HMV*, the UK’s biggest high street retailer of entertainment products – music, games, electronics (more recently) and DVDs, has gone into administration as of yesterday, meaning 4500 jobs are at risk.
As a former employee (I graduated to the giddy heights of ‘chart buyer’) I feel truly gutted for the staff, and hope that the company are able to survive.**
People are blaming Amazon, Play.com, Spotify, Netflix, the major supermarkets (who sell the most mainstream entertainment products at a loss to tempt people into their stores), and of course illegal downloading.
But perhaps HMV themselves are to blame.
Philip Beeching worked on HMV’s advertising account and he shares a damning account of how he tried to tell them about the triple threat of “online retailers, downloadable music and supermarkets discounting loss leader product” (thanks to my pal Baxter for sharing).
He says in the article that
“Throughout the late 90’s and right up until today HMV’s single biggest mistake has been a lack of investment in their online offering.”
This is backed up with a quote from the founders of online store Play.com who waited for HMV to come after them – but were surprised when it never happened. It also chimes with my own opinion and many others online.
rather than question Amazon’s online impact you could look at HMV’s site, it’s terrible. and nowadays can HMV afford low online sales?
— Robert Bell (@rabbell) January 15, 2013
The same thing has happened with many people as the digital revolution has taken hold, including most of the newspaper industry who thought they were selling papers when really they were selling news (and therefore the medium is less important than the content).
Some people however have seen the writing on the wall early enough to adapt, including Beeching’s own creative agency who saw digital coming and adapted in good time.
Appropriately enough, given my current #Sethisms theme on this blog, Seth Godin has a very apt quote about this:
“Our preconceptions and our fear conspire to make it difficult to see the world as it is.
Buddhists call it prajna – accepting reality as it occurs instead of interpreting it as part of our ongoing narrative.
The trick isn’t coming up with an interpretation of events that allows you to maintain your worldview; it is to accept what happens without stopping to interpret it according to your biases.” #Sethisms
This is something the bosses at HMV clearly failed to do.
Here’s where you need to ask yourself honestly – are you doing something similar with your business right now?
- Are you aware that you need a strong online presence, which involves clearly communicating why you do what you do?
- Are you publishing engaging and valuable content consistently in order to drive traffic to your site?
- Are you taking specific, strategic actions to grow a tribe of people who are interested in what you have to say?
- Are you aware of how to use the latest social media and multimedia tools to help you do this?
Yes, you probably are aware. So, are you doing it yet?
How I Can Help
If you’re interested in finding out more I’m going to be volunteering at a series of free social media surgeries beginning this coming Monday at Leith McDonald Road Library. These surgeries are primarily aimed at “local voluntary or community organisations, local charities, clubs or societies who are interested in making the most of the web and social media.” (Download event poster in PDF format.)
I’m also about to hold a number of workshops on how to Pimp Your Online Presence at various events around Scotland.
And, whilst I’m in the process of revamping my freelance copywriting business, I will be available for both consulting and content production from the beginning of February.
Get in touch if you’d like to have a chat about how I can help you.
Don’t be another HMV.
*HMV of course, stands for His Master’s Voice because the company sold gramophones in the early days (that picture of their dog Nipper is pretty iconic. I met Nipper once, when the Edinburgh Princes Street store re-opened. Well, it wasn’t the original Nipper, it was probably the 10th reincarnation. Meatloaf also made an appearance at the opening, as did his biggest fan, Pete Loaf).
**I also feel for the staff of Fopp, which was a great indie record store which HMV bought out to save it from going under a few years back. I’d hate to see Fopp disappear altogether, especially because they used to sell my band Swivel Chair’s CDs back in the day.
Clear-Minded Creative 
2 replies on “Don’t Be Another HMV – Wake Up to What Your Business Needs – NOW”
I was on the Toys R Us website the other day, and thought how horribly busy and difficult to navigate it is. Perhaps the most surprising thing is how willing a lot of people are to still go in search of what they want! Though clearly not enough in HMV’s case.
As an aside, any time I’ve visited a HMV recently it struck me that I didn’t want to see them selling electronics/laptops/tablets, or games (especially shelves and shelves of pre-owned games: that’s what GAME existed for). I wanted to find albums or films that I didn’t expect to find; not have the same range of popular titles forced upon me at prices that were never quite tempting enough. Like WH Smith and books, and GAME and games, the more they generalised and diluted what they offered, the less reason I had to be there.
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Agreed. I think they bet on the wrong things. They thought that electronics would save them, because they didn’t want to do the hard work of looking at more fundamental problems with their business model. People are just as likely to buy their electronics through the likes of Amazon (or direct from Apple) than via HMV. It reeked of desperation..
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