Richard Baker

🗞 What’s been happening this week? ·      Retail sales saw a modest uplift in sales in July, however volumes remain below pre‑pandemic levels. Great to share insights with The Telegraph, This Is Money's Angharad Carrick, InternetRetailing's Amanda Whyte and others. Read more from me on the delayed figures from the Office for National Statistics through the link in the comments below. ·      Fantastic to attend the John Lewis Partnership breakfast briefing on Wednesday, with Peter Ruis, Vikki Kavanagh and Michelle Wilson discussing John Lewis & Partners’ hopes to attract nostalgic middle-aged and younger shoppers through a new partnership with TOPSHOP TOPMAN. This will see the debut of Topshop in 32 John Lewis stores and online from February 2026, with Topman in six locations. Ruis says it will “exemplify the new John Lewis” under Rachel Morgans’ fashion direction. ·      Personalisation is a key battleground in retail, but an execution gap exists in segmentation according to Retail Economics and beBettor research shared with Retail Week. Read more on how to close this gap through the link in my comments below. ·      Aldi UK rolled out InPost UK parcel lockers across 536 stores, enabling customers to collect and return parcels, with plans to expand to 600 locations by 2026. Over 115 million retail parcels are now delivered or returned through lockers, representing 7% of online orders and 12% of returns, according to our latest Retail Economics research with InPost – further details are linked in the comments. ·      Oxford Street will be traffic-free on 21 September from Orchard Street to Oxford Circus to demonstrate potential pedestrianisation plans. ·      Primark opened its first standalone homeware store in Great Britain, spanning 12,000 sq ft in Manchester. The concept forms part of a wider investment including refurbishments of Market Street and Trafford Palazzo. ·      Holland & Barrett trialled a revamped beauty category in six stores between June and August, reporting a 7% sales uplift compared with control sites. The format mixes topical products, ingestible supplements and expert advice, with rollout to larger city stores planned for 2026. ·      Currys plc announced a £50m share buyback after posting a 3% rise in like-for-like sales in UK & Ireland during the 17 weeks to 30 August. Growth was driven by B2B, gaming, AI computing and services. ·      In a trading update, Watches of Switzerland Group PLC recorded “strong trading” in the 18 weeks to 31 August, particularly in the US despite new tariffs on Swiss imports. UK growth remained stable.   🚨 🚨 🚨 This is just a selection of news this week. If you want to hear more, subscribe to our free weekly podcast below, covering all major retail news every Monday at 6am ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/eZNDVfZ7   ____________________________________ ⤴ Follow me for weekly retail, consumer and economic insights. ____________________________________

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New UK data law changes are creating fresh opportunities for marketers. Download our practical implementation guide: https://lnkd.in/e89EWFKT Changes in UK data law are opening doors for better user experiences, streamlined compliance and more effective marketing strategies. We've created a comprehensive guide to help you understand exactly how these changes can benefit your business and marketing efforts. 🎯 Key opportunities our guide covers: Simplified cookie consent requirements that reduce user friction New GA4 configurations that enhance privacy and performance Strategies for international campaigns and compliance Building stronger customer trust through transparent data practices These regulatory updates present a genuine opportunity to enhance your marketing measurement whilst maintaining user privacy standards. Our guide provides clear, actionable steps with no legal jargon - just practical advice to help you implement these changes effectively. What questions do you have about navigating these new opportunities? 👇

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There seems to be a bit of a split in the comms industry at the moment about how much brands should be focussing on GEO. The case against: we don't really know what's going on. And Google is still more widely used than ChatGPT. By a LONG way. Anyone with GEO in a creds deck is selling snake oil. The case for: it's not about user numbers, it's about the pace of change. LLM based platforms will end the dominance of search when it comes to how people find stuff online. We should at least try and find out what's going on. We do not know for sure how these things work. In fact, neither do the people who built them – if that sounds a little far-fetched, have a listen to Black Box, a podcast by The Guardian. (That you Nicky Regazzoni for that recommendation. TLDR, we genuinely don't know, for sure, how these answers are formed. Even Sam Altman was surprised by how good GPT-3.5 was. They didn't see that breakthrough coming.) But the idea that should stop us is nonsense and, frankly, lazy. You never know exactly why every customer bought your product. But you can, with some half decent research, find out what tipped the balance on the typical sale. You never know exactly whether a journalist will pick up a story. But if you scan their past coverage, you can have a pretty good guess as to whether the odds are 'pretty good, actually' or effectively zero. You never know exactly why one campaign 'went viral' and another flopped. But you can research trends and algorithms to get you a pretty good as to where the next one will fall between the two. We will never know – with 100% confidence – why ChatGPT recommends Pepsi over Coca Cola , or Broadcom over Qualcomm, or Corona over Modelo. But the notion we shouldn't be looking at data and trends and advising brands on how to behave accordingly is defeatist, and an example of letting perfect get in the way of useful. As for whether GEO is a friend or a foe of the PR industry – I spoke to PR Moment recently about that. Thanks for including me Elizabeth Howlett for including me. https://lnkd.in/e_bqiA2P

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As the son of a retired music teacher who also loves cars - this campaign struck a chord. A digital Out-of-Home campaign from Audi UK translating the engines of its RS models into sheet music 🎼🎵 Each creative features a single line of sheet music, created by composer Ben Parry, that translates the notations of a specific Audi model named underneath - such as the E-tron and RS3. The campaign is a great example of the opportunities on offer to be brand bold and demand audience attention creatively through the public screen of OOH. Read more in Campaign: https://okt.to/wkbB1V #jcduk #OOH #audi

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