Electronic Retailer - June 2011 - 34

UK HOME SHOPPING FINDS ITS NICHE

and not just the department stores but food ones, too. The web is the new high street, and it’s all about brand. The reason that they will do well is that people know these companies. The high street is getting much savvier about online video, about using the call to action, not just showing brand content. Well, they are smart people, and they will learn. I think it’s true of us – any of us in this electronic space – that big brands aren’t just coming, they’re here. So expect to find yourself competing with what you used to define as the brick and mortar. I think “bricks and clicks” is a slightly trite phrase, but it does ring true. It’s about brands. If you’re Selfridges or Harrods or McDonalds, well, of course you’re going to get on the web, and of course you’re going to use all the tools available to you. You’ll have an iPhone app, a way of producing video and so on. What

we’ve seen in this country is that there are companies popping up left, right and center that can all produce good “selling” video for you. So you don’t have to set up something like what we’ve got. You contract the whole thing out and just brief it, so it’s changing the whole dynamic. What are the biggest challenges that you face now? Audience fragmentation, but you counter that by saying, “Yes, but we’re going multichannel.” There are so many channels out there and so many ways in which people can watch video, consume things; you know, there are people who are watching Masterchef and going shopping for the ingredients on the web at the same time. There has to be an opportunity there. There’s the whole product placement thing coming up here, too, but all these things do is fragment everything. So you have to counter that. And there’s an old adage in

commercial television that goes, “Well, if I have to compete with somebody, it might as well be me.” Where are the best opportunities? In the UK, one of our long bets is now coming true. Back in the early 2000s, we spent a lot of money getting ourselves onto Freeview (digital terrestrial TV) when it was tiny. Next year, by the end of 2012, that will have taken us into every single home in the country. So that was the long bet, and it cost us a lot of money, and we’re still squabbling over channel numbers and all this because it’s not just the retail world that’s changed, the broadcasting world has changed and we’re now quite a significant player in that. But the perception of the other players is, “What’s this retailer doing in the middle of us?” There are all sorts of challenges to come, but that has taken us into every single home. There’s an opportunity to say, “OK, now we’re in every home, how do we address the various niches within that market?” It’s no longer saying our core customer is middle aged, middle England, etc. You’re in such a big variety of homes, you’ve got the

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electronicRETAILER | June 2011

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Electronic Retailer - June 2011

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