Diary of a Clotheshorse: Metro Bank supports The Great Retail Revival

Diary of a Clotheshorse: Metro Bank supports The Great Retail Revival: Metro Bank, the revolutionary high street bank, is the latest major brand to join the Great Retail Revival in their efforts to discover, sup...

The Great Retail Revival launches POP at HoF

Pop at HoF is the first project to come from The Great Retail Revival and is focused on discovering promising new retail brands and providing them with a platform to access mainstream consumers to achieve their full business potential.


Given House of Fraser’s tremendous retail success and reputation in delivering ‘firsts’ in retail, they are ideal partners, and the natural choice for our first project, Pop at HoF. We are thrilled that they have agreed to partner with us on this project and to provide such needed and valuable support to promising, less established retail brands.


House of Fraser will provide the retail stage for our competition winners to flex their retail muscles, and utilising The Great Retail Revival’s combined professional expertise and support, prove their potential over a two-week pop-up event within House of Fraser, Oxford Street - selling direct to House of Fraser customers on the ground floor of the Oxford street store and online on House of Fraser's successful retail website.


Our aim is to find promising young retail brands who will tangibly benefit from experience, knowledge and a platform that they may never have been able to access alone.


Ultimately, more successful retailers means more employment, higher purchasing power, better living standards and a greater ability to support retail which leads to thriving high streets, town centres and online retail business – all of which are at the core of The Great Retail Revival.

YOUR BRAND IN A NUTSHELL

The start of the New Year is a natural time to take stock and set objectives for the year ahead – not just for personal development but for business growth and development too. Typically, business objectives focus on financial goals which is reasonable as financial achievement represents success for most businesses; however, the strategy required to reach these financial goals is often less obvious.

Whether you are selling products or services, your customers will be considering both the tangible and intangible benefits of your offering - in other words, what your business is providing in terms of quality, price and convenience as well as how engaging with your business makes them feel, what they gain emotionally from doing business with you.

Tangible benefits are important but are easy to copy and don’t tend to deliver long term competitive advantage – they are generally the benchmarks you need to achieve to be in the business you are in. Intangible benefits are more difficult to replicate, they form the basis of a unique look and feel and tone of voice for your business and help you to emotionally bond with your customers which leads to longer term customer loyalty and greater financial gains.

Emotionally engaging with customers – both end user consumers and business to business partners, is the key to success and something that great brands do very well. They have clear brand propositions that are easy to understand and compelling brand personalities that instil trust and confidence, perhaps offer a sense of fun or enjoyment or of responsibility. They may make us feel we have made the right ethical or moral purchase or leave us with a thrilling sense of reward. They have an emotional impact, build strong bonds and often help to deliver strong, internal cultures that positively impact productivity and loyalty of employees. 

Big brands have complex brand strategies and access to big budgets to pay for expert advice and support but the benefits of a clear and concise brand platform are as important for smaller companies as they are for bigger businesses.

A clearly defined brand platform helps you to clarify who and what you are, which will positively impact your relationships with investors, partners, customers and employees. Clarity on your brand will also save you money longer term as there will no longer be a need to reinvent the wheel every time you communicate your brand whether by mouth, through a brochure, product packaging or online. You will know how your brand looks and speaks in a concise, simple and compelling way.

BRAND IN A NUTSHELL is a fast track, low cost approach to solidifying a company’s core brand principles. It is a unique branding process that we've developed at Brand Arkade to give businesses with smaller budgets access to the value and benefits of brand thinking. We’d love to help you.