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Alison Lancaster talks to MCM on leading their core brand into 21st century
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“Seamless multi channel integration is the Holy Grail for all today’s retailers. We haven’t achieved it yet, but we can come pretty close.” Alison Lancaster conveys genuine enthusiasm for her mission to grow the home shopping arm of John Lewis. She joined the company in January 2001 from Debenhams Home Shopping with a remit to launch the John Lewis home shopping division from the acquisition of buy.com, a US electronics and office retailers.
“We were relatively late on the scene of home shopping” she says, ”and decided to launch from an existing site rather than starting from scratch.”
From the outset, there were three clear objectives for John Lewis Direct:
- To grow to scale
- To contribute to the overall profit of the John Lewis Partnership
- To reflect the benefits of multi channel marketing back into the main company.
“The web has now put the customer in control” Alison asserts, “and added to the convenience of shopping.” This of, course, is true. Customers can now research online; they can access the Internet at any time of the day or night; and they can find out all the information they want about a product before they make contact with a retailer. Crucially, customers can now decide for themselves their best option and where to find it. Gone are the days when the ‘psychology’ of selling meant poor beleaguered souls being bamboozled into unsuitable purchases by oily shop floor salesmen.
Research carried out by Forrester, one of the US’s major retail research sources, demonstrates that these days, if a retailer is not online, they are likely to be bypassed by the customer who has done their homework online and is now marching out to make their purchase. It’s the global equivalent of the consumer magazines. In years gone by, we might have referred to a Which? Survey before making a large purchase like a washing machine. Today, we simply need to surf a bit to gather enough information before setting off for the High Street for any purchase, big or small.
This where John Lewis comes into its own. As a well-known brand, the Home Shopping initiative is very much marketing driven. Traffic from the stores are made aware of the John Lewis shopping alternatives and all online and catalogue customers are given the choice of finding their nearest store. The Home Shopping activity is very well monitored and tracked, allowing the company to fine tune it’s online and catalogue marketing. Shop customers are notoriously more elusive, but the John Lewis Partnership are able to use data from their Account Card and their Partnership Credit Card to track the buying activity of approximately a third of their in store buyers. They also use exit surveys and telephone questionnaires to determine more about their shop customers. “It’s not a perfect science, but it does give us a good insight into the buying habits of out most loyal customers” says Alison, “and it is clear from our tracking that our best customers are actually using all three channels.”
This is one of the key reasons why Alison is determined to maintain a consistent message across the channels. “John Lewis is a very famous brand. We must at all costs protect and be true to the core brand values.”
Leafing through the John Lewis Partnership corporate brochure, these core values are striking. The John Lewis Partnership is Britain’s biggest and longest surviving example of worker co-ownership. All 63 000 permanent staff are Partners in the business and share in its profits. At the beginning of the last Century, John Spedan Lewis, son of the first John Lewis who set up the original draper’s shop in London’s Oxford Street in 1864, set out his ideals for the company. What he wanted was:
A business that was fair to all – to customers and suppliers as well as to those who work in it, A business that the Partners really felt was their own and A business that would challenge and beat the best of the competition and attract people at the top of their profession to its executive ranks.
These core values are distilled into the company’s rather reserved strapline “Never Knowingly Undersold”, a quintessentially British sounding slogan which hints at apology and humility and dedication to service.
So how does this quaint image of impeccable taste and understatement translate into the 21st Century’s modern technological marketing? “We aim for a consistent customer look and feel across all the channels.” Says Alison. The same standards of language and visual representation are carried from the instore presentation of merchandise through the print catalogues and onto the website. The online photography consists mainly of cutouts of the product range, while the catalogues feature more lifestyle and room sets.
They have a photo studio in-house and all the copy is written and researched by Alison’s team, to maintain consistency. “We keep our copy unbiased, authoritative, calm and measured. Our customers are smart, intelligent people who know what they want so we don’t need excitable product description”
The website incorporates buying guides and comparison tables designed to aid the customer in choosing the right product. The emphasis is on helpfulness not pressure. As Alison points out, “we want to offer our customers a rewarding shopping experience”
The site is quick to download and its orderly format leads the customer through the pages easily. Alison calls it ‘customer-centric’ and explains that although the prices are generally not the cheapest, they do offer excellent value for the quality. “Our brand represents excellent service and competitive prices, both on and off line.”
The web has proved a fantastic recruitment channel for customers who are not within easy reach of the John Lewis Partnership stores. Whether they are former customers who have moved away from the hallowed halls, or new customers who have never been able to experience the brand, both the catalogues and the website offer a taste of the John Lewis lifestyle. And the increase in channels has produced an interesting variation in customer profile. Where the retail and catalogue customers are predominantly 35 – 55+ with a 65% female bias, online, the average age drops to 25 – 45. “Online, we represent value for time as well as money, which is increasingly important to younger, affluent shoppers.”
Alison is very enthusiastic about the multi channel proposition. “This is a very exciting time for the multi channel retailers. If you are using more than one channel, it represents an immense physical presence in the life of the consumer. To be strong in all three channels represents a winning combination as it lets the customer decide how and when they want to shop.”
With over 10 million customers on their print catalogue mailing list, two main catalogues and several smaller books a season, regular email campaigns, and a dynamic website, it is small wonder John Lewis Direct is currently growing at a rate of 75%. And with what Alison refers to as the ‘reverse halo benefit’, where marketing effort from one domain reaps rich rewards for its sisters, there is no doubt the John Lewis Partnership is nearing the Holy Grail.
Alison’s Key Advice:
- Understand and stay close to your customer. Watch how they behave.
- Be consistent in your style and message across all channels
- Apply the lessons from each campaign to the next one – refine and evolve.
- Give customers what they want
Alison Lancaster’s Summary
From 2000-2006, Alison was Head of Sales & Marketing at John Lewis Direct, and was instrumental in developing the home shopping proposition and strategy - including the acquisition of buy.com. Alison held a variety of multi channel marketing and merchandise roles following the launch of johnlewis.com. In 2006, she was also Head of Creative Services at John Lewis across all channels.
Alison was also involved in the launch and marketing management of debenhams.com and Debenhams Direct, including the catalogue joint venture with Otto/Freemans.
Prior to that, she worked on the launch of Burton Home Shopping folllowing the acquisition of Innovations Mail Order and on specialist flowers by post companies - Guernsey Flowers and Flying Flowers.
She began her marketing career on the Client Services side in advertising agencies working on blue chip automotive, travel, retail, leisure and finance accounts.
Alison Lancaster’s Specialties:
Department Store, fashion, home and general multi channel and direct retailing, marketing and e-commerce professional. Specialist in International multi channel marketing; start up and turnaround business strategies; e-commerce, digital marketing and multi channel retail marketing. Integrated home shopping retail and direct marketing strategies and management. Creating, building and growing profitable specialist online and multi channel businesses.
