Trouble is good

It was just like A Miracle on 34th St, which was appropriate since the place was heaving with chocolate Santas, selection boxes and gastric band-necessitating tins of Roses and Quality Street. (Price Drop. £5 down from £10.)

It was geography that first brought us together, Tesco Metro, Covent Garden and me. Convenience. Nothing more. But frequency breeds familiarity and soon me, Michael, Mo, Trouble and the rest had struck up a rapport.

It's an odd store. It has a schizophrenic clientele ranging from the Monday to Friday office crowd, to local residents, to visitors from every far-flung gondola-end of the planet, all jostling for aisle space. But it still manages to pull off the not inconsiderable trick of being simultaneously very obviously part of the behemoth while feeling like a village store. This, of course, is all down to the staff. The personalities and characters of which are as varied and colorful as the Roses they're flogging.

Trouble is both front and back of house. You hear her before you see her. She's what people call a larger than life character. To me she's always been Trouble and - recognizing an appropriate moniker when they hear one - she's now known as Trouble to everyone else.

Time to fess-up. A few weeks ago I turned 50. (Time for elasticated waistbands, easy-fit Velcro-fastening slip-ons and the prospect of being on very intimate terms with the lady from Tenna, I know.) In the week before the doleful day there had been much in-store piss-taking and ribaldry around the subject, the earthy tone of which would not feature in any tone-of-voice section of the brand guidelines. But they know their customers.

The Day came and went and while standing in a queue a week later Trouble appeared. She said that she had been carrying something around for me all week and promptly produced a birthday present. The rest of the queue promptly tuned-in. I was, I confess, momentarily struck-dumb. (Legion are those who would pay handsomely to witness that.) Trouble, whose relationship to me is based on selling me stuff on behalf of someone else, had bought me a birthday present.

She gave me the present. I gave her a hug. One of the two chaps in front of me asked why she had given it to me and I replied that I was just a customer and that I generally make her life a misery. They couldn't believe it. Neither could the rest of the queue. You can't buy the kind of positive PR and word-of-mouth advertising thatTrouble's gesture generated.

So, Philip Clarke. Your trading profits have stalled and you're trailing behind your competitors. You no longer have a monopoly on 'value' so it's time to get to grips with the fact that price alone does not a healthy and market-leading brand make. It's time for you to value Trouble and all the others like her up and down the country and further afield.

Price is no longer doing it for you. People and the customer experience they provide will. So give them the freedom to interact with and speak to customers in a tone and manner that is meaningful to both parties. Credit them with the common sense - and the training - to enable them to read their customers so they can make meaningful (and profitable) connections with them...on your behalf.

No more Stalin-esque and brand-diminishing diktats banishing the colloquial: "My duck." "My love." "Pet."  Or indeed any other linguistic throwback to the middle ages that may work for that customer.

You can't say that you understand what your customers want unless they can understand you and feel that you understand them. Language is an important element of the brand canon. It's a mirror. It enables your customers to recognize both you and themselves. Local can and should co-exist with national and global. So why do so many style themselves into an alien form? 

What you need, Mr. Clarke, is more Trouble. Many, many more like her. You probably already have them, but you've put them in one of your empty Roses tins - one labeled Brand Guidelines - guidelines of the kind that are akin to math textbooks, full of picas and points and empty of warmth. Heavy on look and way too light on feel, guidelines put together by those who have little imagination. The clue is in the name. They’re supposed to be guides, not strictures.

Oh. And the present? It was a lovely girlie key fob, which bears a highly insightful, 'I'm right. He's wrong. End of story." 

They know their customers in Covent Garden.