Status Quid

 

If any British retailer represents the Status Quo, it’s Marks & Spencer. That’s why I was a little taken aback, then rather tickled, to see this TikTok ad which seems to have upset the Status Quo of the advertising world.

The origins of the film are interesting. Campaign rather sniffily just refers to it being “in-house”. But what actually happened is that M&S have been giving their store managers autonomy to do their own thing on social media for a while now. One young store manager - the chap who appears at the beginning of this video, who’d been doing his own TikToks for a while - put up his idea via the digital equivalent of the old-fashioned staff suggestions box.

Advertising types in trendy parts of London, predictably, find the result quite ghastly. And yes, it is cheesier than the counters of all the M&S Food stores put together, but that is its charm. Why is Barbie acceptable cheesiness, while this is not? 

But even worse than the creative types tearing out their rainbow hair are the pompous planners on their high horses about branding. I am at a loss to understand how this little film - it’s hardly a multi-million image campaign - can be detrimental to the brand.

The message is highly relevant to our current “counting the pennies” situation. It shows that the brand knows exactly where people are.

The jollity and exuberance of band, staff, influencers and customers will surely attract a few more people in-store rather than ordering online.

Francis Rossi and his band are just as much a national treasure as Twiggy, Dawn French or any of the many M&S spokespeople - best of British and unafraid to take the p*ss out of themselves.

And the beauty of it is - as with top-notch humour - it unites people across generations. Rather like this rather more spectacular ad from Australia:

If Francis Rossi rakes in enough money to get a new guitar, I won’t begrudge him that.

Everything, everywhere, all at once

 

According to Interbrand, Amazon is the world’s third biggest and most valuable brand. Next year, the company will clock up 30 years in business. I’ve watched it grow from an “internet bookstore” (how quaint) through a destroyer of the small and local to a paragon of customer-centric brand virtue (according to Interbrand). And back and forth again. Amazon nows occupies a position of what I’d call uneasy ubiquity.

My own relationship with Amazon illustrates this perfectly. I resist Amazon as default, in the same way that I avoid booking.com. And yet - I’m trapped with my Kindle. And sometimes, Amazon is the only practical option. 

This is what Amazon have understood. And it’s what they understand by customer-centric (rather than people-centric). When people are in customer mode, when there’s something they really, really, want, and they want it quickly and cheaply, reliably delivered, noble principles go out of the window. Amazon understand the power of “make it easy, make it convenient.”

So, when you already offer “everything”, where can you go from there to make things even easier? You try at “everywhere”. So people don’t even have to leave their favourite social media app, let alone their armchair for (almost) instant gratification. Amazon have partnered with Meta, as well as Pinterest and Snapchat to link your account and shipping address for a check-out without checking-out of the app. 

I won’t be joining in, as I’m old and contrary. But I doubt that’s of much concern to Amazon. They are probably more perturbed that, at this stage at least, TikTok aren’t playing ball, either.