Bravery, trust script Marks & Spencer turnaround
Today, having undergone its catharsis, M&S is a reformed character - older, wiser and most certainly richer. This autumn it reported a half-year profits rise of 32% to £405 million - its best performance in almost a decade.
Marks & Spencer as Advertiser of the Year? A few years ago the idea would have seemed fanciful if not downright preposterous. The retailer was never serious about it. So ubiquitous were the stores, that they simply advertised themselves, it was reasoned. As for the punters, well, they just kept the tills jingling.
With hindsight, this sounds like a recipe for disaster — and it was. As we all now know, success bred, not innovation, but arrogance and complacency. Better attuned rivals such as Gap and French Connection slowly but surely began stealing M&S’ clothes (or at least they would have done had they not become so dowdy and also old-fashioned).
Today, having undergone its catharsis, M&S is a reformed character — older, wiser and most certainly richer. This autumn it reported a half-year profits rise of 32% to £405 million — its best performance in almost a decade. And this at a time when the high street still struggles to recapture consumer confidence.
For a company that barely two years ago looked like a seriously wounded animal limping towards Sir Philip Green’s rescuing arms and a £9 billion takeover, such figures appear miraculous. In fact, they are a reflection of what can happen when an organisation is brave enough to confront painful truths about itself, back its turnaround plan with significant investment in product ranges, store design and customer service, and show faith in advertising’s power to woo back the deserters.
It is a measure of how far M&S’s voyage of rediscovery has progressed that its advertising, spearheaded by Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R, took the Grand Prix at this year’s IPA Effectiveness Awards. According to the judges, the “stunning” recovery at M&S was communicated by advertising which had caused products to “fly off the shelves”. (Not least M&S chocolate puddings, whose sales have increased by 3,500%!)
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This year was proof positive that the “Your M&S” campaign has real sustainability. Particularly because of its ability to bring M&S to life across all areas of its activity, from food and kidswear, to financial services.And although such calculations can be a bit “finger in the wind”, there is evidence to suggest M&S’s increased commitment to advertising contributed to an extra £6 million worth of PR and 18 million more customer visits. Other figures, though, are incontestable — food and clothing sales up 9.2% and 10.7% respectively during the year.
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