but what if the reward was simply a better brand experience in itself?”

Earlier this week, as a precursor to the US going crazy for the Black Friday shopping extravaganza (even though The New Yorker tells us everything we know about Black Friday is wrong), Deloitte released new research on the way consumers like to buy their wares. Unsurprisingly, it seems shoppers are now keen for an omnichannel experience. Some of this talk may be a bit premature, or vary by retail sector. Online groceries, for example, though seemingly prevalent, are having little impact on grocers’ bottom lines. In the UK, where the march of online shopping is advanced, grocery shopping online may account for just 5% of sales this year, according to Datamonitor analysis. Select highlights from Deloitte’s report below – which mostly reads like customers are wanting to have their cake and eat it – full report here.

• The high street remains the number one destination for shops, services and leisure, compared to online and out-of-town: 59% use the high street for top-up grocery shopping, 58% prefer the high street for banking services, and 52% for cafés.
• Consumers still want more from their high street, and 73% believe that the consumers themselves should decide what shops and services should be available.
• The omnichannel experience is in demand with 45% wanting free high street Wi-Fi and 1 in 3 wanting to use a Click & Collect service.

UPDATE (13/12/13): The Economist this week published an interesting piece on the closing of UK department store Jacksons, which refused to keep pace with changing consumer demands. Interesting lessons on how to be cognisant of customer insight while trying to remain “authentic”.

The Times, they are a-charging – Rupert plans a paywall

The still controversial theory of evolution doesn’t just apply to living things. In any environment, failure to adapt to new circumstances can lead to extinction in an unsettlingly quick manner. A teenaged Zeitgeist’s former weekend employer Woolworths provides a recent example of how quickly a large organisation can crumble to nothing if they don’t change with the times.

Just as the printing press began a process of democratising knowledge and ultimately power, new digital platforms have upset the established forms of distributing media.

Zeitgeist has previously commented on how the film and music industries have attempted to adapt to new consumption habits, the threat of piracy and distribution.

Another industry that has become old fashioned very quickly is print media. Not so long ago, if you wanted to read a book, magazine or newspaper you had to buy one – and the public had no problem with that model.

The growth of the internet and other digital media has not only moved the goalposts, but also drawn new lines on the pitch and introduced video technology.

Why buy a copy of the news as it was at 3am when you can get up to date news for free? Why buy a month-old magazine when there are many blogs and sites offering free opinion?

The old kingdoms are being forced to do battle in a new arena. Their problem in a nutshell is that as consumers move from print to online, revenues drop and barely cover operational costs – if at all. For many, the huge presses and infrastructures that previously provided an effective barrier to entry now hang around their necks like an albatross-shaped noose.

Newspapers simply need to generate more income from their online offering, as The New Yorker wrote in 2008.

One tactic that has been attempted by certain publications is the introduction of a paywall. In short this means users have to pay in order to be able to access content online. If your content is unique and special, people will pay – Zeitgeist parts with hard cash to access resources such as Mintel and Datamonitor and individuals pay to access Which? and Parkers.

The latest titles to erect a paywall are Rupert Murdoch‘s The Times and Sunday Times, which will charge £1 per day or £2 per week for access from June 1st, with The Sun and News of the World to follow soon.

Catch ’em while you can!

The theory behind paywalls is partly ideological – people should pay to access content – why should it be given away for nothing? Compared to the £1 price for the print edition, £2 for a weeks access looks like a good deal to the subscriber. Unfortunately economic models built on ideal rather than actual behaviour rarely thrive. Disappointingly for Murdoch, consumers, even those who favour The Times, will compare the £2 subscription fee with the free online access provided by the BBC, CNN, The Guardian, The Independent, The Mail, The Mirror et al or alternative news sources such as Twitter, Facebook and Google.

Times assistant editor Tom Whitwell accepts that “drive-by traffic will fall significantly”, adding that “The focus is preparing to serve a small, paying audience.”

Quite how small remains to be seen. The recent experiment by Johnston Press to build a paywall around their regional based content is rumoured to have attracted fewer than ten subscribers. The wall was quickly dismantled and no comments have been forthcoming on the failure of the project.

Recent research in the UK by KPMG doesn’t bode well either – only 10% of the people they spoke to said that they were likely to become paid subscibers to ANY media products in the next year.

Worse still, a PCI/Harris Interactive poll conducted in 2009 found that only 5% of people would pay to read their favourite newspaper online.

Even former PM Gordon Brown spoke out against paywalls stating vaguely, “People have got used to getting content without having to pay. I don’t think you are going to be able to put things behind paywalls in the way that people think.”

Nor is this a British idiosyncrasy, with a US study revealing that only 7% of Americans would continue to visit their favourite news site if they put up a paywall.

None of this has deterred Murdoch, who has enjoyed great success with his SkyTV network in the UK, which introduced Britons to the idea of paying to watch a previously free (licence fee notwithstanding) service. Arguably, the main difference is that Sky has unique content and subscribers are paying for all the channels, not for each channel individually. Replicating the model with online news is going to be very difficult to do.

So, will the future of news content provision echo the scenes of 65 million years ago as smaller agile providers succeed while the old, previously dominant organisations struggle to survive? And will paywalls delay or accelerate the decline? Let’s wait and see, there’s bound to be a free site somewhere that will report the result.

Luxury is Dead, Long Live Luxury

A sad day for Zeitgeist today as car manufacturer Daimler announced the beginning of the end for the luxury brand Maybach (courtesy of the excellent Luxuo blog). The Maybach is an incredibly expensive, incredibly indulgent, ridiculously large and ridiculously powerful car. It’s exclusivity is second to none, to the extent that actually too few of them are being sold. Despite risqué attempts at brand activation with cutting edge artists like David LaChapelle and despite manufacturing only a hundred cars for some lines, the dream is over. How does luxury struggle onwards as the world crawls out of the recession?

The pleasure of Zeitgeist’s company was requested for ‘Artisan’ afternoon tea at Christian Dior on London’s Sloane Street this week. Luxury was front and centre. More than playing on the bling nature of the brand name, the idea was to present the fantastic workmanship that went on behind closed doors.

At the event, with the help of an Italian translator, Zeitgeist was able to speak to one of the aforementioned artisans, who was responsible for making handbags. The Florentine, wearing an immaculate white labcoat with the Dior logo above the breast pocket, said he had no quota for how many bags to produce per day or week, that Dior demanded absolute perfection instead in every bag, no matter the time taken. Though each person will have his or her own speciality, they will work across both the Dior and the Dior Homme brand. Elsewhere in the store, people worked meticulously on Dior jewellery and watches with incredible patience. The work pace of those in the jewellery and timepiece department was similarly dedicated to quality over quantity. From a branding perspective, not only does this ensure a higher rate of product satisfaction, at the same time it also helps to enforce scarcity.

While all this was occurring, waiters roamed the boutique with tripled tiered treats, ranging from caramel pastries and petites tartes aux framboises to mini cupcakes with swirls of icing. The whole affair felt very similar to that of the recent Miss Dior Cherie campaign, directed by Sofia Coppola, who coincidentally directed a very similar scene in Marie Antoinette. Dior definitely had its thinking cap when it came to integrating retail environment and through-the-line campaigns. The event next goes to Tokyo.

Elsewhere in the fashion sector, Louis Vuitton streamed its Paris Fashion Week collection over Facebook (again), and Burberry’s collection in London was broadcast in 3D. And what of luxury in general, how will it manage in a world of frozen credit? Zeitgeist recently listened in on a Datamonitor webinar called “Recovery from Recession”, (definite articles clearly not being a trend for this year according to Datamonitor). Consumption has slowed holistically because people no longer have the money, or access to borrowed money, that would allow them to make those purchases they otherwise would have done. This economic realignment – some might call it sanity – will hopefully be a relatively short-term affair. There is a worry for luxury brands however that these more frugal tendencies will become deeply ingrained in the buying habits of their potential or erstwhile consumers.

As such, there has been a trend by some brands to open up further to the masses. This has its advantages in that it can persuade people to trade up, especially concerning “everyday luxury items and treats” which are “a treat, rather than a representation of lifestyle”. “It is important that the long term image of the product is not hindered through aggressive discounting policies.” For Datamonitor, Grey Goose is a fine example of this, as it sells below retail price in the duty-free sector to great success. The fact that it is not discounted at a supermarket – where a shopper might see it every week rather than on infrequent trips to the airport – means the brand retains its premium image despite price cutting in some choice locations. Value added services, in this case a cocktail guide, also help. For those that are able to keep up their pre-recession spending uninterrupted, the trend is toward more arcane brands, such as Loro Piana. Shops like Escada, cognisant of consumer fears over reckless spending, have provided unbranded paper bags of late.

With the rather large hiccup of the recession seemingly over, luxury brands can certainly breathe a very small sigh of relief. Just how much people will want to spend on arguably frivolous products in the years to come, and, importantly, how discreet they will wish to be about it, will be a very important factor.