Developing a Brand of Electrical Appliance Retailer Reg Moses the Communications Council Advertising Effectiveness Awards, 1992
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Developing a brand of electrical appliance retailer Reg Moses The Communications Council Advertising Effectiveness Awards, 1992 Title: Developing a brand of electrical appliance retailer Author(s): Reg Moses Source: The Communications Council Issue: Advertising Effectiveness Awards, 1992 Developing a Brand of Electrical Appliance Retailer Reg Moses BACKGROUND In 1961 a group of service technicians and electrical retailers branded together to take advantage of combined buying power. They called themselves 'Retravision'. From such humble beginnings Retravision has grown to become the biggest electrical specialist in the country with well over 470 stores, turning over in excess of $720 million per year. This fact at the time of appointment of the agency was virtually unknown by the Australian consumer. Retravision is not strictly speaking a franchise or a licence to use the name. There is a Retravision Company in each state, and every Retravision store owner is a shareholder in that state company. Directors of the State Company are in turn elected by the shareholders from their own ranks. The chairman of each state board becomes a director of the national company. Retravision Australia, the national company, owns the Retravision logo, and does all the National deals with all the national suppliers. The concept behind Retravision has not changed since 1961 - that is, to give the small, owner-operator type of retailer the chance to combat the prices of the chains and department stores. In November, 1989 a meeting of directors and shareholders of the NSW Company expressed concern as to the strength of the Retravision image and the effectiveness of the then current mix of advertising. Historically over $4 million a year had been spent on retail television and catalogue advertising featuring product and price. The agency was briefed to examine whether there could be a better way. Strategy development Our analysis of existing research and initial market observations raised a number of questions. 1. What is the role of retail advertising in this segment, and how does retail advertising effect consumers? 2. To what extent was Retravision Downloaded from warc.com 2 understood? top of mind? 3. Do Retravision shareholders support the same Retravision or merely see it as a buying facility, paying only lip service to the brand? Consumer perceptions A research project conducted by Retravision in Sydney and Newcastle in September, 1989 confirmed our hypothesis that consumers’ understanding of what electrical appliance retailers stand for is poor. Despite combined retailer advertising spends of $40 million p.a. in NSW, advertising recall and brand comprehension are extremely low. Consumer attitudes to brands of retailers tend to be almost entirely based on the shopping experience and limited expectations exist as to the benefits of one retailer versus another (Table 1). TABLE 1: RANKING OF FACTORS INFLUENCING LIKELIHOOD OF VISITING AN ELECTRICAL STORE Competitive prices 16.08 Informed advice 14.99 Demonstration for more complex appliances 13.54 Efficient after sales service 12.83 Friendly service 12.72 Top brand names 11.72 Installation service 11.04 Wide range of brand names 10.72 Wide range appliance types 9.76 Good displays 7.93 Easy parking 7.55 Good store layout 7.54 Specialist electrical store 7.54 Convenient to home/work 7.25 Open long hours 7.18 Fast delivery 7.08 After hours delivery 6.39 Part of a chain 4.48 Run by the owner 3.35 Source: Bennett Research, September, 1989. Rather than confirm these attributes as key advertising copy points, we interpreted this research data to mean the electrical retailer market was a virgin market for branding. Key attitudes having been determined solely by the shopping experience. Most retailers, due to their intense concentration on price/product promotion fail to establish clear identities for their stores and give no indication of clear benefits of shopping at that retailer. In fact evidence exists to suggest consumers find it very difficult to differentiate between brands of retailers, their communications being seen as one long blur. Qualitative research conducted by Keig & Co confirmed consumers who are not themselves in the market for an electrical appliance view electrical appliance retail advertising as loud, brash and irritating. The role of retail advertising Over $40 million a year is spent on electrical appliance retail advertising in NSW alone. This money is expended because by and large retail advertising works! Downloaded from warc.com 3 It follows that in the absence of a strong brand image, price/product promotion is fundamentally important to stand a chance to get on the shopping list. But the key issue that limits the effectiveness of retail advertising is that with electrical appliances consumers are only in the market infrequently (Table 2). TABLE 2: INCIDENCE OF SHOPPING FOR AN ELECTRICAL APPLIANCE % of People Buying Category in One Year Domestic appliances (Over $100) 10.5 Domestic appliances (Under $100) 5.0 Television/Video/Sound equipment 7.5 Radio/Audio Equipment (Under $100) 5.5 Source: ABS Survey of consumer opinion 1987. Crucially, at any given time there is only a small finite group interested in retail price promotion (Figure 1). For the bulk of consumers, retail advertising passes unnoticed and certainly unbranded. The position of Retravision We conducted a quantitative study to determine Retravision’s top of mind awareness and the level of understanding that existed for Retravision in NSW. Awareness Which shops that sell electrical goods can you name (Table 3)? TABLE 3: AWARENESS % of % of Shop Mentions Mentions Grace Bros 95 Venture 11 David Jones 72 Retravision 9 Norman Ross 55 Brashs 9 K-Mart 28 Dick Smith 8 Tandy 22 Target 7 Harvey Norman 16 BBC 4 Chandlers 12 Others 41 Bing Lee 11 Don’t Know 10 Source: January 1990 Data Shopping Mall Survey 200 respondents aged 30-45 years. Claimed purchase Thinking of electrical goods you’ve bought in the past 12 months, which shops did you buy them from (Table 4)? TABLE 4: CLAIMED PURCHASE % of % of Shop Mentions Mentions Grace Bros 45 Venture 6 David Jones 14 Tandy 5 K-Mart 13 Retravision 4 Norman Ross 10 Dick Smith 4 Chandlers 9 BBC 2 Bing Lee 7 Brash’s 2 Harvey Norman 6 Others 31 Downloaded from warc.com 4 Target 6 Haven’t Bought 67 Bing Lee 11 Source: January 1990 Data Shopping Mall Survey 200 respondents aged 30-45 years. Despite Retravision’s accounting for over 20% of all electrical goods sales in NSW, only 4% of consumers could actually remember they had purchased their goods from a Retravision store. Brand comprehension What does Retravision do (Table 5)? TABLE 5: BRAND COMPREHENSION % of respondents Sell electrical goods 45 Sell TV’s 4 ) Rent TV’s 20 ) Rent & sell TV’s 7 ) 55 Manufacturer 4 ) Distributor 5 ) Don’t Know 16 ) Source: January 1990 Data Shopping Mall Survey 200 respondents aged 30-45 years. Only 45% of respondents could name the business Retravision was in, despite an investment of over $4 million p.a. in retail advertising. Strategy development We hypothesized that retail advertising makes Retravision highly relevant to a small group of purchasers, but basically fails to impact on the bulk of the population. We accepted that such advertising is vital to the continued success of the group because it does generate store traffic, but retail advertising is limited in its ability to create a brand identity for the advertiser. So we proposed that the retail advertising account be left with the incumbent agency and that BAM produce an additional advertising component. One which would create an image for Retravision. One which would ultimately ensure that when anyone is thinking of buying an electrical appliance Retravision is the first store that springs to mind. We agreed the following communication objectives for the image advertising. — To make Retravision relevant to consumers even when they are not in the market for an electrical appliance. This in turn would build higher awareness and understanding of Retravision. Which would: — Make Retravision an automatic choice for the shopping list. — Make the existing retail advertising more effective. We identified that, with over 470 outlets Australia wide, Retravision stores are actually part of Australia’s largest electrical appliance chain. The strategy Downloaded from warc.com 5 Research indicated that if we communicated that Retravision was the biggest, consumers would naturally deduce that Retravision had competitive prices and a wide range of product. Size was the security blanket that would communicate that Retravision is knowledgeable about what it sells. The creative rationale 1. Break through the clutter of retail advertisements, including those that seek to 'build an image' at the same time. 2. Produce highly visible and humorous work which will capture the imagination of the Australia public. 3. Single-mindedly position Retravision as the biggest retailer of electrical appliances in Australia. In April, 1990 a campaign based on 3 x 15-second television commercials featuring oversized electrical appliances and the line 'I said the biggest retailer of electrical appliances - not the retailer of the biggest electrical appliances' went to air in Sydney and NSW provincial markets (Figure 2). In June, 1991 two additional 15-second executions featuring a giant music system and TV were added to the mix. The ‘image’ campaign was placed on Sydney and NSW Regional TV Networks from April 1990 to December, 1992. In this time, normal retail TV advertising and catalogue distribution was maintained. The results Attitudinal The campaign is being tracked regularly against key advertising objectives (Table 6). TABLE 6: KEY ADVERTISING OBJECTIVES April, 1990 July, 1992 Store of First Choice indexed 100 184 rank No. 3 No. 1 Spontaneous Awareness index 100 161 rank No. 3 No. 1 Source: Keig/Newspoll Tracking.