A high street renaissance?

Amid the spoils of a slow news day – awash with hysteria about Cameron’s baby and yawnsome analysis of X factor’s first episode – not to mention a cat in a bin (it is August after all), I was heartened to read a small feature that will hopefully have much louder ramifications over the coming months.

The high-street, it appears, is on the verge of a renaissance. Research from The Retail Insider has shown high streets are fighting back against the continued threat from out-of-town sites and online shopping, with increasing evidence showing that shoppers are recognising the value of their local stores.

For the first time in many years, footfall trends show the high street is performing better than retail parks. According to Experian Footfall Data, retail parks experienced a worrying decline of 2.7 per cent during July, compared with a lesser 0.6 per cent fall recorded for the retail market as a whole.

In sharp contrast, BDO found that like-for-like sales on the high street were up by a healthy 5.8 per cent for the week ending 8 August. The stats are from two different sources and covering differing periods, but according to The Retail Insider: “an interesting trend seems to have emerged.”

The Centre for Retail Research weighed in with the results of a UK survey, which found 10 per cent of city dwellers now shop locally three times per week, compared with only once a week three years ago. Grocery experts IGD, also found a net 24 per cent of people expected to be using specialist neighbourhood stores more often by 2012.

Having previously worked in Manchester’s King Street, and seen its miserable decline, it’s heart warming to see that the game is far from over for the high street. However, with pressure from online retailers, it is clear the high street is going to have to work harder than ever, to claw back the punters.

It seems that a quick sweepstake of retail success stories shows that creativity is at the heart of the fledgling boom, as independents look to deliver what sitting at home simply can’t.

 If this trend is to continue, it is the individuality of the shopping experience which is going to win back the punters. Pop-up retail is one trend that is driving retail innovation (loving your work Hey Little Cupcake!), whilst street food festivals and German markets have all helped boost footfall to town centres when implemented by local councils.

As the four month gong to Christmas was sounded out by Scott Mills yesterday, the high street is set for its most lucrative quarter of the year yet.  Let’s hope the rise in consumer confidence is set for an upward trajectory, and I for one will see you down the high street.

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Tags: high street, marketing, pop-up retail, recession, social media

Will we lose our privacy to find our friends?

For years we’ve been sharing with Facebook (and the rest of cyberspace) who, what, when and how, but the time has now come to say where.

Facebook’s newest service, ‘Places’, is the core offering of sites such as Foursquare and Gowalla. Not one to be outdone, Facebook has launched its own take on (as they’re calling it in the biz) ‘location-based functionality’.

Most of us have already posted valuable information, including our age, sex, email address and goodness knows what else. Now we can offer up our location at any given time. By sharing our locations with one another, via a mass social networking site like Facebook, we’re as good as inviting burglars into our home by advertising the fact that we’re out.

Facebook claims this feature isn’t about sharing your location with the world, but about finding places and sharing them with your friends. However, your ‘check-ins’ will appear by default on your profile, in the news feed and in the activity stream for that place. More alarmingly, your friends can, by default, check you in without your approval or permission.

Despite being told we can take control by managing our privacy settings, there will be hundreds – if not thousands – of people who will absent-mindedly leave their settings on, allowing them to be located at any given time.

At face value, this seems to be yet another way for Facebook to cash in on our data – a money making opportunity that leaves us exposed to hungry marketers. On the flip side, Facebook is probably the world’s biggest database and, despite the security concerns, ‘Places’ will support its strategy of adding tools that continue to make money from its 500 million-strong user base.

Only time will tell whether this will become merely a fun feature or serve as a mechanism for privacy violation.

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Tags: Facebook Places, Foursquare, Gowalla, privacy

A lesson in ‘politwits’

Day in, day out, high profile tweeters continue to grab headlines, and the latest is president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez. In terms of international politics, he certainly doesn’t march to the same beat as the majority of his counterparts. In fact, it’s fair to say that his controversial politics command limited credibility on the world stage.

There are bags of high profile politicians (and some of their equally prominent wives) on Twitter, but few have mastered it in quite the way Chávez has.  The Venezuelan president’s account, @chavezcandanga, is racking up over 720,000 followers a day. Each of them is prompted to tweet him with questions or concerns. Engagement is king when it comes to social media, so Chávez responds to messages with 140 characters’ worth of support or encouragement.

To me, this highlights how far society has changed. Political leaders are communicating with their nations through a website with a little cartoon bird as its logo. If someone had explained this to me five years ago, I would’ve laughed and then returned to updating my MySpace.

Twitter, with millions of users, is beyond huge. It’s how the world is talking, and savvy politicians should be listening. Politics is often perceived as stuffy, so what better way to revamp the way that politicians communicate than to embrace social media? We may not be inspired to follow his policies and you can’t run a country with 140 characters but he has gained some valuable PR exposure.

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Tags: @chavezcandanga, Hugo Chávez, MySpace, Peppermint PR, politics, pr, social media, social networking, The Guardian, Twitter, Venezuela

The Visual Code

In a world so dependent on images, it is no surprise that some of the most poignant memories in history have been immortalised with iconic visual representations.  American author, Susan Sontag, claimed that: “Photography has become one of the principal devices for experiencing life.”

Images are arguably one of the most important tools in today’s media industry.  Without them, engaging modern audiences would be an arduous task.  

Creating a powerful image has become the backbone of advertising and PR, generating iconic campaigns with the click of a shutter.  Everyone remembers the Wonderbra campaign from the 90s that caused more traffic accidents than a rush hour on Spaghetti Junction.  

And what about T-Mobile’s visually-epic ‘flash mob’?  Not to mention the audacious photo story created for the launch of natural history TV channel, Eden, whereby a 20ft statue of a polar bear stranded on an iceberg was floated down the Thames.

This weekend saw millions of people worldwide mark the 65th anniversary of Victory over Japan Day.  In recognition of all those who fought in World War II, Times Square in New York is now the sight of one of the most remarkable memorials to date.

A 25ft statue recreating the iconic ‘couples kissing’ photograph taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt on 14 August 1945 has been erected as a reminder of the celebrations that took place 65 years ago.  The monument proves just how important and symbolic the image has become over the years.

The statue not only provides a constant reminder of the jubilation felt on that day, it also serves as proof that an image can speak 1,000 words.  And as we know in the world of PR, 1,000 words is a priceless commodity.

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Tags: images, pr, VJ Day

Facebook owes us

Facebook is officially the most used website in the world. 500 million of us are logging on and it costs us absolutely zilch. There’s been press coverage aplenty promising that we’ll never have to pay to use the site. That’s nothing new, but what if I told you that Facebook might owe you a quid or two? 

Facebook makes its millions from advertisers on the site but this is only worth something because we’re visiting. And why are we visiting? Because 500 million of us are continuously uploading compelling content that people want to see. Eureka! 

When you think about it, we’re paying for the privilege of using social media with micropayments of personal information. People are effectively working for free to create wealth for Facebook’s shareholders. And so the Facebook Users’ Union was born. 

The 19 campaigners (to date) are headed up by advertising creative, Richard Buchanan. They believe that Facebook should calculate each member’s value based on the amount that the site earns from advertising next to their content. This makes the whole concept perfectly possible. Even if it was just a fraction of a penny per person, when scaled up it could mean mega bucks. The Facebook User’s Union recommends that users should be able to influence how the profit would be distributed and it could even be donated to worthy causes. 

Could this completely re-define the relationship between consumer value and company profit? Watch this space.

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Tags: Facebook, Facebook Users' Union, Peppermint, Peppermint PR, pr, pr industry, Richard Buchanan, social media, The Guardian