It’s about so much more than simply adding a name to a product, says Photobox’s Sarah-Jane Porter.
Although the personalisation industry is fairly small compared to that of its parent categories (greeting cards currently estimated at 5% of card market: GCA) it’s a growing business and it’s no longer just about writing your name on or adding a photograph to products.
Personalisation is not only about challenging product uniqueness and considering the customers co-creation requirements, but it’s also about tailoring to consumers hectic lifestyle needs.
The importance of mobile optimisation, convenience of shopping/delivery and having the support of a robust customer service team at hand to help you are all factors in achieving the ultimate personalised retail experience of getting ‘what you want, when you want it & how you want it’.
This is something seeded in the core of the current Photobox and Moonpig businesses and in our on-going development, however it has been widely misunderstood from a licensor perspective.
A number of licensor presentations I have attended over the past year have alluded to the importance of personalisation and creating a uniqueness in their product offering which is great in terms of recognition of the category.
In practice, rights have been historically awarded to licensees with little or no ability to fulfil the opportunity to its full potential due to not being a consumer facing brand, lack of distribution channel, flexibility or understanding of the personalised consumer which are all key factors in succeeding in a personalised retail space.
I’m pleased to say I have seen a marked change in attitudes to this category within the past couple of years and licensors are moving out of the bricks and mortar mindset and recognising the value and opportunity to work directly with personalised and digital sectors. This has enabled us to build some great partnerships, really get behind brands and develop a consistent range of products in line with our customer profiles.
Licensing should be a partnership where by everyone is accountable for delivering the end proposition, when this happens we really see positive results.
One of the advantages of partnering directly with a personalisation business to a licensor is the speed to market, at Moonpig we can get a new design to market within eight weeks (if there’s no tech work involved).
As a print-on-demand business we can trial licences, we not only know what our customers are buying, but also what they are searching for. This allows us to tap into what may be considered a niche brand and licence opportunity for a high street retailer, but actually could be satisfying the appetite for our customers.
Moonpig launched a number of new products and categories this year which could be growth opportunities for licensors, namely men’s gifting, kids gifting, personalised books, video cards, calendars and more recently ‘Concertina’ cards, a fantastic multi photo upload 3 fold card. Photobox also launched a range of stunning Pantone Photo books earlier in the year and a range of fantastic Disney, Marvel and Star Wars personalised posters just in time for the peak Christmas period.
Every licence and brand we partner with we also support with extensive marketing of the products directly to our customers and via our social channels. Earlier this year we ran competitions with the likes of Carte Blanche on Tatty Teddy, which have been really successful so expect to see more of that.
We have also just launched a three-week Star Wars competition to win not only product bundles but a one off piece of Grafitti art by Grafitti Life, an urban art collective. So make sure you enter!
Sarah-Jane Porter is head of licensing at Photobox Group. She can be contacted on sarah-jane.porter@moonpig.com.
