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OVER THE
COUNTER
BY DAVID ROBERTSON OF JP POZZI, ELGIN AND BUCKIE.
Mind over
Matter? With so many of us reeling from rising costs, falling footfall, staff challenges, changes to the retail landscape… on top of things going on in our own personal lives and the world at large, our grey matter is being put to the test. With a baby’s imminent arrival, the fragility of life brought to the fore by the passing of two industry icons and all the think tanks and meetings I have attended recently, my brain has never been busier. Here is this month’s ‘brain dump’!
Busy minds think about big topics, none more so than life and death. In recent weeks sadly our industry has been rocked by the passing of Deborah Jones, the artist behind Forever Friends and of course David Hicks, the founder of Really Good and Soul. When we started in business 34 years ago Forever Friends was a must have product. I can clearly remember ordering everything from stationery to school bags and of course the greeting cards. The ‘Brownsword bears’ helped build a company that reached dizzying heights and Cardsharp’s column in last month’s PG perfectly framed the history of this iconic brand in UK greeting card landscape. David Hicks has also rightly been classed as a legend in cards and gifts and not surprisingly there have been many glowing tributes shared. Really Good’s Bright Side Man Tin was of course was a recent phenomenal product, but it was the Not Particularly Orange postcards, that is my first memory of David. Loss is of course part of life. In contrast, as I write this, in eight weeks today my first child is due to arrive. I think it is fair to say I am in for a shock. Our greeting card industry is of course built on these notable events. It is all about celebrating, remembering and sympathising. With my imminent arrival I have been thinking long and hard about business and the retailing landscape. Perhaps some of the meetings I have attended in the last few weeks are making me question everything even more. 18
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
A case in point, I was invited to meet our local MSP and other members of the Scottish Parliament to discuss a Just Transition. This document is focused on the move towards Carbon Zero and acknowledges the mistakes of the past. It wants to avoid creating ghost towns and leaving workers and families behind in the race to rid ourselves of oil, gas and anything else that doesn’t fit the new hot topic. The easiest way to relate to it is the coal miners and the ‘pit towns’ that were abandoned as the men and coal were discarded.
I then went on from this meeting to one about The Right Change to Retail Strategy. This Scottish Government document was also supplemented with a local 156-page retail strategy. Attendance at both meetings was average at best and sadly it was the same faces who always tend to support and discuss these and other issues who were present. I am not sure if it is apathy, nervousness or just a lack of interest/care that stops people turning up. What becomes clearer with every weighty document is the people writing them, the people formulating the ideas, the people trying to highlight the need for change have in fact invariably never done what we do. They have never paid a wage, created a job or risked not having a monthly amount of money to pay their bills. In some ways it is like a group of football players being managed by someone who didn’t play the game. That manager will have to work a lot harder and prove a lot more in terms of success to gain the trust of those that are actually doing it. We are the players. We are kicking that ball. We are living the 90 mins of retail, except our game doesn’t ever really end. Continuing the analogy, my team, Manchester United has just announced its new manager and like every city centre it too needs to regenerate. Top left: The workings of the brain have yet to be fully understood by David Robertson, and everybody else for that matter! Above: Few ranges will ever make the same level of impact on the card racks as Forever Friends did. Left: Indies are key players in the beautiful game of retailing.
