Argos have launched a cross-chan­nel dig­i­tal cam­paign designed to raise aware­ness of the brand’s dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion that has tak­en place in recent years. The retail­er has pio­neered a new con­cept store, and is show­ing such great inno­va­tion that even the biggest play­ers in ecom­merce are tak­ing notes.

Among Brits, Argos have always main­tained a unique brand iden­ti­ty. Ever present (it’s esti­mat­ed that 96 per­cent of the UK pop­u­la­tion is with­in 10 miles of an Argos store), and offer­ing a unique in-store expe­ri­ence as a cat­a­log mer­chant, the brand has always main­tained a strong iden­ti­ty based around prod­uct avail­abil­i­ty, val­ue, and deliv­ery effi­cien­cy. It means that Argos have always had to do things slight­ly dif­fer­ent­ly. In 2012 the brand “dragged itself into the 21st cen­tu­ry” by ini­ti­at­ing a dig­i­tal over­haul that saw the clo­sure of 75 stores, and the realign­ment of the busi­ness toward dig­i­tal rev­enue streams. The busi­ness was to be no less present to con­sumers, but the idea was that they could be there online, in the search engine and oth­er dig­i­tal chan­nels, sav­ing con­sumers both a trip to the store and the tedious task of leaf­ing through lam­i­nat­ed cat­a­logs for a quar­ter on an hour.

Get Set, Go Argos

Today the British retail­er extend­ed their dig­i­tal strat­e­gy one step fur­ther. The new “Get set, go Argos” cam­paign, led by a fea­ture TV spot fea­tur­ing break­dancers, stunts, and some snazzy edit­ing, has been hailed by the brand as a sign of their dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion. The advert will also be screened in UK cin­e­mas, a first ven­ture into cin­e­ma adver­tis­ing for the brand.

Stephen Vowles, Argos’ mar­ket­ing direc­tor, told Mar­ket­ing Week:

“We want peo­ple to think and feel dif­fer­ent­ly about the Argos brand. The dis­tinc­tive space we want to own is more heart­beats, rather than heart­strings. Lots of retail­ers do ads that make you go ‘aaaaa’. We do need an emo­tion­al con­nec­tion but that is prob­a­bly not Argos’ ter­ri­to­ry, our ter­ri­to­ry is about the excite­ment, the speed of get­ting the prod­ucts you want.”

The cam­paign will also see the brand updat­ing their web­site and mobile apps to match their new brand iden­ti­ty, as well as staff uni­forms, tills, inshore decor, deliv­ery trucks, and car­ri­er bags. A true dig­i­tal makeover. Vowles explained that the pur­pose of the cam­paign was to raise aware­ness among con­sumers of how much the brand has changed in recent years, phas­ing out the tra­di­tion­al cat­a­log-based busi­ness mod­el and replac­ing it with a cus­tomer-cen­tric dig­i­tal expe­ri­ence. Out with the cat­a­logs, order slips, and blue pens. In with the iPads, click and col­lect, and stock­ing of high-end pre­mi­um brands.

Free Tablets, Building Connections

In a par­al­lel move to the “Get Set, Go Argos” cam­paign, the brand also announced a series of dig­i­tal work­shops that will take place across all 120 of it’s UK stores. Kick­ing off at the end of Octo­ber, up to 10,000 peo­ple will be giv­en a free tablet and a year of broad­band sub­scrip­tion, to help users con­nect, and devel­op their dig­i­tal skills. Con­nect­ing the dis­con­nect­ed, the cam­paign will undoubt­ed­ly reach more than those present in the work­shops them­selves, in appre­ci­a­tion of the brands dig­i­tal respon­si­bil­i­ty and com­mu­ni­ty work.

Store Of The Future

Argos’ dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion is per­haps best encap­su­lat­ed by the brand’s stores. The brand recent­ly opened a con­cept store in Old Street, Lon­don, which mod­ernises the in-store expe­ri­ence, inte­grat­ing it with online shop­ping orders via Fast­Track ser­vices and Click and Col­lect. It all falls into Argos’ wider strat­e­gy of com­mu­ni­cat­ing the change and response of the brand to devel­op­ing dig­i­tal needs. For while some con­sumers, main­ly those who live near a dig­i­tal store, are aware of the brand’s new makeover, oth­ers have not yet been reached. Vowles explained that the cur­rent cam­paign is aimed at get­ting “35 per­cent of UK house­holds that don’t cur­rent­ly shop at the retail­er to reap­praise the brand.”

Argos vs. Amazon?

Argos’ lat­est moves have got a lot of ears twitch­ing in the indus­try. The brands dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion means its now pos­si­ble for con­sumer to do their shop­ping online or in-store, and pick up their goods on the same day rather than wait­ing for a deliv­ery. The speed and con­ve­nience of what Click and Col­lect offers makes for a great cus­tomer expe­ri­ence. It isn’t often that the great giant in ecom­merce, Ama­zon, is beat­en to new inno­va­tions, but it seems that the two retail­ers will soon be com­pet­ing for the same “Click and Col­lect” ter­ri­to­ry, with cus­tomers pre­fer­ring to pick up their goods in-store espe­cial­ly when buy­ing high-order goods. Ama­zon have been devel­op­ing plans to open phys­i­cal stores for some time now, and unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly, they have been some­what slow to move. Although the two are trav­el­ing toward inte­grat­ed dig­i­tal stores from dif­fer­ent direc­tions, in this case a small British brand has man­aged to beat a Sil­i­con Val­ley giant to the punch.