Latest / The Retail Podcast / From Influencers to Community Creators: Prada, Morrisons, Walmart, and Ted Baker’s Big Retail Moves | Five Things Friday

Transcript

From Influencers to Community Creators: Prada, Morrisons, Walmart, and Ted Baker’s Big Retail Moves | Five Things Friday · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  It's Friday. Welcome to Five things Friday
• 0:03
  with myself and the wonderful Simone Orleman.
• 0:19
  Hello, Simone, How are you? I'm clapping first.
• 0:24
  I was just having a little boogie to the music.
• 0:27
  It's just impossible not to dance to it.
• 0:30
  I think I told you it's a guy in LA who today I was to celebrate
• 0:34
  getting 90,000 views on YouTube. I went back to find this track
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  that he made and I didn't realise he's put all of these
• 0:41
  like America. Welcome to the retail podcast
• 0:44
  Voice Overs, which I was like crack me up.
• 0:46
  But anyway, as always be respectful to the listeners but
• 0:50
  the wonderful news to share with you.
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  If you've seen LinkedIn, you already know, but a 90,000 views
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  and my ambition is to build the community to share the love to
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  100,000 views, which is more than Wembley Stadium by
• 1:03
  Christmas. So if you're listening to this,
• 1:06
  just gear it with a loved one. I'm sure your mum wants to know
• 1:09
  what's going on or your dad what's going on in retail.
• 1:12
  Just hear that share button, send it to your family and let's
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  get to 100,000 views. But anyway, on that bombshell,
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  we're going to start with you with a personal problem or
• 1:22
  something that you've been speaking about.
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  About influencers and there has really been question about my
• 1:27
  experience with influencers and now it's just very honest.
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  I said, you know, there's been times, quite a few times where
• 1:35
  we've maybe been working with an influencer.
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  She has a million followers or 2 million.
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  I've got very excited. I'm like, Oh my God, we're going
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  to have so many sales off this following increase is going to
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  shoot off. And it's been an anti climate
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  and we've literally gained like 2 followers and no conversions.
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  And I've been like wow. But then the good experiences
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  that I've had with I'm going to do quotations here.
• 2:00
  Influencers tends to be the real people.
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  It might be AI mean somebody in particular.
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  She's founded a mum's community. She's not necessarily an
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  influencer, but her following is so engaged and her content is so
• 2:18
  real. And I think it's about really
• 2:21
  trying to find as work for us personally at NIFT is really
• 2:26
  trying to find those relatable real people who really community
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  LED. This reminded me of this because
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  I saw a post that came across this week on the business of
• 2:38
  fashion and it just reminded me of it as it said about how
• 2:41
  college athletes university, because it's America, the most
• 2:46
  influential voices on campus. We're now seeing brands go
• 2:51
  really hard into this kind of college campuses, not just
• 2:55
  through like traditional discounts for for students, but
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  through real on campus activations, dorm makeovers,
• 3:04
  concerts, exclusive pop ups. Hollister did this recently.
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  They just launched a multi year partnership with the University
• 3:12
  of Texas. They're sponsoring home games
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  and they're working directly with student athletes as well.
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  And I just think what's interesting is that students
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  aren't just the audience anymore, you know, they're
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  turning them into the creators and they're producing content
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  that's clearly highly trusted by their peers.
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  And that gets way more engagement than just a polished
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  ad campaign that they probably would have spent hundreds of
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  thousands on. And yeah, I just think Brown are
• 3:40
  tapping into that are really smart.
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  I really do. And I think this whole movement
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  is I just think it says something deeper.
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  It it really kind of signals that the next wave of retail
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  influence isn't just about celebrities or full time
• 3:55
  influencers. It's about community first
• 3:57
  creators and peoples who whose voices relatable and real.
• 4:03
  Yeah, actually it's like there is a niche and it's called
• 4:06
  fashion, but then there's a sub niche called, I don't know,
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  working mums who still want to be fabulously fashionable or
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  what doesn't it look like? And, and 100% I, I that's a,
• 4:16
  that's a, a big thing. And it's interesting how that
• 4:19
  comes to life, not only for you, but for the major brands out
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  there, right. And then how do they find it?
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  I think that's the other thing. OK, cool, fantastic.
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  So moving on to me and I'm going to do we all together, starting
• 4:34
  with the product. So just just quickly, UK
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  commentary and we're staying away from this.
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  Everything, all of the metrics really down, really negative
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  spends down, footfalls down. It's just we're going to stay,
• 4:50
  we're going to stay positive and we're going to keep going.
• 4:53
  And you know, this week you can see that the UK, maybe London,
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  but the retail stories are on 2 stages, the gallery, the grocery
• 5:01
  and the aisle and the digital shop front, each quietly
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  rewriting how you and I buy and what that looks like.
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  And the interesting thing. And what you're looking at here
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  is London for a cinema, for Prada.
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  And so the Prada mode at Town Hall in King's Cross is for two
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  days it's running as a private members club before opening to
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  the public. And it's a centrepiece called
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  The Audience by Elm Green and Dragset.
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  It's an intentionally blurred film or a perpetual loop.
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  A painter and a writer talking in a flat screen inside a
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  purpose built cinema where five seats are taken up by hyper reel
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  sculpture sculptures of viewers frozen in mid attention.
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  Nearby, the conversation shows a lone woman at a CAF table face
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  Facetiming one of the film's characters.
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  It's part installation, part hall of mirrors, and we're
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  watching the work or watching ourselves watch the work.
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  You know, they've got everything from screening performances and
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  DJ sets to build out the film. The theme of spectatorship,
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  which was another wonderful thing that I heard, that you got
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  to take your customers away from being just consumers to being an
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  audience. So if they're an audience, how
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  are you going to interact with them?
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  What does that look like as an audience?
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  And so that goes back into the hospitality mindset in retail.
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  And you know, obviously this is their experimental element of
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  that, which is bringing us off endless elements of feeds into
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  what that culture. And as I was just saying,
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  hospitality and ideas and ultimately it's father staging a
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  temporary institution to win time, not transactions, which I
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  think gentle months that there's loads of like global brands that
• 6:52
  are doing a phenomenal job. And it's nice and interesting to
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  see that part is in there. And it's open now, as I think as
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  you can see next moving on, we have Morrison's, Prada,
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  Morrison's in the same thing, but it's the same tempo.
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  Morrison's is now going to one hour delivery called Morrisons.
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  Now you know, it's for all of those elements that you know
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  you've forgotten the coriander you need to get the surprise
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  guest, late night cravings. Whatever the element is, it's
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  live in 158 stores targeting expansion to 420 by the end of
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  October. And and it is really simple
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  thing that they're doing, you know, 30 items, 50P minute
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  observe 15 lbs minimum fee of 4.5.
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  I was going to say yours 4.5 lbs and you get everything that you
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  are used to seeing real time tracking fulfilment by career
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  bike or car and it plugs directly into the Morrisons
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  account so all of your favourites are saved then you
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  can just if you if you're lacking something I can imagine
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  parents who and that midnight dash for something or party go
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  as I get it goes across the whole things.
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  It basically puts pressure on rapid grocery and you know, I
• 8:05
  interviewed a couple of Globo and delivery.
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  Thank you very much Globo and delivery.
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  So this is a a gross or sort of trying to again take control of
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  its own delivery and experience with the customers.
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  So why interesting to see and if Prada if like is selling time to
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  linger. Morrisons is trying to sort of
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  take that and give you back more time to spend on whatever you
• 8:30
  want staying with tech. And I actually came across this
• 8:34
  story because I was covering Walmart's new platform.
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  That's basically, not only is it on ChatGPT now, but they have
• 8:42
  this whole new experience that's enabled by is it?
• 8:46
  How do? You say?
• 8:48
  Miracle. OK, I think they're a French
• 8:50
  company and they're doing phenomenally well.
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  But this lends itself wonderfully to what Simone and I
• 8:55
  have been talking about over time, about how John Lewis wants
• 8:59
  to be a House of brands. Russell and Bromley have joined
• 9:02
  these brands. I know Russell and Bromley.
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  I may not know Vera, but I know Russell and Bromley by a curated
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  supplier model to gain has been bought to bought to like per
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  miracle, which ultimately means all of these high end brands
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  have a a better experience online and your premium choice
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  and premium shoppers. And I don't for me, it's
• 9:27
  interesting to watch whether or not John Lewis can make this
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  shift from like the everyday, like the universal to going up
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  that next level. So it's one to watch.
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  It's going to be across 20 stores.
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  And they're also doing a rapid delivery with Uber Eats for the
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  marketplace and a collaboration is coming with Labrum against
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  expanding this House of brands. Finishing with you, Simone.
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  Yes, finishing on a positive and one thing I guess I didn't see
• 10:02
  coming is that Tebeka have just revealed its first ever
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  activewear collection, which they're going to be rolling out
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  across autumn. It covers everything from yoga
• 10:14
  and tennis to gym training and it's both for men and for women.
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  I was very intrigued about the the price point.
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  It seems to be ranging from 35 lbs and then that top end is
• 10:27
  real. Real top end is at £250.
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  I thought it's quite a shift for the brand.
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  I also think of smart moves as well.
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  Obviously they've been traditionally known for occasion
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  wear and tailoring and that sort of British polished vibe, but
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  activewear I think is where the customer is and it shows that
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  they're trying to I guess reposition themselves.
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  So people, for how people are actually dressed now, you know,
• 10:54
  it's a bit more hybrid and relaxed and a lot more.
• 10:58
  We've chatted about this before. It gets a bit more like health
• 11:00
  conscious. They are going to be returning
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  to the High Street as well. I know it's been 2 years since
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  they've shot all of it stores after after the collapse of them
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  but they are going to be opening a new store in early 2026 so it
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  feels like a soft re entry and with activewear.
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  I'm curious, are you seeing that from in terms of what you're,
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  because obviously you work with a lot of retailers, is that a
• 11:27
  trend? Are we like are we right?
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  Are people coming away from at pleasure and coming to more
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  purposeful community like activities as opposed to just
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  I'm going to be loungewear? I think we have seen that shift,
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  but then result we've also seen the shift of the activewear
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  brands like branching out like Tarla, for example.
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  So I mean, I know, I don't know whether it's since COVID, but I
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  do feel like people less and less buying like going out where
• 12:03
  and party where and, and really I think looking for pieces that
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  are more versatile that maybe they can wear from desk to
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  dinner or desk to pub. I think you've really seen that
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  shift. So I think naturally we we have
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  just seen a bit of a decline in occasion wear and more party
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  where obviously people do still buy it, but I think I myself
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  don't buy it as much. I dress more casually now and
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  again, I'm I'm more more and more bothered about quality
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  pieces and, and really making sure that something's versatile,
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  not just something I'm going to wear one off to a party.
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  And I think that plays a really big role in it as well.
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  Yeah, the circularity of it. OK.
• 12:47
  Well, Simone, thank you so much. Until next week, have a lovely
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  week.