Tag: uk
With Article 50 about to be called any minute now everyone in the UK is understandably uncertain about what the commercial future holds. But one thing that seems to be certain is that the luxury sector is experiencing quite a bonanza year so far as a consequence of the falling pound.
Just before Christmas, London’s Oxford Street was crowded with overseas visitors who appeared to be buying up the town as inbound tourism, principally from USA, China & Japan continued to surge. Tourist spending in UK stores increased considerably over the festive season clocking in at over £24 billion in visitor spending!
The falling pound
Let’s face the facts – luxury handbags, fashion apparel, eyewear and watches are all now cheaper here in the UK with their relative affordability making this market the top destination in the world for luxury shopping. OMD’s research further shows that roughly 65% of luxury products are currently selling for less in Britain than in the US, China, Japan and France, making it easier for inbound shoppers to offset the cost of their airfare against these bumper savings!
Seducing the Chinese traveller
Despite growing talk of China moving to a more national consumption economy, Chinese male millionaires still prefer Burberry & Chanel to top Chinese brands and love the shopping experience at Harrods, which has been acclaimed as the Best London Luxury Shopping Destination for the fourth consecutive year. The fact that they have hired over 100 Chinese interpreters to offer excellent and often personalised customer service to visitors is obviously a strategy that seems to be paying off! As high-paying customers who are used to the browsing and purchasing standards of WeChat & AliPay, the Chinese luxury shopper expects the very best service, including a choice of payment options, online chat assistance pre & post purchase and delivery within 1-2 days if not immediately.
An estimated 133 million Chinese outbound travellers will spend a forecasted $322 billion in 2017 and the UK wants to ensure it gets its fair share. The secret of success here appears to be getting in earlier on the shopping consideration journey and fully leveraging the research phase via social media and messaging apps to ensure you create the right list of ‘must have’ brands to buy before you set off travelling.
Duty-free has become a luxury shopper ‘destination’ in its own right
The global duty-free market is expected to grow to $64 billion by 2020, driven by a combination of low-cost tourism and increased demand for high-end brands, particularly from Asia-Pacific. With increasing numbers of High Net Worth individuals passing through airport terminals, luxury houses have realised the importance of producing items specifically for the duty-free market only which cannot be found on the High Street. Spending 50% of my life dashing through airports myself, I can understand first-hand the importance of squeezing in that luxury purchase as a critical moment of self-gifting to reward a few days of hard slog. Why not? We are worth it!
London Heathrow’s head of e-business and CRM, Simon Chatfield, recently said that when travellers describe what’s important to them at airports, retail is one of the highest priorities after punctuality and safety. Heathrow is also increasingly leveraging its own data sources from car park bookings to terminal Wi-Fi connections to help them hone their strategy around the profile and specific needs of the millions of different people who pass through their doors every day.
In 2014 Heathrow started their personal shopping service and over one million passengers have actually used the service to date. They also have approximately 25 personal stylists who speak over 14 languages to try and boost that special pre-flight luxury purchase. The recently installed social networking mirror at Terminal 5, inspiring friends to be part of the purchase decision, will undoubtedly also help protect Heathrow’s reputation for being the World’s Best Airport for Shopping.
A fresh approach
Global economic shifts and technological disruption are clearly redefining the rules of luxury marketing. It has never been more challenging to design a path to success and link the power of brand storytelling to the commercial importance of ‘getting that sale’. The power of video is now undeniable and some of OMD’s recent work with Tubular Labs has highlighted the fact that there is a growing consumer desire to get ‘behind the scenes’ of the once rarefied world of luxury – increasing its overall accessibility but without destroying the allure of scarcity.
We are playing a huge part in challenging our global luxury clients to ‘change the marketing model’ to better align with a new breed of influencers and brand evangelists. The Instagram generation are clearly luxury ‘owners in waiting’ and are dictating exactly how they want to search, browse and buy. Satisfying their needs will undoubtedly secure a bumper sales year for luxury in the UK and beyond.
Originally published by Luxury Daily.
With Article 50 about to be called any minute now everyone in the UK is understandably uncertain about what the commercial future holds. But one thing that seems to be certain is that the luxury sector is experiencing quite a bonanza year so far as a consequence of the falling pound.
Just before Christmas, London’s Oxford Street was crowded with overseas visitors who appeared to be buying up the town as inbound tourism, principally from USA, China & Japan continued to surge. Tourist spending in UK stores increased considerably over the festive season clocking in at over £24 billion in visitor spending!
The falling pound
Let’s face the facts – luxury handbags, fashion apparel, eyewear and watches are all now cheaper here in the UK with their relative affordability making this market the top destination in the world for luxury shopping. OMD’s research further shows that roughly 65% of luxury products are currently selling for less in Britain than in the US, China, Japan and France, making it easier for inbound shoppers to offset the cost of their airfare against these bumper savings!
Seducing the Chinese traveller
Despite growing talk of China moving to a more national consumption economy, Chinese male millionaires still prefer Burberry & Chanel to top Chinese brands and love the shopping experience at Harrods, which has been acclaimed as the Best London Luxury Shopping Destination for the fourth consecutive year. The fact that they have hired over 100 Chinese interpreters to offer excellent and often personalised customer service to visitors is obviously a strategy that seems to be paying off! As high-paying customers who are used to the browsing and purchasing standards of WeChat & AliPay, the Chinese luxury shopper expects the very best service, including a choice of payment options, online chat assistance pre & post purchase and delivery within 1-2 days if not immediately.
An estimated 133 million Chinese outbound travellers will spend a forecasted $322 billion in 2017 and the UK wants to ensure it gets its fair share. The secret of success here appears to be getting in earlier on the shopping consideration journey and fully leveraging the research phase via social media and messaging apps to ensure you create the right list of ‘must have’ brands to buy before you set off travelling.
Duty-free has become a luxury shopper ‘destination’ in its own right
The global duty-free market is expected to grow to $64 billion by 2020, driven by a combination of low-cost tourism and increased demand for high-end brands, particularly from Asia-Pacific. With increasing numbers of High Net Worth individuals passing through airport terminals, luxury houses have realised the importance of producing items specifically for the duty-free market only which cannot be found on the High Street. Spending 50% of my life dashing through airports myself, I can understand first-hand the importance of squeezing in that luxury purchase as a critical moment of self-gifting to reward a few days of hard slog. Why not? We are worth it!
London Heathrow’s head of e-business and CRM, Simon Chatfield, recently said that when travellers describe what’s important to them at airports, retail is one of the highest priorities after punctuality and safety. Heathrow is also increasingly leveraging its own data sources from car park bookings to terminal Wi-Fi connections to help them hone their strategy around the profile and specific needs of the millions of different people who pass through their doors every day.
In 2014 Heathrow started their personal shopping service and over one million passengers have actually used the service to date. They also have approximately 25 personal stylists who speak over 14 languages to try and boost that special pre-flight luxury purchase. The recently installed social networking mirror at Terminal 5, inspiring friends to be part of the purchase decision, will undoubtedly also help protect Heathrow’s reputation for being the World’s Best Airport for Shopping.
A fresh approach
Global economic shifts and technological disruption are clearly redefining the rules of luxury marketing. It has never been more challenging to design a path to success and link the power of brand storytelling to the commercial importance of ‘getting that sale’. The power of video is now undeniable and some of OMD’s recent work with Tubular Labs has highlighted the fact that there is a growing consumer desire to get ‘behind the scenes’ of the once rarefied world of luxury – increasing its overall accessibility but without destroying the allure of scarcity.
We are playing a huge part in challenging our global luxury clients to ‘change the marketing model’ to better align with a new breed of influencers and brand evangelists. The Instagram generation are clearly luxury ‘owners in waiting’ and are dictating exactly how they want to search, browse and buy. Satisfying their needs will undoubtedly secure a bumper sales year for luxury in the UK and beyond.
Originally published by Luxury Daily.
From starting his own business at university to working on the HTC Vive Virtually Dead activation, we caught up with Rob Wigman to find out more about his career path so far.
1. How did you first hear about OMD Fuse and what attracted you to the role?
A friend of mine within the OMD network introduced me to Fuse. I would not call myself a sports fan, but Fuse is more than just sports focused. The role was for the Fuse brand partnerships team working with clients like Disney and Bentley. This sounded perfect as I had a good level of skills from running my own company, which could be applied to the world of marketing.
2. How did your previous experience help you secure a job at OMD Fuse?
My photography degree probably didn’t have the biggest effect on securing my role at Fuse, but founding and running Pholio, an agency for emerging photographers, for six years definitely put me in a good place. When starting a business and running it, you have to understand all elements from client relationships, new business/pitching, strategy and finance to working as a team to reach your goals. These skills led me to secure the role at Fuse and have proved integral to my growth within OMD Fuse since I started a year and a half ago.
3. Could you explain a typical day, if there’s such a thing?
This might be a bit cliché, but there is no typical day! One day you could be pitching creative ideas to a client/CMO and the next running a brand partnerships workshop with two clients to come up with activation ideas – it really depends. What I love about working at OMD Fuse is that we are all one big team and everyone who works here comes from different backgrounds and specialties. When a pitch lands or retained client work comes in, you work with different people to do the job. Personally, this has meant getting involved with anything from football and motorsports briefs to VR and high-end luxury brands.
4. What are your career highlights so far?
Getting to work at OMD Fuse is first and foremost! Secondly, it would be a project I helped create and activate for HTC Vive, HTC’s VR offering. They came to us with a challenge of how to launch their VR headset Vive in the UK and Paris with very little budget targeting millennials, which are hard to engage through traditional media. We created and activated ‘Virtually Dead’, in partnership with millennial app Dojo. The activation is a world first in immersive theatre with VR at its heart showcasing a zombie shoot’em up game. 10,000 millennials participated in the experience and we smashed our KPIs by 91%. We have been shortlisted for quite a few awards, winning best partnership at the 2016 M&M Global Awards. Seeing it from conception to completion and now winning industry awards has been a great highlight for me.
5. What challenges have you faced?
Coming from a company where we had five or six employees and numerous freelancers, the scale of OMD was a challenge at first. I needed to figure out who best to speak to and work with on projects and briefs. This challenge was made easier when I joined the Grand Tour, a 10-week course setup to learn and become familiar with all the different OMD agencies and offerings. I am now working on a number of projects with client, insight and data teams to ensure a 360 response. This has turned my initial challenge into a huge advantage when creating data-driven projects and work for our clients.
6. What tips would you give people who would like to follow in your footsteps?
Don’t just apply for roles based only on your experiences in an industry. OMD Fuse looks for talent and the right person, not just a wealth of specific experience. The second tip is to be passionate and go above and beyond! You can really create a role for yourself if you have these qualities.
During the announcement of Google Home at the opening of the Google I/O conference, Sundar Pichai, Google CEO, mentioned that 20% of mobile queries are now voice searches. While the market for virtual assistant slowly heats up, a MindMeld survey found that there has been a significant increase in the number of people now using voice assistant and voice search capabilities within the past 6 months. Transactional queries will become even more common as virtual assistants integrate a range of third-party services such as OpenTable, Spotify, WhatsApp, Uber and Ticketmaster. While the topic of voice and virtual assistants can be a conversation starter with tech hobbyists, it is also true that the general public is now starting to take interest in this field.
HEADLINES
INSIGHTS
COOL
DEEP READS
Share anything you see through the week with the hashtag #OMDFWD
In 2014, Chinese e-commerce service Alibaba was first listed on the US stock exchange at a value of $168bn, the largest IPO in history. According to Wall Street Journal reports, Snap Inc. is planning an initial public offering that will value the company that owns image messaging and multimedia app, Snapchat, at an estimated minimum of $25bn. Snapchat is notably popular with young people, allowing users to send pictures and videos with promoted filters. Having publicly rejected a $3bn bid from Facebook in 2013, who acquired Instagram for £2bn in 2012. It is predicted that the four-year-old company is expected to generate $366.7m in worldwide ad revenue (eMarketer) compared to last year’s $60m revenue. Expect to see Snap Inc. shares selling as early as late March.
HEADLINES
- A big week of releases from Google as they announce the launch of Pixel, Home and Daydream (that’s a smartphone, a smart speaker and smart VR ecosystem, respectively)
- Snapchat anticipated being valued at a $25+ billion
- Amazon adds a premium Twitch offering to Prime member benefits
INSIGHTS
COOL
DEEP READS
Share anything interesting you spot with the hashtag #OMDFWD
It has been a significant couple of weeks for our understanding of the developing TV landscape. The convergence of TV and Internet technologies has been spoken of as some kind of future event for the past 15 years or so. Now, more than ever, we can understand it as something that has happened and will continue to develop.
The over the top global TV platforms continue to scale.
Netflix announced a global partnership with Liberty Global giving access to a further 30m homes worldwide driving growth beyond the current 29m subscriptions outside the USA. Additionally, RBC Capital Markets reported that 42% of UK internet users used Netflix to watch TV/Movie content in the past 12 months, compared to 54% for YouTube and 62% for the BBC iPlayer.
In terms of high-profile content, Amazon announced a launch date of November 18 for ‘The Grand Tour’ maybe the most prominent global reach show to date for an OTT platform. Twitter streamed their first live NFL Thursday night football match between the NY Jets and Buffalo Bills. In the VR space, the first VR Emmy went to the Oculus Story Studio. We are now witnessing premium content propositions, in virtually every genre, being made available through these new platforms being launched every few weeks.
On the other side of the convergence coin, the traditional broadcasters and platforms have been taking advantage of new technology led opportunities. At IBC in Amsterdam, Sky recently discussed the launch of Sky Go UK inventory sold via the Videology platform on a programmatic basis enabling brands to access content such as live English Premier League outside of traditional broadcast.
At IBC a range of new TV screens were launched that go beyond 4K into High Dynamic Range, Wide Colour Gamut and Ultra HD. Content in these cutting edge formats is more likely to be initially delivered over IP rather than broadcast.
It is not just a zero-sum game, these platforms drive each other.
Nielsen in the US report that increased viewing of related content on YouTube drives viewing of a TV show. Consumers are happy to bounce between platforms, especially on the same device, to create a more personalised experience. Measurement of this behaviour is now a global scale challenge requiring new methodologies for TV measurement, in-store attribution and cross-device targeting.
We can now see a path to better monetisation of video impacts delivered over IP. No longer are they something that is hard to measure, scale and trade. Consumers have taken to new platforms and formats, especially younger and more affluent consumers. Global platforms are creating and distributing some of the most high profile and sought after inventory. Brands can now also access that high-quality content through a range of new buying mechanisms.
Convergence has positive impacts on TV, we just need to frame the opportunity a little differently.
This was very much the focus of discussion amongst the media and advertising community at IBC. It is now especially relevant to have a deep understanding of many audience segments. Through conditional insight, testing different hypotheses and experimental design, we can recognise brand differentiators through value creation mechanisms. A clear measurement framework that operates across devices, platforms and approaches is now the most critical challenge to deliver on the opportunity of the post convergence TV/AV landscape.
OMD UK has unveiled its Future of Generations research project that, for the first time ever, uncovers generational myths that are deeply ingrained in British society.
Developed by OMD UK’s Insight team and launched at an event at Soho Hotel, the study addresses the changes in attitude towards the youth, middle-aged and the elderly, accompanied by a blurring of traditionally perceived boundaries of age-appropriate behaviour and lifestyles.
The research smashes five generational myths:
- Younger generations are narcissistic and rude – [ctt template=”1″ link=”R_IQd” via=”yes” ]70% of teenagers would argue that they are concerned about social issues in the world, compared to 57% of the population @OMD_UK @OMD_EMEA[/ctt]
- Teens have little influence in household purchases – [ctt template=”1″ link=”74CfU” via=”no” ]Teenagers are involved in the majority of purchase decisions from food (81% involvement) through to cars (one in five indicated involvement)[/ctt]
- The midlife crisis involves buying fast cars, travelling the world and spending the kids’ inheritance – We are seeing a new emerging trend of people starting to be more health orientated when they reach this pivotal time in their lives. [ctt template=”1″ link=”hT8IF” via=”yes” ]Those aged 40-43 show the highest usage of My Fitness Pal after the 16-19-year-old audience @OMD_UK @OMD_EMEA[/ctt]
- Older generations are lonely, isolated and not connected to others – Those of us over the age of 65 are the happiest group overall. [ctt template=”1″ link=”aO3wv” via=”no” ]An average of 57% of people over 65 rate their happiness between 8 to 10 on a scale of 1-10, compared to 42% of the total population @OMD_UK[/ctt].
- The younger generation are much more networked and bigger influencers than the older generation – 24% of those influencing financial decisions are aged 60+. [ctt template=”1″ link=”49Tbt” via=”yes” ]84% of the younger generations arguing that they can learn from the older generation @OMD_UK @OMD_EMEA[/ctt]
The large-scale, innovative study included a six-week online community, mobile ethnography and inter-generational focus groups. Learnings were then fed into an online survey with 3,000 Brits, which included implicit testing to allow OMD UK to uncover perceptions that are deeply ingrained into our subconscious.
Sarah Gale, Head of Insight at OMD UK said: “I’m incredibly proud to launch this game-changing research. It’s the first time that we’ve analysed the whole spectrum of generations within one study and the results are already being applied to marketing and communications strategies for our clients.
Generations forms the next phase of our pioneering The Future of Britain research initiative that’s been at our core since 2013. We’re excited to launch our other studies over the next 12 months that will tackle the issues and topics that continue to shape our great nation.”
The full white paper is available to download here.
Originally posted on the OMD UK blog.
Monster has launched a new campaign with OMD, their first in seven years, to reinvigorate the Monster brand in the UK with a specific focus on the millennial audience; potential candidates who are in the earliest years of their career.
Andrew Warner, Vice President Of Marketing at Monster said,
“For too long the job market and career conditions in the UK have seen jobseekers as victims. In terms of competitors, the landscape is ‘functional’ rather than thrilling; category apathy means there is little to distinguish between the major competitor offerings. This campaign, planned and implemented by OMD, aims to reposition jobseekers as heroes – champions – with Monster on their side and in their corner. Monster helps jobseekers ‘Find Better.’”
It’s a bold stance and is supported by a bold, multi-million pound media campaign, combining high-impact Out Of Home and Digital OOH advertising in commuter-saturated areas nationally with high-reach executions across radio, digital and social channels. This includes the BFI IMAX, the largest ad canvas in Europe, and digital screens across major transport hubs in London and nationwide.
Further nationwide coverage is provided by a nationwide radio campaign that manages to keep reach high while still focussing on the ‘Millennial’ audience.
“As well as prominently displaying Monster’s revitalised brand, the media mix speaks to the target audience through their most prevalent channels and will land the brand values as well as driving direct response through digital channels,” added James Jackson, International Executive Director at OMD. “It is well supported by social media campaigning across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and to further target the young jobseeker audience, features Snapchat as a major element.”
The practical outcome of the channel mix is that the varied channels work together to reinforce the refreshed Monster brand and drive candidates and new partners to the Monster site. This campaign is mirrored across European markets.
Monster have big growth ambitions and this campaign is a reflection of that, as is their significant investment in their product offering and a successful drive to increase the number of jobs on their site to 500,000 in the space of a year, helped by aggregating jobs from other sites and partnering with more blue-chip clients such as Sky, Apple and Lloyds. Monster are dedicated to doing more than providing a simple job board and are supporting jobseekers with a wealth of career resources and training initiatives.