On Sunday, The Value Engineers were delighted to be asked to contribute to a regular LBC radio show, hosted by the lovely Kay Burley.

Lou Ellerton joined Kay to talk about the post-Christmas retail surge, as consumers flocked to London’s Oxford Street, Westfield and shopping centres around the country to make the most of the sales.

Leading department store John Lewis announced a record start to its online sale which began on Christmas Eve, with hourly orders up 70% on last year, while Selfridges took in more than £1.5 million in its first hour of trading on Boxing Day. The story was no different online, with UK internet users making 84 million visits to retail websites on Christmas Eve and 107 million visits on Christmas Day, up 86% and 71% respectively compared to the same days in December 2011.

So what’s the story behind the surge? In Lou’s view, much of it can be boiled down to a metamorphosis by UK consumers into strategic shoppers – or ‘stroppers’, for short.

Now well trained by the major retailers to expect heavy discounts in the week immediately before and after the 25th, ‘stroppers’ are spending less on presents to unwrap on Christmas Day – focusing on smaller, more intimate gifts that show thought in place of the big-budget purchases of Christmases past – leaving them able to take advantage of discounts for the key family purchases.

While the post-Christmas sales boom will have come as welcome news to retailers beleaguered by poor pre-Christmas figures, the Olympics downturn and stormy weather, it remains to be seen whether tills will have taken enough to keep them from suffering as we head into another year of economic uncertainty. Either way, we’ll be keeping our ears open for more signs of the stropping phenomenon…

Sadly, we’re unable to post a copy of the interview here due to size constraints, but if you’d like to hear Lou’s comments or find out more about stropping, drop us a line.

…was the wonderfully titled article in the Times last week. It was a feature based around a book by Henna Rosin called The End of Men. The premise of her argument is that, as we move to a post-industrial society in which: “Thinking and communicating have come to eclipse physical strength and stamina as keys to industrial success”, men and these masculine traits will decline.

She goes on to say that: “The attributes that are most valuable today – social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus – are at minimum, not predominantly male, and in fact the opposite may be true.”

It made me wonder whether there was a parallel shift in the ‘gender’ of major brands. Most successful brands have a strong personality and I’m sure most marketers have played the game of describing their brand as a person. A key question is always the gender of the brand. So my thought is that it would be interesting to track the proportion of major brands that are male and female, and define the trends in ‘gendering’.

And are the most desirable brand characteristics also shifting – from established, professional, powerful and hard-working to open, socially intelligent, focused and patient?

What are your thoughts?

In its role as a constant source of inspiration on cutting-edge subjects, Contagious magazine recently ran an article on the trend of Newsjacking. In most people’s vocabulary, ‘Jacking’ has certain connotations – in this case around the removal or theft of an item – however what the article outlines is a trend for brands borrowing, stealing or hijacking memes* in order to present their own message. The act of Newsjacking, therefore, is the act of piggybacking on existing events, and if correctly executed can be a shortcut to engendering consumer goodwill.

Branded content is of growing importance in the marcomms budget and if successful it can provide low cost engagement with consumers who will transmit it free of charge across social media if it proves to be engaging enough.

One piece of engaging content that picked up numerous awards and generated over three and half million YouTube hits, as well as millions more for associated brand videos, was K-Swiss CEO Kenny Powers’ video. In the video, a character from television series “Eastbound and Down” was inserted as the CEO of K-Swiss. Please be warned: the viral itself is not for the faint-hearted or easily offended.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI_9Yxr0blo

The difference between content and Newsjacking is that for branded content, there is not necessarily any current meme to hijack –  so the content can be created differently. Where Newsjacking is concerned, the risk for the brand is heightened, as public interaction with a new story can be potentially disastrous if the interaction comes across as domineering, foolish or cynical. One such example of the risk involved comes from apparel brand Kenneth Cole, whose namesake and founder attempted to Newsjack during the recent uprising in Egypt by tweeting;

‘Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumour is they heard that our new spring collection is now available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo – KC’

Unfortunately Kenneth’s cultural dials were wrongly tuned to the frequency and backlash from the Twitterati was swift and punishing. Read the full story here.

So for any brands out there looking for their next source for content creation simply open a newspaper and follow these simple rules:

• Make sure you are responding to a meme recognised by the mainstream
• Be the first to react
• Make it tasteful: bad news travels faster than good
• Make it impactful – but without transgressing bullet point 3

Or contact The Value Engineers to talk to us about your Digital Strategy.

‘Trends on the Horizon’ brings you the latest emerging patterns that we’ve spotted in consumer behaviour and asks how they could be relevant for brands.

As urbanisation continues to roar through both developed and developing economies, new social patterns are arising within these urban pockets. These social patterns and the resultant consumer trends may need special attention from brands in order to fully engage with their consumers.

Just 100 cities are currently accounting for 30% of the world’s economy. They also account for almost all product and service innovation. The populations within these ‘Urban Islands’ are generally considered to be ‘more daring, more liberal, more tolerant, more experienced’, and most importantly for brands, ‘more prone to trying out new products and services’. As a result these city-citizens are increasingly requiring and expecting a local, dedicated approach to products and service. For brands to engage with their new urban consumers they must begin to offer more tailored solutions to the needs of the urbanites worldwide.

Add to this the modern urbanite’s new routine of ‘Planned Spontaneity’ and what you have is a consumer that desires instant gratification with no planning involved and a solution that is tailored to their needs.

Younger consumers are increasingly willing to share their location and sign up for alerts, services, mailers (PLANNED), in order to be rewarded with the spontaneous suggestions on what they could/should be doing, buying or experiencing (SPONTANEOUS). The below examples highlight just this…

• Geomium: Combining GPS, Social networks and online reviews to give local suggestions on the go with informal customer generated reviews.
• Google Maps HotPot: Developing on Google Maps by adding personalisation and ratings to your maps.
• Boris Bikes: Planning involved in subscribing, spontaneity in the freedom of movement, and localised in terms of positioning of stations/communications/design of system.

With the highest levels of new technology penetration occurring in these Urban Islands and the highest concentration of services ever, brands must embrace technology to allow consumers to engage when and where they want to. Are the days of the over-arching global brand and innovation strategy over, to be replaced with tailored local solutions? Watch this space…