August 17, 2010
In our recent survey of shopping centre managers, we found that 80% of shopping centres were commissioning advertising to promote themselves. What surprised us was that only 50% of shopping centres were measuring how effective their advertising was.
Marketing budgets can be enormous, with huge TV ad campaigns, but without market research it is impossible to tell if your message is getting to the right people and if it is influencing their behaviour.
Lord Leverhulme famously said, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, and the problem is I do not know which half.” Without this type of feedback on marketing campaigns some shopping centres will never know.
Leave a Comment » | 
Quantitative research | Tagged: advertising, marketing, Quantitative research, shopping centre | 
Permalink
Posted by Jacob Collins
August 9, 2010
In our recent survey of shoping centres, nearly all shopping centres now have a website, giving details of store listings, opening times and how to get there. Where the industry seems to be lagging behind other sectors is in the use of new social media to promote and grow their brand, as well as other uses such as readily available feedback for research purposes.
4-out-of-10 centres are taking tentative steps in to this brave new world, but many lack the expertise or time to manage an increasingly important media for commuincating with their customer base. Business Blueprint have developed a social media product, Diamonds, which cultivates a group of key target customers and brand advocates who will freely give their opinions on your brand.
Leave a Comment » | Social Media | Tagged: branding, Facebook, shopping centre, social networking | Permalink
Posted by Jacob Collins
August 3, 2010
It’s good to see ITV back in the black, benefitting from a general increase in advertising spend. As the economy has been recovering, firms are reinvesting in their marketing budgets, but are very much conscious of getting value for money.
We at Business Blueprints offer an independent assessment of how effective marketing campaigns are. A clear indication of the penetration, awareness and relevance of a campaign that is not prejudiced by self-interest, gives you the information you need to judge the performance of your marketing budgets.
In a recent survey, we found that whilst 8-out-of-10 respondents were spending money on advertising, only 50% were conducting any research about the effect of their advertising, and only 35% were getting any customer feedback at all.
Leave a Comment » | Quantitative research | Tagged: advertising, marketing, Quantitative research, research | Permalink
Posted by Jacob Collins
July 30, 2010
I read with interest in Retail Week a piece on B&Q and how they had embraced the internet for their on line research.
Using their own social media application ‘B&Q Voice’ they had generated their own panel of 80,000 customers which had allowed them to generate 2-way dialogue with their shoppers in the form of both quant surveys and through focus groups.
It is encouraging to see the research aspects of on line communities being made use of in addition to the ‘one to many’ broadcasting which seems to be the norm from many retailers.
Leave a Comment » | General, Qualitative research, Quantitative research | Tagged: research, shopping, social networking | Permalink
Posted by Paul Latimer
July 29, 2010
Interesting to see the launch of a new bank Metro Bank today and its intention to place customer service at the heart of its offer, and to use the shopping mall as it model.
We know from our own work in retail that good service remains the number one issue for all shopping centres, so making this a key differential is both a brave and commendable move. I’m not sure their rates will tempt me to open an account however I may well mystery visit them just to see exactly what it is that make them different.
Leave a Comment » | Customer service, News | Tagged: Customer service, Mystery shopping | Permalink
Posted by Paul Latimer
July 27, 2010
In a recent piece of research amongst shopping centre managers, we found that all the centres we spoke to are tracking footfall as part of measuring the performance of their centres. Footfall is useful figure and a common currency that everyone can understand as it gives a broad indication of how a scheme is performing, so we weren’t that surprised by this result. What did surprise us was that less than 15% of centres were measuring their conversion.
Knowing footfall has gone up would lead you to believe that your centre is performing better, but if your conversion has dropped, you may actually have less people spending money than you had before. So the centre may actually be performing worse in financial terms, but someone only tracking footfall may well believe that their centre is actually improving, and the root of the problem will never be looked in to.
By measuring other metrics such as conversion and party spend you can get a more accurate picture of the health of your scheme.
Leave a Comment » | General | Tagged: footfall, Quantitative research, shopping centre | Permalink
Posted by Jacob Collins
February 1, 2010
An interesting piece in this week’s Retail Week from Martha Lane Fox (subscription required). I quote from it here:
“I think stores, especially flagship ones, will not stock so much product and instead become a showcase for the brand with the opportunity to offer experiences and events to shoppers – a way of connecting customers with their values. Customers will then be able to order products via the web and collect them from local depots or central collection points.”
I happen to largely agree with this vision, but the big question is where does that take us? And following on from this, what does it mean in terms of store design and layout? Will shop units need to be so large, and if so what is to be done with all the space that will give us?
All good questions, I trust someone somewhere is looking for some answers.
Leave a Comment » | General | Tagged: online shopping, shopping, shopping centre | Permalink
Posted by Paul Latimer
January 29, 2010
In amongst all the doom and gloom in our world it is great to see we still have a sense of perspective and the ability to focus on the real issues.
It seems that the wearing of pyjamas has become a hot topic for one supermarket in South Wales where customers have been pushing their trolleys dressed in their finest sleepwear. This of course raises a good question. Should shoppers be able to dress as they like or does Tesco have the right to dictate what their customers do or do not wear? Where does this lead on to? Banning football shirts but allowing rugby shirts, allowing jeans but not if they are too low slung?
Thankfully once again research comes to the rescue with the clarification that footwear must be worn and and nightwear is not permitted – a decision arrived at (according to the Tesco’s spokesperson) by “listening to customer feedback”.
Leave a Comment » | General, Quantitative research | Tagged: Customer service, Quantitative research, shopping | Permalink
Posted by Paul Latimer
January 28, 2010
Business Blueprints recently conducted a national survey of respondent’s views and aspirations on buying legal services.
Of those who had taken legal advice from a firm of solicitors in the last 3 years, only two thirds could recall the name of the solicitors that they had used. How scary is this for a brand?
Interestingly only 2 in 5 would definitely recommend the firm that they consulted, which may also be swayed by the fact they couldn’t remember the firm in the first place…
Leave a Comment » | General | Tagged: brand advocates, branding | Permalink
Posted by Paul Latimer
January 6, 2010
As a new year starts, the first indications suggest that Christmas sales are being described as “buoyant”. Although a complete picture is yet to emerge, it seems that a late surge in present buying, that is for the ‘things that people think other people want’, in the final days before Christmas was combined with an immediate post Christmas surge. This was helped by the way that Boxing Day fell on a Saturday in 2009 as people with any money left to spend rushed out to buy the ‘things that they really wanted’, i.e. not the things they actually received!
This suggests that December tills may indeed have been ringing frequently however with the rise in VAT also helping to nudge up post Xmas revenues there is talk of January being particularly bleak to the point where some are claiming that the January sale is dead. Whilst I think that is premature generalisation as I sit through another TV commercial offering ‘buy now pay later for a new 3 piece suite’ or significant reductions on a new kitchen/bathroom/bedroom from the home improvers, the days of the January clear-out may well be numbered on the high street.
Anyway here’s looking forward to another interesting 12 months for UK plc.
Leave a Comment » | News | Tagged: Credit crunch, shopping, xmas | Permalink
Posted by Paul Latimer
