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Who are Fortnum & Mason, and what's Christmas Pudding?

So, with a fancy title like president, I get lots of mailings from lifestyle companies that want to sell me stuff.  Especially around the holidays.  One of the more interesting mailings from a cross-cultural or transatlantic marketing perspective was that of Fortnum & Mason, a venerable "high street" retailer of housewares and foodstuffs.  If you're a Brit, or visited London's Piccadilly, you either know them or you've walked past, or into, their store.  But if not -- you have no idea who they are.

Failure is guaranteed.  This company has made a furtive (and to date, futile) effort to sell in America.  It has an annual catalog of expensive gift "hampers" (that would be baskets to you and me), that include a wide variety of traditional British Christmas comestibles, including Christmas Pudding (which I've come to learn is like a fruitcake that you put in the oven and serve warm with clotted cream, whatever that is), biscuits (you and I call them cookies), teas, jams and more.  And, these baskets are expensive -- as much as $600 delivered, starting at more than $100.

Not surprisingly, the catalog has failed to find a following.  Why?  Well, Fortnum's has made a bunch of mistakes, beginning with positioning, and ending with production values.

Positioning.  Fortnum & Mason in the UK is not unlike a high end Williams Sonoma in the US - a merchant that brings you the finer things in life - for the home, kitchen and consumption.  But the selection of the goods in this catalog is irrelevant to the vast majority of Americans.  To be successful, Fortnum & Mason must take the heritage of the brand and make it relevant.  It should be its US customers' introduction to delicacies and luxuries from Europe.  Send me Belgian chocolate, German sausage, Irish oatmeal, Italian olive oil, linens from Provence, jams from the UK, etc.  Make it make sense to local tastes while still being exotic.

Brand building.  You can't expect to sell at the very high end without some branding.  Use PR to get your brand in front of consumers year-round, so that when you mail your catalog, I might have heard of you.  It might do to create or recruit a "lifestyle expert" to speak to US consumers on TV and radio as the personification of Fortnum & Mason (think a British Martha Stewart without the felony conviction).  Perhaps use a small space direct-response campaign in the Wall Street Journal to generate year-round interest at a reasonable cost.

Leverage unique assets.  It turns out that Fortnum & Mason has warrants to serve the Queen of England, the Queen Mother and the Prince of Wales, which its main competitor (Harrods) does not.  But on the catalog they mail out, the warrants are printed on the back of the piece, and so small that they are illegible - they look like ink blots.  Educating US consumers about warrants and making them more prominent would go a long way toward influencing new customers to do business with you.  If it's good enough for the Queen...

Be appropriate.  Luxury goods consumers expect luxurious catalogs.  This piece is small format and printed on inexpensive paper.  It's just inconsistent with the desired positioning.

Prediction: As long as Fortnum & Mason makes these kinds of mistakes, it will never succeed in the US.  The market is too big, too saturated with alternatives -- and we just don't understand what the stuff is that they are trying to sell to us.

Alternative strategy: Keep the UK-centric selection of goods and target the more than 2.5 million UK expatriates living in the US.  That's plenty of propects to go after.  It wouldn't require retooling the catalog, selections, marketing, etc., and might generate an enthusiastic and even thankful response from homesick Brits who have a hankering for mince pie, whatever that is.

-- Ken

PS - a British friend once brought me a Christmas pudding when he, his wife and aunt were guests at our house for Thanksgiving.  I didn't know that you had to warm it up.  I tried to get a fork into the thing, which was hard as rock, and determined that the better part of valor was to throw it out and send a very nice 'thank you' note.  Thankfully, he didn't send another one!!

BBC changes to avoid change

The BBC is probably the best known and most highly respected media organisation in the World. In the UK it carries no advertising, making it a top media relations target for companies and brands hoping to gain publicity and credibility. There can be no better place to be seen than within BBC output, whether it be television, radio or online.

Awareness and respect has not stopped the Beeb, as it's affectionatly known, coming in for criticism. After 78 years, the company's board of governors is to be scrapped and replaced by two new bodies. The move, announced in proposals by the British Government, is designed to ensure that a separate group, independent from management, can bring public service broadcasting responsibilities to bear without the potential conflict of interest that exists with the current arrangement.

What won't change, at least for now, is the licence fee. This is how the BBC is funded - everyone in the UK owning a TV must buy a licence regardless of whether they watch its programming or not. Of course, as a free-to-air broadcaster offering what is arguably the best output in the world, without commercials, there are few who don't use BBC services. Indeed, culture secretary Tessa Jowell commented that the BBC was "one of the two great institutions of British national life" along with the National Health Service.

As a flat fee, many people believe the licence is an unfair system, yet it still has great public support because, as Ms Jowell recognises, the public values a high quality, independent broadcaster. The changes to the BBC's governing bodies intend to ensure it stays this way.

The BBC can be a strange beast, so a good understanding of its machinations is essential for effective media relations campaigns in the UK. It can be one of the most difficult media groups to target for coverage, but the results are usually worth the effort.

End of a transatlantic era

On this day in 1969, the Anglo-French supersonic airliner, Concorde, took to the  skies for the very first time. Precisely four years later, in 1973, it smashed the record for a non-stop crossing of the Atlantic. The faster-than-sound aircraft flew from the US capital, Washington, to Orly airport in Paris in three hours 32 minutes, slicing the previous best time in half. France and Britain make an unusual partnership, but Concorde was perhaps their finest hour. There had never been a more elegant and magnificent way to travel and air travel for the future shows little sign of a successor.

Supersonic travel proved to be a commercial disaster. Concorde was launched at the height of a fuel crisis and a combination of heavy consumption and small tanks, which meant it could not enter the lucrative trans-Pacific market, made it uneconomic. Regular flights to the US did not start until 1979 as American authorities – perhaps sore at not having launched their own supersonic airliner - were unwilling to allow the Concorde to land at their airports. However, with the plane marketed as the ultimate in luxury travel, the transatlantic route did eventually prove to be lucrative.

Concorde had a virtually unblemished safety record until 25 July 2000, when an Air France model crashed shortly after taking off from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. Flights did not resume until November 2001 and in April 2003 British Airways and Air France announced the plane would be retired due to falling passenger revenue and rising maintenance costs.

I witnessed the last three Concordes pass over London, their familiar windowpane-rattling roar heard for the final time. Like many, I had a tear in my eye as I watched these technological marvels complete their journeys. For any aspiring transatlantic businessman or woman, business travel on Concorde was the ultimate accolade. Without it, much of the glamour that once made business travel fun was lost.

Caddy whacks Saab out of Europe?

So GM is to make a serious attempt to bring its Cadillac brand in Europe? It had better have some patience. It’s not the first time Cadillac has tried to flog its wares across the pond. In 1998 the company made a ham-fisted job at marketing its Seville to Europeans with barely an attempt to develop the model to local tastes. As Channel 4’s motoring website 4car (www.4car.co.uk) commented: “It hasn't the required look of class or grace, and the Cadillac name tends to get misinterpreted here - people assume it will be a huge chromed barge”. Though smaller and less glitzy than Caddies of memory, it was still too big, too thirsty and too afraid of corners for it to be anything but a sales disaster.

GM intends things to be different this time. The new BLS has been designed specifically for European buyers - it won’t even be sold in the US. About the size of a Vauxhall Vectra, this is no barge; it has sharp styling, tidy handling and for the first time in a Cadillac, the option of a diesel engine. This are merely minimum class standards however, so the BLS's main selling point is that it will undercut rivals by a £1000. Big deal. And hardly a priority for buyers of premium brands.

To take an iconic American brand, denude it of its identity and then reinvent it as some sort of value-for-money premium Eurobox seems an ill thought out strategy to say the least, but GM needs to have a luxury brand for Europe so it has to start somewhere. Who knows, with a consistent and sustained marketing effort, perhaps one day Cadillac will be gracing European driveways alongside the more familiar BMW’s, Jaguar’s, Audi’s and Saabs.

Wait a minute. Doesn’t GM own Saab? And isn’t Saab supposed to be its luxury brand for Europe?

Well, that was the idea. For years, Saab has consistently said it is competing head-on with the class leaders, but buyers have failed to agree and the marque is struggling along with only the 9-3 and 9-5, the latter of which is due for replacement. In the US, Saab is rather successful and has benefited from the introduction of additional models. However, it seems that GM has given up on the brand in Europe and news that the BLS will be build at Saab’s factory in Sweden doesn’t bode well.

The world's least focused automaker wealds its monikers with apparently no appreciation of what it is that gives them leverage in the market. In Saab GM has a brand with genuine European heritage, flair for design and a touch of individuality, yet it's denied investment because bosses in Detroit have failed to grasp what those across the Atlantic prize when buying a premium model. It’s apparent among car brands that the strongest ones are those which have benefited from consistent investment in terms of design, quality and marketing. If Cadillac is to succeed, GM will need deep pockets. Yet, if the company hasn’t the wherewithal to make a success of Saab, the prospects for the Caddy don’t look good.