Imagination and creativity are key if brands to are to survive the “consumer evolution”, says British retail expert Mary Portas.
Speaking at the IPA’s Eff Fest: ‘How creativity drives business’ on Tuesday, the chief creative officer of The Portas Agency insisted the British hight street is not yet dead – and still has a future if brands can think differently.
“Nothing is dead if there is a possibility to re-imagine it in the context in which we live today,” she told an audience of leading marketers.
Portas – renowned for her rebrand of luxury fashion house Harvey Nichols in the early ’90s – says she is adamant that there is a future for the high street, however brands must change the way in which they view its purpose and focus on what consumers like and, more importantly, what they need.
Portas’s comments come during a time of deep uncertainty for many businesses as they look to keep pace with changing consumer shopping behaviours, with many businesses moving key parts of their businesses online. Yet even some of the biggest names on the high street, including HMV and Jessops, have failed to make the transition.
Currently, e-commerce is the make or break for many brands and has become central to the way British consumers now shop. Earlier this year research company Verdict predicted that online shopping will reach £50 billion by 2018.
There are two signs of a dead high street – fried chicken shops and charity shops.”
With just four in one hundred people now considering physical shopping to be more enjoyable than an online experience, brands are investing an increasing amount of time and money in e-commerce, but the move spells disaster for the high street – and for brands that get the online experience wrong.
“There are two signs of a dead high street – fried chicken shops and charity shops,” Portas said. However, with the right creativity, she refuses to believe that high street retail has met a dead end – if anything, it is far from it, she says.
It is the focus on creativity and imagination, alongside the need to inspire, excite, and surprise consumers and to give them a vision and an enjoyable experience, Portas said, that has helped her to transform the fortunes of leading British brands and establishments.
Speaking of her time at Harvey Nichols, Portas stressed the importance of brands focusing on the next big thing, rather than what is popular at that particular moment in time.
“People buy into the next big thing,” she said, adding that in her experience it is not always about big budgets, but rather big ideas that develop a brand and ultimately rile up competitors.
In May 2011, Portas was appointed by Prime Minister David Cameron to lead an independent review into the future of the British high street. ‘The Portas Review‘ culminated in the launch, in February last year, of Portas Pilot Areas to help breathe life back into high streets.
