Start Licensing’s Ian Downes discovers how licensing is playing its role in a brace of WH Smith Travel stores.
It was a tale of two cities and two branches of the same retailer for me last week as I was on the road, or more accurately the rails, travelling to meetings.
The retailer in question was WH Smith Travel. It is a retailer which seems to know its consumer audience and has set its stall out to try to serve its consumers as efficiently as possible. In both branches I visited licensing is playing its role. Although I imagine the WH Smith buyers aren’t consciously buying licensed ranges, rather they are buying into products that they feel fit their profile best. As an aside I think there is an assumption in licensing that everyone ‘gets licensing’ but I tend to think that many retail buyers are understandably focused on the products they buy judging them on their individual merits and how they work for them rather than seeing the bigger ‘licensing’ picture. In this context initiatives such as BLE’s Retail Mentoring Programme are welcome as they help retail buyers appreciate the licensing landscape more fully and hopefully help persuade them that licensing can work well for them across categories.
I popped into the WH Smith Travel outlets at Manchester Piccadilly and Paddington stations. They are both busy stations that have a lot of people travelling through, including people heading off on holidays. At Paddington there was actually hordes of people heading off to Glastonbury for the music festival… licensed apparel companies will be pleased to know I spotted a lot of festival goers wearing licensed tees featuring bands. I guess festival season is a good boost to sales of music-related apparel and other merchandise. Plus of course events deliver on site sales opportunities as well.
The WH Smith branches on the stations seem to be ones that have recently been refreshed and are set up in a new store format. I am guessing there is a programme of refresh and refurb going on at the moment across the retail estate. Part of this seems to be an adjustment in product mix and focus. In quick summary, there seems to be emphasis on ‘grab and go’ and an acknowledgement that shoppers will be looking for products for their journey or perhaps their holiday.
The store layouts focus on quick visits and easy purchases. This includes a bank of self serve tills. Another feature I have noticed in WH Smith travel branches is that they seem to be the launchpad for a lot of new brands in categories like confectionery, chocolate and drinks. I am not sure if this is a deliberate strategy to ensure it is ahead of the NPD curve and also benefit from innovative thinking from new suppliers in a categories that are competitive. It is interesting to see new brands featuring regularly ‘on shelf’ – I think this is an area that might open up opportunities for licensing as the suppliers WH Smith uses for this NPD pipeline could be companies that might embrace licensing opportunities.
Licensing wise two areas of the shops that featured a lot of licensing were the children’s comics and books section. Children’s comics and magazines are dominated by licensed titles. It is a busy fixture and one that is difficult to stand out in. Of course a strong licence can help, but it still needs to be seen. Adding cover mounts and creating strong character lead covers can help but other techniques are deployed as well such as shelf boxes which feature a WH Smith’s Choice – the week’s chosen title was Hot Wheels. I am sure the publisher has to invest in this sort of placement, but it does achieve stand out and helps the title stand out from the crowd.
Travel outlets are a great way of publishers reaching consumers looking to pick up a comic or magazine ‘for the journey’, but there is a challenge around predicting sales uptake in a retail environment that is subject to seasonal variation. WH Smith is using characters to help brand and identify the children’s book section in-store with characters such as Spider-Man and Peppa Pig featuring on the fixture. Using characters in this way helps adds a new dynamic to the fixture and helps navigate the consumer journey in-store. Product wise well known characters are prominently promoted, while the range on offer mixes licensed titles with non-licensed ones plus a number of ‘celebrity’ lead titles.
It is a well stocked department which leads one to conclude that children’s books are a category that performs well for WH Smith. The range includes novels, picture books, reference, activity and craft titles. Of course, again remembering the setting there a number of books and formats suited to ‘on the go’ use including puzzle books, sticker books and books meets kit formats that are portable. The Gruffalo is particularly prominent in-store, not least as the character is currently being used by WH Smith at the centre of a promotion to increase the ownership of books among children.
According to the National Literacy Trust, one in five young children don’t own a book. WH Smith’s Gruffalo lead campaign is centred on the proposition and action that for every Gruffalo book bought in store WH Smith will gift a copy to ‘get more children reading’. This seems like a very admirable and noteworthy promotion. A well established publishing brand like The Gruffalo suits it well and, of course, using a character brand helps give the promotion a real identity. The promotion is featured in-store and in window posters.
It was also interesting to see WH Smith stocking the official Tour de France Race Guide again this year. This has something it has done before and the fact that it is in-store again this year suggests it is a product that has worked well for it. The Guide comes with a free Science in Sport (SIS) drinks bottle and energy gels – a brand and product well chosen for the Tour de France target market.
I liked the way that WH Smith has coordinated the retail display with the magazine cover – both are using the ‘yellow’ of the Tour de France Leaders’ Yellow Jersey. From WH Smith’s perspective this is a clever piece of merchandise and an effective way of featuring an ‘official’ product. The linked promotion helps underpin things, but from the outside this would seem to be a product that is being given every chance of succeeding and one that uses the featured brand effectively from a sales perspective.
In previous Lookouts I have made note of the fact that retailers are increasingly using branded FSDUs in-store – presumably to drive sales and engagement plus maximise their floor space. WH Smith is a retailer which seems to have embraced this way of selling. I noticed a branded FSDU for drinks brand Prime’s product collaboration with Manchester City player Erling Haaland. It was positioned at the front of store, while product was also being sold off shelf in another location. Haaland is featured in a Prime-branded ‘kit’ emphasising this is a promotion that sits outside Manchester City or indeed Norway (Haaland’s national team). Promotions and collaborations with celebrities can present commercial and contractual challenges particularly around other deals that might sit with club or country.
Despite the tribal nature of football in Manchester, I was quite surprised to see two teenagers buying the product – surprised as they were both wearing Manchester United football tops. This suggests people’s admiration for Haaland goes beyond club rivalry and that he is a well chosen collaboration partner for Prime.
WH Smith had also given over space to toys including a dedicated Kidzone area. Rather like the in-store promotion for books, the Kidzone space was curated under a Kidzone header card featuring characters like Barbie, Spider-Man and Peppa Pig. Licensed products featured in the toy selection on offer including licensed lines from Winning Moves – there was a good presence for Top Trumps in the space. Other products in the mix included games, particularly travel game formats and also plush toys. The plush toy selection included a number of characters from the gaming world including Super Mario. Crayola also featured prominently in-store with its products including licensed products such as a Peppa Pig activity kit in a wallet. As noted earlier WH Smith has majored on product that works well for consumers ‘on the go’. A reminder that it is always worth thinking about the location and focus of a retailer.
It was also interesting to see that WH Smith Travel has given a lot of space in-store to gadgets and electronics in a dedicated part of the store headed up Tech Express. Again this reflects consumer demand and the opportunity that the category represents for a retailer located in a travel hub. Indeed I have noticed WH Smith has a standalone Tech Express kiosk on Waterloo Station. This is part of the store and a category that may well create new opportunities for licensing in the near future.
I found it interesting to see how WH Smith Travel has re-worked its product offering over recent times and the investment made in new store layouts. Like many retailers, it has had to adapt to changing times not least because of the emergence of new product categories and the fact that consumers are shopping differently these days. As areas of the store like children’s books and comics show, licensed brands can play a vital role in creating retail engagement. We shouldn’t undervalue this and we should be mindful that retailers are ever evolving their retail offer – in a fast changing market well known and trusted licensed brands can provide an anchor point for retailers.
Ian Downes runs Start Licensing, an independent brand licensing agency. His X handle is @startlicensing and on Instagram he is @iandownesphotos – he would welcome your suggestions for what to look out for.
