The document revealed that ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers had announced a decision to explode its restrictions on generic top level domain (gTLDs) registrations; meaning that from January 12 2012 any word in any language or in fact script can be registered as a domain suffix.

22 recognised domain extensions are currently in use, from .com and .co.uk to .biz and .info but the announcement by ICANN yesterday will undoubtedly lead to a great increase. From countries and cities to institutions, hotels and brands; in what has been labelled the ‘right of the dot’ movement organisations, CEOs and representatives will have the opportunity to buy into completely new domains that will professedly increase brand awareness and identity.

According to the article Australian domain registration firm Melbourne IT whose clients include Volvo, LEGO and GlaxoSmithKline have already experienced a surge of interest from brands looking to apply for their own unique extensions, chief executive Theo Hnarakis stating that, “It will allow corporations to better take control of their brands…For example, .apple or .ipad would take customers right to those products.”

It is thought that around 500 to 1000 new domains will be registered which ICANN hope will also alleviate the rather congested .com market with many companies and groups falling over themselves to find relevant domain names producing inevitable overlaps. To lay claim to a particular domain though, a prospective applicant must demonstrate a viable authority and relevance toward that extension; if two or more parties contend over the same name it is thought ICANN will auction the license off to the highest bidder. One of the first firms to back the change has been Canon, the Japanese imaging company, who have openly expressed their intention to purchase .canon.

Budgetary clout will no doubt play a large role in this new system with an application fee set at £114,000 and a further substantial yearly subscription charge this is undoubtedly a privilege reserved for the most successful or well funded enterprises and out of the reach of most SMEs. ICANN have however stated that around $2million has been set aside to aid applicants from developing countries where the, “evaluation fee or access to technical expertise might be somewhat of a bar”, according to senior vice president Kurt Pritz.

So what do reckon to all this domain denomination? Well there have certainly been mixed reviews in the office; a lot of people are somewhat skeptical about this innovation suggesting that it will just cause confusion for internet users trying to find their desired domain when the suffix could now be almost anything. The overall implementation of this process will no doubt take several months not to mention time for the domains themselves to start competing against existing TLDs and for users to grasp the concept. How this will affect the strength of .com and other extensions in terms of SEO domain url strength only time will truly tell. In the meantime though, I wonder if we are gifting even more influence to search engines that we may soon not only rely upon to uncover content but to actually find the domains themselves; www.wmps.digitalagency hmmm.

ICANN open floodgate to domain extensions is a post from WMpS, your one stop digital agency.

On Tuesday people discovered whether or not they had been successful in purchasing tickets in what seems to be more of a lottery than a sales process. This did not happen in the traditional manner of the lucky hopefuls receiving their tickets or even anything as simple as a confirmation letter or email. Oh no those lucky few have had funds withdrawn from their bank accounts with no indication of how many tickets they have secured, or which event they were for.

Despite this scenario being one of the worst examples of online customer service probably in the history of e-commerce, you probably won’t be too surprised to discover that the IMRG-Hitwise Hot 100 Shops List, May 2011 showed that LOCOG’s London 2012 ticket site was the most popular new e-commerce site so far this year. It is perhaps fortunate for LOCOG that this really is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us Brits and we didn’t have a lot of choice. It just goes to show that if you have the right product people will put up with an awful lot to get it.

However, defying every rule in the ‘Ladybird book of E-Commerce’ the tickets site rocketed into 35^th position on the Hot 100 – not bad for a newcomer. The Olympics is still over a year away, but sports fans were seemingly desperate to get their hands on these tickets with an eight fold increase in traffic to the website in the last week of April as the registration deadline approached.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the IMRG-Experian Hitwise Hot Shops List of the top 100 UK e-retailers, it is the key indicator of online merchant performance in the UK. Published annually the Hot 100 List tracks popularity of websites according to the number of visits sites within the  IMRG Capgemini Index receive. This List below is based on April 2011 data and shows the top 50 listings.

On the Winner’s Podium…

Although the Olympics took the newcomers Gold there were some other significant winners. The quickest off the blocks year-on-year were National Express (up 23 places), Republic (+22), Bhs (+22), House of Fraser (+20), Boots (+18) and Sainsbury’s (+17). These retailers are the new champions of department stores, fashion, food and health and beauty and these sectors are representative of the last 12 months fastest growing online industries.

There were however, 3 clear top performers.

In first place, Department stores are this year’s true online retail race leaders. These multi-channel retailers now account for 18% of all UK Internet visits. That’s pretty impressive! This has largely been attributed to the growth of House of Fraser, but steady bets John Lewis and Debenhams are up there in the top 20. The triumph of the department store also indicates that a multi-channel approach is really punching its weight in the online arena – converting customers in store to online and vice versa.

In second place are those retailers of Olympic proportions – the good old supermarkets – who had an excellent year. The popularity of online grocery shopping pushed the industry up to amongst the best performing sectors overall, with three of the Big Four in the top 25 and Morrisons looking set to join them if they enter the transactional online market. Tesco secured third place overall, overtaking Play.com and Sainsbury’s moved up 17 places to number 22.

Taking the bronze are DIY stores. B&Q and Homebase saw strong season gains this quarter thanks to the fantastic weather we had in April. The sun had people getting out in their gardens and prompted a rise in sales of BBQs, lawnmowers and garden furniture as they took advantage of the fabulous and unexpected conditions.

Training for 2012

All in all its been a pretty amazing year and looking at the variety of websites in the HOT 100 list you can see how competitive online retail has become. There has been some significant movement within the Top 10 itself – Tesco shooting up to third place and B&Q breaking into the top 10 for the first time ever.  Getting yourself up there in the Top 100 is no mean feat. Robin Goad, Director of Research at Experian summarised it concisely: ‘Some companies are choosing to increase their online presence in order to increase the reach of their brand, whilst others are using online as a customer service tool, but ultimately more visits to a website means more sales and it is this reason that is driving the thriving competition between our HOT 100 retailers.’

Whatever, your approach to online one thing’s for sure you need to be ready on the line for when the gun goes off to get Gold in the online race. The competition is only going to get tougher and it will take an Olympian performance to get onto the podium.

Sources:

www.imrg.org

www.hitwise.com/uk

Olympians of Online Retail Announced is a post from WMpS, your one stop digital agency.

In the early hours of May 2^nd a team of US Navy special forces raided a mansion in the small Pakistani city of Abbottabad, located in the north east of the country around 100km from the Afghan border. During a fire fight with insurgent forces it is reported that Osama Bin Laden was shot and killed and after recovering his body the corpse was buried at sea by US naval officials from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson.

Although controversy and conspiracy continue to cloud the exact details of the operation, code named ‘Neptune Spear’, one of the most intriguing insights to arise from the event was however not the incident itself, but the medium through which the news was broken to an unsuspecting world.

Hours before President Barak Obama’s now famous address, the raid on Bin Laden’s $250,000 mansion had been unwittingly ‘liveblogged’ by an Abbottabad resident. Sohaib Athar (Twitter username @ReallyVirtual) roused by the unusual noise of a helicopter flying over head at 1am Pakistani Standard Time originally issued one seemingly commonplace tweet, observing that, ‘Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).’

The tweets which continued on for several hours catalogued a series of explosions and supposition that a helicopter had been shot down. After reporting that apparently one person had been killed in a helicopter crash Mr Athar who studied for an MBA at the University of Central Lancashire further in a tweet that, ‘I think the helicopter crash in Abbottabad, Pakistan and the President Obama breaking news address are connected.’

By now of course this was only one of a fury of microblogs being sent all across the globe in what was later revealed to be the highest sustained rate of tweeting in the service’s history which over a three and a half hour period preceding and following President Obama’s address averaged at over 3,000 tweets per second. The news itself was actually revealed by former chief of staff to Donald Rumsfeld, Keith Urbahn who a further hour before the President’s official statement tweeted that, ‘So I’m told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn.’

Although many questions still remain over the validity of Twitter as a journalistic or even commercial resource the power of live-feed news it seems is undeniable and the impact of having access to an exclusive insight can be tremendous, just ask Sohaib Athar whose Twitter followers jumped from a respectable 751 on April 30^th to 101,526 two days later! Although this was of course a unique scenario it does demonstrate the growing influence of live-feed news and in an age where presidential candidates are announced over Facebook and Royal engagements revealed in a Tweet the growing impact of social media even, or perhaps especially, upon the most official and governmentally sensitive aspects of our culture is undeniable.

Social media and the fall of Osama Bin Laden is a post from WMpS, your one stop digital agency.

Are retailers missing a trick with M-Commerce? is a post from WMpS, your one stop digital agency.

Well that’s what John Gillen, Retail Industry Head from Google said last week at the BRC’s Multi-Channel Retailing Conference. Fear not, Gillen didn’t really mean that multi-channel was dead. He was actually referring to the fact that the way in which people shop is changing and very soon multi-channel will no longer be a buzz term but the norm.

It became evident from the speakers last week that any large-scale retailer worth his salt has to embrace multi-channel. Shoppers are no longer sticking to one particular channel in which to engage with a retailer. What seems to be happening is that customers are combining shopping channels in order to make an informed decision: get the right price, an item out of stock instore or the correct size. Shoppers want to be able to access products whenever and wherever they are. In fact according to Google 43% of people are using mobile in stores to do just that.

Click and Collect

The excellent speakers at the conference had some compelling evidence to back this up. Simon Russell , the Head of Multi-Channel at John Lewis Partnership  showed that 89% of JohnLewis.com customers also buy in the shops, 51% research online and then buy in shop and 24% of shoppers buy online and the collect in store. Overall John Lewis customers shopping via multi channels spend more on average than single channel customers and were the fastest growing group of consumers for the retailer during 2010.

Russell believes that ‘Click and Collect’ will be the big win of the future driving people from behind their computers and back into shops. Of course the advent of m-commerce will help the development of this concept tremendously as shoppers on the move can check something out online and then pop into the shop to purchase instantly and Gillen stated that he believed  mobile was at the centre of both on and offline commerce. Click and collect was John Lewis’s fastest growing fulfilment method during 2010 showing growth of +120%, representing 16% incremental sales.

Tony Stockil of ecommerce consultants Javelin Group agreed with Russell believing there is huge hidden value in the web to store process, as a great online presence can influence not only ecommerce sales but also in store revenues.  He predicts that more and more retailers will take the same road as Argos with their click and collect approach, as the concept allows retailers to have less floor space.

So what does this mean for Ecommerce?

Well in a nutshell it means that more than ever an effective and engaging online presence is essential as ecommerce has a huge part to play in multi-channel success, driving sales both online and offline. Last week Drapers published their Etail report which highlighted this issue even more.   Over 60% of the people who responded to the 2011 survey agreed that they were more likely to make a purchase online and offline when a website was brought to life with engaging content and stylish visual imagery; and over 70% also agreed that they preferred sites with interactive browsing and engaging content. Another research study by ecommerce solution supplier GSI Commerce has also found that 40% of customers would avoid purchasing if they saw no lifestyle images of products on a website and 48% would not purchase if there was only a single product image available to view.

Back to the Drapers Report 34.85% of online visitors used a brands website to see what products would be in store and 31.95% said they would get to the point of checkout and then decide to buy in shop. The Drapers report presents compelling evidence to suggest that ecommerce is having a much wider impact than merely driving online sales. However, from a different perspective, Tim Curtis, Chief Executive of catalogue retailer Lands’ End who spoke at the conference last week also pointed out that 58% of Lands’ End’s online sales were driven by their catalogues and that they could use the catalogue to predict their AOV. Their catalogue and website working hand in hand to convert sales.

This then suggests that online content is not only crucial to drive sales across all channels but it also needs be an effective mechanism to convert customers who are directed there via another channel.

Curtis believes that the e-catalogue will come into its own with the iPad as the functionality is ideally suited to turning pages and browsing. Increasingly websites are looking to magazine style content and in my last post I discussed an increasing use of editorial to engage online customers. However, good quality lifestyle imagery can be incredibly powerful and if used effectively supersede the necessity for additional content.

Retailers are quickly recognising that imagery is becoming increasingly important to communicate their brand values and sell the ‘lifestyle’ to customers and if Curtis is correct this will only increase as more and more consumers start to shop on mobiles and tablets.

In last week’s Drapers Danielle Pinnington Managing Director of shopper behaviour research agency Shoppercentric said “The trick of web merchandising is to ensure the products look fantastic online – good enough and easy to buy immediately, or at least eye-catching enough to inspire a store visit. Merchandisers will know which items are the best-sellers. So how can the limitations of a PC, tablet or mobile screen be overcome to present hot items, suggest outfits, and give enough visibility to engage customers? This is the challenge to retailers.”

So how can websites do this?

Online Merchandising

The evidence for rich and engaging content suggests that online merchandising will play a crucial part in a retailer’s multi-channel success. As Drapers pointed out last week retailers are beginning to understand that ecommerce sites are a powerful mechanism to drive traffic in stores and many are tackling this challenge through the presentation of their merchandise. Retailers are making concerted efforts to speed up the process of browsing looks to making a purchase through ‘Get the Look’ functionality and TV.

Pinnington told Drapers that retailers offering ‘flat’, thumbnail style product presentation, without rich media content, total outfit ideas, or new and ‘just in’ features were missing sales opportunities. “Thanks to sites like Asos and My-Wardrobe, shoppers have experienced the kind of content and functionality that is possible online, so expectations are high, some retailers don’t have the physical coverage of stores – John Lewis for example – so it’s even more important for these sites to seize the merchandising opportunities.”

H and M and River Island both have similar ‘shop the look’ features with great imagery that will take you directly to the styles shown. Net-a Porter has just launched a digital TV station on its site, which has taken a magazine format to a whole new level. Visitors can shop their favourite designers as they browse glam and informative video content and cleverly as you are viewing, a selection of relevant products pops up handily at the side for you to make purchases in only a few clicks. French Connection’s Youtique which Tony Stockil discussed at the conference uses elements of Net-a-Porter’s fashion TV and uses the social media channel YouTube to give fashion advice and styling tips alongside convenient links to purchase. Drapers predicts, that web-enabled TV is the future and retailers such as Marks and Spencer, Net-a-Porter and ASOS are already nudging in that direction.

Digital merchandising has a way to go but it is certainly taking strides forward. Next in particular have really got it sussed. The site has fantastic use of lifestyle imagery which is easily navigated and allows you to purchase the entire look in one click as opposed to jumping backwards and forwards from item to item. The dynamic and visually inspiring ‘catalogue’ style spreads make browsing the store incredibly easy.

So is Multi-Channel is dead?

Well given the evidence I would say definitely not and I think multi-channel will only continue to develop as shoppers expectations continue to rise and as devices that facilitate shopping on the move increase in popularity. I think Gillen could be right in one respect as I believe there could certainly come a time (and probably in the very near future) when the way in which people shop through a variety of channels will be the norm and it will be taken for granted that they could access products via so many methods. After all, the evidence suggests we’re already out there shopping in that way already.

Multi-Channel is dead…. is a post from WMpS, your one stop digital agency.

Men are increasingly becoming more sophisticated shoppers and my post today illustrates how one e-tailer is embracing this developing market.

New Man about Town

In response to or pre-empting this potential growth market, ladies premium e-tailer Net-a Porter has launched a new menswear site. Billed as the first luxury menswear online retailer with a global reach, the site had a two phase launch at the end of February, encouraging customers to register as founding members to get an exclusive preview before the site went live.

Julie and I, here in the WMpS Sales Team spent some not inconsiderable time on this site last week – even as two ladies we were extremely impressed with  www.mrporter.com – as it’s called in a nod to its sister site. Net-a Porter have developed a site totally independent of the incredibly successful existing ladies wear presence.  According to the Financial Times back in July, Natalie Massenet Net-a-Porter’s founder expects Mr Porter’s largest customer base to be here in the UK and the Kantar Worldwide figures quoted above suggest there will be huge market potential.

But Mr Porter is not the online premium menswear e-tailer on the block. It will face competition from www.oki-ni.com which stocks premium labels such as Alexander McQueen, Marc Jacobs and Jil Sander and the Paris based www.studiohomme.com which stocks Christopher Kane, Alexis Mbille and Pringle of Scotland.  Both these websites have easy to use navigation and are clean, fresh and contemporary in their visual approach. Ben Banks Chief Executive of Oki-Ni said to the Financial Times ‘Men shop much more rationally, and online shopping really works for this. It allows for products to be assessed in a very unfiltered, clean and logical way.’

Other luxury brands have also taken this on board. Angela Ahrendts, Burberry’s Chief Executive Officer was quoted in the same Financial Times article saying ‘Guys have very different buying habits depending on where they are from and in some countries they actually prefer to shop online. Last month (June 2010) the menswear show in Milan was live streamed  to hundreds of thousands of people. Once the show was over they would click and buy the styles straight off the runway, getting them delivered in just over a month.’

So it would seem that Massenet has her finger on a very strong pulse. But how will Mr Porter distinguish itself from the rafts of luxury online brands in cyberspace and Oki-Ni and Studio Homme?

Gentleman’s Outfitters

Mr Porter has also taken the clean, slick and contemporary visual feel we see at Oki-ni and Studio Homme but given it a twist utilising the incredibly successful format of its sister site – combining editorial and collections from designers such as Ralph Lauren Burberry, Lanvin and Paul Smith. But it is not merely a male version of the Net-a-Porter site. Massenet has described it as homage to men’s gentlemanly roots. This is achieved through the focused nature of its products and references and associations to the traditional gentleman’s outfitters.

‘Net-a-Porter offers catwalk fashion and trend-driven shopping, but for Mr Porter, while fashion is still important, style is key,” Massenet said to the Financial Times. “We are never going to run out of blue or white shirts, but we will have them from seven or eight of the best shirt brands in the world, rather than from 100 different places.”

The editorial-driven site includes an online magazine, The Journal, and home page features such as ‘The 32 Essential Items Every Man Should Own’ and a video interview which so far has included designer Paul Smith. The opening issue also featured interviews with eight ‘real men of the moment’ a la LK Bennett including a musician, a poet and a motorcycle designer about their wardrobe choices.

The site offers a whole host of lifestyle features in the Style Directory which includes examples of stylish men – ‘Icons’ such as Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Mick Jagger and Johnny Depp; and the ‘Style Council’ which provides recommendations on everything from restaurants to music from a selection of 49 modern stylish men. These include media mogul Jefferson Hack (ex Mr Kate Moss) and actor Hugh Jackman of X-Men fame.

There is a team of personal shoppers that can put together an outfit, build an entire wardrobe or suggest ideas on key pieces to shoppers. The site’s YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/MRPORTER features exclusive video manuals, style stories and interviews.

The Style Directory has a Style Advice section which covers key ‘mens’ dressing issues such as how to fasten a real bowtie! With slick little illustrations it has the feel of a 1950s ‘How to be a Gentleman’ or the ‘Bumper Book for Boys’.  There are little visual and editorial references throughout the site to gentlemen’s outfitters particularly in the Wardrobe Manager which has a male wardrobe essentials list including the Tux, grey suits, knitted ties and deck shoes!

Lifestyle Editorial

This site like its sister site is selling not just clothes, shoes, bags and accessories – its selling a lifestyle. We know that men are becoming much more sophisticated shoppers – they no longer rely upon their mothers, wives or girlfriends to clothe them. Mr Porter have recognised that their customers don’t just want to be sold to; they also want to be informed.

Sarah Curran, founder of My-Wardrobe.com on www.retailweek.com, only yesterday discussed how there has been a shift in the ecommerce world with journalists being hired to innovate and evolve online content improving the customer experience. Curran suggests that the editorial/ecommerce hybrid helps My-Wardrobe stay ahead of the ecommerce game in order to ensure customers keep retuning to the site. She also states that a strong editorial voice is vital to successfully translate a brand online. A theory Natalie Massenet obviously also believes in as she appointed ex Esquire editor Jeremy Langmead as Mr Porter’s Editor in Chief. Other Journalists to have joined e-tailers in the last six months include former Elle UK editor Melissa Dick to ASOS and Grazia founder Fiona McIntosh to My-Wardrobe.

This week has also seen the launch of another new male web presence www.shortlist.com and bi-annual publication which will be distributed free to commuters in London, Leeds, Birmingham and Glasgow. The website uses the approach advocated by Curran – editorial content, style advice, the latest gadgets and a whole host of blokey information. Whilst not quite as sophisticated as Mr Porter it fulfils a similar role. Although not technically an ecommerce site it just goes to show that the industry as a whole is responding to men’s increased interest in fashion.

I think Mr Porter is a great site with strong editorial content that appeals to both men and women and I’m sure that Massenet’s online gentleman will be successful. She has a formula that’s worked extremely well with women and has tweaked it to suit her new market. I will certainly be steering my husband in its direction – I’d love to see him morph into Hugh Jackman!

Mr Porter – menswear’s new online gentleman is a post from WMpS, your one stop digital agency.

With the emphasis increasingly weighted upon the now, the immediate and the direct it is no wonder then that real-time updating streams like those found in Twitter or Facebook have become so popular. If we feel we need to express ourselves we want to do it straight away; we want the news as it breaks and the product as soon as it lands on the shelf. Obviously the commercial benefits of real time searches and updates are there to be seen; the latest sales, promotions, product reviews, white papers, press releases or MD insights can be immediately communicated to thousands of prospective customers, who by following or joining a company’s profile are self professedly interested in the brand.

Search giant Google has taken several steps towards embracing the real-time; features such as Google Instant which although not exclusively related to direct updates certainly adheres to our growing obsession with faster and more instantaneous access to information. In 2009 the organisation also launched Google Real Time Search, a system which provides real-time news and information from a number of sources including Twitter, Yahoo!Answers, blogs and news sites; but which in reality represents more of an auxiliary Twitter feed.

With the impetuous on the real-time it was interesting to discover that a major rumour circulating this past week was that potential suitors have been valuing Twitter with a mind to a potential takeover. Like a well worn soap opera it is of course those three familiar protagonists who are in the frame to buyout the US based micro-blogging site, and who else other than Google, Microsoft or Facebook could feasibly stump up the $8-10 billion that it is estimated Twitter is worth?

The news of a potential takeover could have significant repercussions for the way we search and interact online and presents us with a series of intriguing scenarios. If Google were to purchase Twitter it is widely expected that things would very much remain the same; Google would take a further step towards monopolising the search market and Bing would continue to flounder in second place as it already seems destined.

If on the other hand Microsoft were to make a move for Twitter we could see a significant shift in emphasis; presuming that Microsoft would exclusively manage the Twitter data, Bing could offer viable competition to a Twitter-less Google. With select access to real-time updates and news Bing could make significant inroads into the Google market share. Perhaps the only alternative for Google might be to pay Microsoft a license fee (of hundreds of millions of pounds) to be able access the Twitter data. If Microsoft ever intend for their search platform to challenge Google then the acquisition of Twitter is an extremely important action.

Finally, scenario number three, Facebook purchase Twitter. Google are immediately faced with a significant problem as the threat of being completely estranged from real-time search looms large. Twitter and Facebook combined would dominate real time search data and huge value could be placed on this information, information that their users are very interested in. If the likes of Bing or Google were not willing to pay for the rights to this data then what would realistically stop Facebook from establishing its own, even crude, but nonetheless instantly updated search engine? The purchase of a separate search company such as Blekko, Infospace or even Ask would immediately provide Facebook with a more robust algorithm.

Of course all of these considerations are entirely hypothetical but it certainly doesn’t hurt to postulate. With the tussle for the real time set to continue it will be very interesting to see if there is any truth behind the rumours and what effect this could have upon the future of real time data and on a broader scope internet search itself.

Is it really time for us to start worrying about the real time? is a post from WMpS, your one stop digital agency.

The campaign’s theme is simple yet effective – four ‘real’ women at the top of their professions look the part by wearing LK Bennett. A master class for all ladies out there who aspire to look professional, chic and fashion focused.

The four women have their own profiles on the LK Bennett website and we can watch an interview with them as they discuss their personal style, what they do and how perfectly LK Bennett is suited to supply their working wardrobe. They range from mid twenties to early fifties illustrating the broad appeal of the range and have varied professions from textile designer to obstetrician – showing how versatile the brand is for the working woman!

Reality Bites

There seems to be a growing move towards ‘reality advertising’.  It probably was only a matter of time as we are already living other people’s lives through reality TV. In fact footballers wife Colleen Rooney has already advocated this very point on TV with her ITV2 show Colleen’s Real Women. The trend in advertising terms was pioneered by Dove with their highly successful Campaign for Real Beauty and Nike, Ultimo and Pretty Polly have since followed suit. The truth of the matter is that we all like validation and if we can see people like ourselves, wearing a particular brand we can visual ourselves also wearing it.  A little bit of empathy goes a long way.

As LK Bennett’s creative director Annick Gorman put it ‘These days, people want something closer to the real world. We chose four professional women of different ages and backgrounds, who were inspirational in their fields. When the woman in the photograph is not a supermodel or a celebrity, people think, “That could be me”,’

Which one are you?

LK Bennett have cleverly used parallels to Sex and the City as the means to communicate their message. It’s four successful yet stylish women – not Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte but Ade, Chandrima, Helen and Victoria.  Sex and the City was so popular because it combined fabulous clothes with issues that women could relate to – recognising that women are full of insecurities and like to see that others feel the same.

But the campaign is more sophisticated than simply creating four character stereotypes like the TV show. Instead LK Bennett has used women who have been chosen after a nationwide search. Women are generally unconfident about their appearance, constantly comparing themselves to others. Using a ‘real’ woman as a brand ambassadors helps to play down the customer’s insecurities as they see a woman that could be them. The search element of the campaign is also very important as it implies that anyone could be the face of LK Bennett. Everyone has the opportunity. On their Facebook site we can see the evidence – examples of other women posing for casting shots in the retailer’s stores. It’s transparent and honest which helps to develop trust in the brand.

Cleverly LK Bennett didn’t finish the campaign with the appointment of their four ambassadors. There is an invitation for all of us ‘real’ women to join in the celebration by posting pictures of ourselves in our favourite LK Bennett ensembles on their Facebook page. Even better the look of the week wins a fabulous clutch bag! Unsurprisingly there are lots of posts from other real ladies looking great in their LK Bennett outfits. A shrewd way of extending the impact of the campaign – as it makes it inclusive.

Aspirational

But what does real in this context actually mean? None of the brand ambassadors are what I’d call larger ladies. There are no ladies who work on the checkouts at their local supermarket or are on the dole. Ade, Chandrima, Helen and Victoria are all attractive, slim, successful business women – this is the LK Bennett version of what the modern woman should aspire to. Independent, attractive and with figures to die for – how real is real? They might be ‘real’ in the sense that they are not professional models but do they typify the average woman on the street? Probably not and there is a reason for that.

LK Bennett is a luxury brand – the clothes are not cheap, so their customer has a certain financial status that is probably determined by their career. For many other women a purchase from the retailer would be for a special event – an investment buy. Hence the strapline Life is the Occasion.

Even though LK Bennett has developed a campaign that seeks to reassure, they still recognise that the concept of wanting to be someone else, someone more glamorous, more attractive and more successful is incredibly powerful. This makes the campaign not just pertinent to their target customer and therefore relatable but crucially it also makes it aspirational.  According to the retailer the women were all selected because they all have a demanding lifestyle ‘yet want to look and feel the very best that they can everyday’. The implied message thus becomes more compelling – if you dress in LK Bennett you too can be a successful superwoman – see these real ladies have done it!

The Future?

So is LK Bennett the thin end of the wedge? Will we see other high street brands following suit during 2011? I doubt it as this campaign works because of the nature of the retailer. LK Bennett has created a campaign that understands their customer striking a balance between aspirational and relatable. If it was done with a discount retailer such as Primark would it have the same impact? I certainly think there are differences between real and ‘real’ and that we have a long way to go before we see the end of the professional model.

LK Bennett’s Real Women is a post from WMpS, your one stop digital agency.

Results at Christmas were highlighted by the majority of High Street retailers as being either down on the year, or hit by the harsh weather affecting the opportunity to deliver sales.

Customers were hampered by staying indoors and not venturing out to obtain the obligatory party outfit, or online present ordering for the festive season blighted by most courier companies not being geared up for the snow.

In amongst this, one clothing company maintains its ability to shed a constant ray of light hearted fun through its marketing strategy, and continues to increase sales and create a customer allegiance second to none.

White Stuff – clever marketing campaign ideas in a distressed purchasing world.

Established in the 1980’s by two ski buddies George Treves and Sean Thomas, they initially printed T-shirts to fund their winter sports lifestyle. The brand went from strength to strength and in 2005 ex Brand Director of Miss Selfridge Sally Bailey took on the role of Chief Executive and decided that their basic T-shirts and fleece products were on the decline, and a whole range of clothing and accessories for men and women with a fun twist could work.

There are plenty of similar products out there, and as the industry’s very own retail guru Mary Portas recently commented in the Telegraph after a visit to one of their stores ‘the overwhelming impression of the product was an uninspiring range of predictable prints’. They may not be Boden spectacular in the bright visual garment category, or sophisticated and co-ordinated in the Hobbs way, but boy do they know how to market at White Stuff!

In the same Telegraph article, Portas even nods her immaculate bob at their marketing campaign stating that ‘the marketing people at White Stuff are very keen to show us that they are far from boring and its window displays are consistently cheeky and friendly’.

‘Lovely Clothes for Lovely People’ is the strapline they have used as a backbone to the wonderfully eccentric marketing schemes that the clever Head Office team come up with each season.

Going back just over 18 months, there was the 70’s ‘Carafan Club’ era of Summer ’09, complete with catalogue personas Gwen and Ben extolling the virtues of this simple British holiday, and the chance to win a pimped garishly wallpapered caravan in return for a themed limerick sent into White Stuff. Prior to the departure of the caravan the White Stuff team toured several summer music festivals in it and handed out thousands of branded individual tea bags, beach balls, bottled water, torches, badges, and playing cards.

This was followed by a salute to the British Garden Gnome with the catalogue title ‘Gnomebody does it better’, and the ability for customers to adopt one of hundreds of the little men stood in the windows of White Stuff stores up and down the country and claim when the campaign was over. Clever.

Winter ’09 turned to that old fashioned game Cluedo, with the catalogue featuring models such as Duchess Dita von Blanc (a modern Mrs White), Lord Billy Blueblood and Doctor Brown all aiding the customer reader with clues to search through the brochure for the missing turkey and win both a cash prize and the chance of ownership of an entire country house hotel for a weekend.

In the last year we have had from the marketing team:  a Pet Lover’s bible with Bobbie the Budgie, Professor Doug Kennel and ‘One Man and his Hog’ (Spring ’10); White Stuff’s 25 years in business ‘Luvilee Jubilee’ with painted silver double decker bus as the loaned prize for any customer event (Summer ’10); the British love affair with the Afternoon Tea ritual and a competition holiday prize to the source of the brown nectar Sri Lanka (Autumn ’10); and children’s traditional storybook fashion themes such as the Women’s ‘Princess and the Sprout’ and the Men’s ‘Red Riding Hood and man in wolf’s clothing’ (Winter ’10).

They have started 2011 with an American Pop Art Lichtenstein ‘Superheroes’ theme, and customers are invited to dress up their ‘Superpets’ wearing various disguises to photograph and send in, or write in about their own ‘Supercommunity’ to claim a cash prize for their area.

All this, alongside window displays and a visual merchandising team who somehow cleverly create stores that have the ability to stand out from the crowd on the High Street; an increasingly known brand of high quality, detailed and mid priced ranged goods; sales turnover and profits that has soared in a year; and a White Stuff Foundation trust set up in 2010 which gives regular grants out regionally through the support of each of its stores to many charities in the UK – 67 at the last count.

The product may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but Sally Bailey has stated that she understands that some people just do not ‘get them’ and their slightly off the wall campaigns. Others do, and flock in their droves obviously.

Well done White Stuff – I look forward immensely to perhaps a Royal Wedding theme this Summer!

White Stuff Marketing – A Little Ray of Sunshine in a Glum Climate is a post from WMpS, your one stop digital agency.

Facebook

According to Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg, the traditional concepts of privacy are no longer a social norm and have instead been replaced by an even greater sharing impulse.  Critics tend to argue that Facebook’s policies have regularly changed to push you into revealing even more information.  Although Facebook have a taken a new measure making groups private by default, you still need to be proactive to protect your information. To control how third parties see your data go to Account>Privacy Settings>Applications and Websites from your own Facebook homepage.

Google

On Facebook, you can state you like particular people, music, TV programmes and activities etc, however Google knows what you really like and want.  Although before you sign into Google its memory is rather limited, it is only when you actually sign into an account that it knows more.  Signed in, Google keeps an extensive history of your searches.  This data is so valuable is because Google is an advertising company.  Although Google are adamant that they handle your info carefully, they say they never sell it on to advertisers and as a rule, don’t share data between their own services.

Amazon

You will have probably purchased something from Amazon previously and will no doubt be used to receiving their emails which include product recommendations including some items of particular relevance to you.  Although like Google, they don’t share data with other businesses, it is more valuable for them to keep it consistently feeding back in an effort to make you buy more. If you read down to the small print of these emails, there is an option to opt of this kind of consumer manipulation.

Expedia

With the travel reservation website, you can unknowingly be sharing your data with ad networks. Although many of these harmless trackers are cookies, small pieces of code attached to your browser, they are useful allowing shopping sites to remember what you have stored in your basket.  It is possible however to find out how many of these ad networks are tracking you and you can select to opt out if you wish.

Online Banking

Accessing your online band account using unsecured Wifi can leave you vulnerable to cybercriminals.  If you don’t have the adequate protection set up, other could perhaps access your hard disk, view the URL you’re visiting, or even read your emails. You can protect yourself from most of this by having decent firewall or HIPS (Host – based Intrusion Prevention System) software on your laptop.

Privacy Predictions for 2011

In the Econsultancy’s digital predications for 2011 and beyond, privacy was identified as a key topic.  It is thought that the debate is likely to heat up this year as the privacy issues have to be regulated and there will need to be consensus between regulators and the industry about the scope of personal information which forms an online identity.  Online activities such as Cookies, digital fingerprinting and behavioural targeting are expected to come under strict surveillance. With this in mind, here are just few top privacy tips for you to bear in mind next time you are surfing the net.

Top Tips for your Online Data Protection

1. Take advantage of privacy protection tools – There are plenty of ways you can deflect the cookies and common technologies that are used to track your every move online from dedicated programs to browser based plug-ins.  The latest versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer also offer private browsing functionality that is easy to take advantage of.
2. Use different Browsers – Using different browsers may also be a good way to help defend your privacy.  For instance you could use one browser for all your social networking activities and another browser for everything else you do online.
3. Opt Out – This often not easy to find but many sites do let you opt out of them gathering your data or sharing it with third parties. Check out the Network Advertising Opt – Out tool, Google’s Ads Preferences, Yahoo’s Ad Interest Manager and read the privacy policies of the sites you use regularly.
4. Change your Passwords – Ideally change your passwords every two to three months, so that they are harder to crack.  Always use different passwords for different sites.
5. Don’t always select to click Run – When downloading files, save them to your hard disk instead of running them immediately. This gives your security software scan for threats and alerts you to their presence before you open the can of worms.
6. Stay in safe places – Be careful of international domains such as China (.cn) or Russia (.ru), which are often used by cybercriminals.
7. Look for the padlock – A padlock symbol in the bottom right hand corner of your browser is a good sign the site is secure.  Alternatively use a free browser ad-on such as Browser Defender, which warns against or blocks potentially dangerous sites.
8. Don’t give out too many personal details to Social Networks – Most sites should only require your basic contact details to register.

Protecting Your Identity Online is a post from WMpS, your one stop digital agency.