How do you get the shoppers back to the shops?

Herald Sun, Friday November 25, 2011

Like the waves pounding on the Bass Strait coast, the changes in our buying patterns roll in relentlessly. It’s a natural phenomenon with no regard to the damage being wreaked on ships and shore. Great sandstone cliffs can be worn to collapse and carried away in the undertow.

Just last week the Australian National Retailers Association declared it is making an effort to cling to Christmas. Together with Commercial Radio Australia they have started a campaign nominally priced at $5 million, although much of it is advertising provided by the radio stations.

Having listened to the campaign commercials and read the literature on their web site, I can only find one word to describe it: wet.

Wet as in weak and mealy-mouthed. They do not actually tell us who they need protection from. Is it the multinational invaders? The booming on-line shopping industry? The strangling, selfish supermarket giants? But no-one is targeted, which means the campaign will never hit its mark.

The commercials themselves are awful. If they are the best that the combined brains of our Australian radio industry can produce - well that confirms my sadness at the creative decline of radio in this country.

There are major problems facing the retailers and they do need help from us, their customer base. But they will not make a difference by bombarding us with figures.

They tell us there are 140,000 retailers. That’s a lot. And they employ 1.2 million people. Yep that’s a lot. But somehow these figures do not give me the need to leap for my wallet.

The bright-voiced announcer goes on that these are mums, dads, uncles, aunties, sons and daughters. Yup... most people are.

But we’re talking here about winning back the hearts and minds of a population that is drifting elsewhere. From the retail strip to the mega-mart. From the local café to the multinational chain.

Most worryingly, away from shops altogether. You might remember my column a couple of weeks ago, featuring the subway wall in Seoul which had been converted into a virtual market. Commuters can order their groceries with a click of their mobile phones.

To combat these waves of progress, we need to be more cunning. The campaign needs to give our mums and dads et cetera, a reason to want to visit shops.

Any campaign planing should start with the question: what would make people prefer the jostle of a busy street to the canned music of the supermarket? Or, the bigger threat, the comfort of their livingroom computer?

Mandy Vere, writing in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, summed it up: “They have goods for you to peruse and handle, feel and read; free p&p; the joy of serendipity; live, and often knowledgeable, staff – sometimes even with smiles and conversation.”

You can feel the cloth and put on the shoes, enjoy the variety of choice and explore shops you had never seen before. It is this physical, emotional experience that needs to be communicated, not statistics.

When New York’s Department of Commerce wanted to promote its city and state, in 1977, it hired the hottest agency in town, Wells Rich Greene, and the great graphic artist Milton Glaser.

Because they gave the job to the best they got a campaign that was brilliant in its simplicity: I Love New York -

It’s still running today, and every city in the world has picked up the graphic - just take a look at the souvenir shops in Swanston Street.

I’m sorry retail association and radio stations, I give you an F for your campaign, with the note: “Engage your hearts and start again”.

ray@ebeatty.com