All articles by Michael Poynor – Page 3

  • Opinion

    Bricks and brands

    2011-04-28T00:00:00Z

    My last article focused on the transience of retail brands versus the resilience of those in consumer goods (adieu Ratners; re-bonjour Perrier).

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    Opinion

    Brands and mortar

    2011-03-25T00:00:00Z

    The 20th annual Retail Week Conference last week featured a self-deprecating tour de force by the former owner of the most calamitous brand in Retail Week’s lifetime.

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    Opinion

    Retail success is precision engineered

    2011-01-14T00:00:00Z

    I am writing this on a flight to New York heading for the NRF’s 100th Annual Convention. I’m well aware of the need to stay au courant with the sector - not least when writing for Retail Week - but my copy of the latest magazine had not arrived on ...

  • Michael Poynor
    Opinion

    A meeting of retail migrants

    2010-11-05T00:00:00Z

    Some 1,000 participants migrated to Berlin last week for the World Retail Congress. And as migration, in a sense, was a congress leitmotif, Berlin was the perfect location. Ring-walled from access for millions of its nearest neighbours over decades, this city is now the cosmopolitan meeting point über alles.

  • Michael Poynor
    Opinion

    Brazil finally comes of age

    2010-09-24T00:00:00Z

    The Goldman Sachs Conference in New York last week assembled a powerful line-up of more than 50 leading retailers.

  • Michael Poynor
    Opinion

    The mobile is the medium of the message

    2010-08-06T00:00:00Z

    “The medium is the message”. Marshall McLuhan’s dictum, which defined the post-Second World War marketing era, has become more pertinent than ever in this age of the worldwide web.

  • Michael Poynor
    Opinion

    Adopting a consumer goods outlook

    2010-06-25T00:00:00Z

    This reflection of FMCG brands’ best practice by major retailers can also extend to how they structure their organisations or would like to be perceived.

  • Michael Poynor
    Opinion

    All change or business as usual?

    2010-05-07T00:00:00Z

    Last month’s political TV debates at home, and volcanic quakes overseas, are both dramatic cases in point; and the emergence of a credible third choice for government in the UK could prove just as seismic as the eruption of an ash cloud across European airspace.

  • Michael Poynor
    Opinion

    Retail’s best are coming from FMCG marketing

    2010-03-26T00:00:00Z

    Many retail executives with initial FMCG careers can establish their credentials as brand marketers turned super-marketers.

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    Opinion

    Retail needs more women in top jobs

    2010-02-05T00:00:00Z

    It’s hard to refute the accusation that tokenism and sexism still underpin the bedrock of many a board structure

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    Opinion

    Here’s to another decade of evolution

    2009-12-18T00:00:00Z

    At the close of the millennium’s first decade, it’s timely to cast an eye, both back to 1999 and forward to 2019. Parallel leitmotifs arise from opposite directions, across the channel and across the pond.

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    Opinion

    Can retailers deliver the goods?

    2009-10-30T00:00:00Z

    The postal strike has cast the spotlight strongly back onto the doorstep and with it the abiding challenge of ecommerce; the ‘Last Mile’, that final hurdle of fulfilment for pure-play and multichannel alike.

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    Opinion

    A new age of reason

    2009-09-25T00:00:00Z

    Visits in the past two weeks to the US and Australia have unearthed encouraging signs to counter the fears of a recessionary pandemic that abounded 12 months ago.

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    Opinion

    In celebration of stores’ worker bees

    2009-08-07T00:00:00Z

    Ubi mel ibi apes is a classical adage for our age. Literally meaning “where there is honey there are bees”, it is a metaphor for the effort that lies behind success and the sweet reward for those who support it.

  • MichaelPoynor
    Opinion

    Price-conscious retail with a conscience

    2009-06-19T00:00:00Z

    Conspicuous consumption is giving way to conscientious consumption. This is not just a sign of recessionary times but the dawning of an era, says Michael Poynor

  • MichaelPoynor
    Opinion

    Stick to your knitting – but knit well

    2009-05-01T00:00:00Z

    It seems apt on May Day to reiterate Jon Moulton’s alarmist view that “very few recessions of this depth have not ended in war”.

  • Opinion

    Staff engagement is vital in recession

    2009-02-06T06:00:00Z

    Arguments apportioning blame for the recession, whether on the inmates of Downing Street, the boardrooms of global banks or elsewhere, risk becoming academic and mired in partisanship. Only one thing is clear: no matter whose fault it is, it is our recession now.