Member Article

What a waste of space

With the UK seemingly free of the ‘great recession’ and consumer spending at an all time high, you would think both Britain’s high streets and shopping centres would be packed with large brands ready to sell the latest ‘must haves’, but that’s not the case. In fact, latest reports[1] have suggested that Britain’s high streets face an empty shops crisis as almost 80 per cent of high street leases are due to expire in the next five years. This coupled with the increase in fixed costs for retailers could see half of existing high streets stores vacated and left empty in the coming years.

Currently, 14.3 per cent of all retail space is going to waste, this equates to approximately 48,000 units unused[2]. This is a staggering amount of prime location space that is being left vacant.

Although the number of empty retail units looks set to increase, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said retail sales volumes lifted by 1.3 per cent in the three months to the end of May 2014 when compared with the previous quarter. This means that despite not having the variety and choice of retail brands on the high street, consumers are still shopping.

With UK consumer spending steadily increasing, are large brands missing out on not having a presence on the UK’s high streets and in those popular shopping centres?

Advertising outdoors

Without a visible presence on the high street, brands opt for large out-of-home’ (OHH) advertising to capture potential customers ‘on the go’ in public places. These campaigns can cost thousands to run, but often target consumers when they have something else on their mind like driving, walking to work or rushing to an appointment, and whilst they may remember the brand, it’s not capturing consumers in ‘shopping mode’ and driving instant sales.

By capturing the attention of consumers in an environment where they are already browsing and in shopping mode, such as a shopping centre, brands are able to tap into their ‘window shopping’ mentality.

Savvy marketers are recognising this and are turning their attentions to capturing an audience within a space where people are ready to shop.

Creating an experience

Consumers tend to react positively to brands that offer an experience. For example, a comfortable demonstration of its latest TV, being able to listen to their favourite music through new headphones, money off vouchers, or simply being educated on what a product does and listened to. This kind of activity encourages more engagement from existing and previous purchasers and inspires new customers.

By utilising empty retail space on a short term basis, brands can create a tailored experiential journey for the brands needs, which demonstrates a product, answers consumers questions, offers a discount and crucially guide buyers to a point of purchase. It offers a high impact campaign, maximum visibility and consumer engagement, whilst increasing sales.

By creating a short-term pop-up experience, marketers have complete freedom to be as creative as they want to be. The installation could be a simple, but unmissable, 30ft window vinyl promoting a special offer, or at the other end of the spectrum, an experiential lounge showcasing and demoing products ahead of a seasonal event.

Recently, LG created the ‘LG Lounge’ to complement the launch of its premium OLED and ULTRA HD 4K TVs ahead of the World Cup. LG specialists were on-hand to help visitors understand all the latest technology and demonstrate the features available on both TV models in an aspirational yet attainable setting ‘just like your own lounge’ before being directed to a retail partner for final purchase.

In addition to experiencing LG’s premium TVs, visitors to the lounge were given the chance to win some ‘Life’s Good’ prizes, including a 7 night stay for two to the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore and a free LG G Pad 8.3 if they purchased a TV. A social media campaign ran alongside the lounge making the consumer feel part of the brand.

A cost effective way to engage the consumer

By taking advantage of redundant retail space and repurposing it to create a new consumer experience, a brand can easily and powerfully stand out from its competitors. The brand will experience targeted exposure to potential new sales at a fraction of the cost typical to other traditional advertising and marketing tools. In addition to a great ROI the opportunity to collect footfall, interactions and other demographic data is easy to do.

No one likes to walk through a high street or shopping centre and see every other shop front boarded up. Consumer behavior is changing, they want to be stimulated and be presented with an opportunity to purchase in an enjoyable way tailored to them.

Creating an experience in an environment already geared for shopping is becoming an increasingly important way for brands to engage potential sales and one that should be adopted fast.

[1] http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2a086574-7bca-11e3-84af-00144feabdc0.html#axzz37pNtCaIB

[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/9064471/48000-empty-shops-blight-UK-high-streets.html

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Simon Ellson .