The purpose of this blog is to review the partnership between Brandwatch and Argos, this blog uses a case study (Brandwatch, 2017) to understand the partnership and how Brandwatch have supported Argos to lead a high street revolution.

 

Summary

Argos reached out to Brandwatch to help them on their high street digital transformation journey, Argos were satisfied with the innovative online store but they wanted to take innovation into the real world and improve the digital aspects of their stores nationwide. Argos decided to embark on a journey to open 53 digital stores across the UK, these digital stores were different from the traditional Argos stores because they replaced heavy catalogues with iPads, whilst also incorporating a Social Listening dimension. This is where Brandwatch offered their support, they set up a social listening platform for Argos to help them understand what was being said about the new digital stores on Social Media. Not only could Argos understand the general feeling of the stores nationwide, they could also use location data to understand what was being said in each individual store across the UK. Feedback by location meant that Argos could quickly identify the stores that were performing well and set up praise accordingly. A picture of the new digital transformation can be found below:

Results

The partnership meant that Argos could analyse the locations that the digital stores were successful in, whilst also understanding if the appreciation of the stores differed between gender. The results suggested that men seemed more positive about the change and were really impressed with the new high tech feel amongst the store, whereas females appreciated the new approach to customer service. In terms of locations, Londoners tended to embrace the new digital changes but were faster to complain. This insight from Brandwatch is useful for Argos to understand whether it is worthwhile rolling out digital stores across the UK. However, there are some concerns that I have found with the case study that I will share in the next paragraph.

Limitations

Within the case study, it was mentioned that if customers had anything to say about new stores then they would turn to Social Media. The Office for National Statistics (2016) suggests that even though 91% of 16-24 year olds use Social Media, this figure decreases as the age groups increase and only 23% of 65+ year old use Social Media. This means that Brandwatch would have got the views from the audiences who are only using Social Media platforms and they haven’t mentioned if they gained any other additional insight. This is a limitation because the views of the new digital stores may differ between Social Media users and those who don’t use Social Media platforms.

References

Brandwatch (2017) ‘Argos: Leading a Retail Revolution’ [Online] <https://www.brandwatch.com/case-studies/argos/> [Accessed 11 October 2017]

The Office for National Statistics (2016) ‘Internet access – households and individuals: 2016’ [Online] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/householdcharacteristics/homeinternetandsocialmediausage/bulletins/internetaccesshouseholdsandindividuals/2016  [Accessed 11 October 2017]