This is not just a cock up....

Tonbridge is crying out for an M&S in the town! Or at least that's what I always used to think; that a Marks and Spencers would symbolise that Tonbridge was a quality High Street and not one to be avoided by big name retailers. Now it seems that the store chain is in deep trouble and I'm not altogether surprised. They have just thrown away a million pounds by hiring and then firing (less than a year later) Steven Essom, formerly of Waitrose who got, get this, a "Golden Hello" of £500,000 and now, no doubt, has got a similarly ridiculous Golden Parachute! I wonder what the news of that has done for staff morale among the £6.50 an hour floor sales assistants. This is not just a cock up, this is an M&S cock up. When I worked in advertising for the Daily Mirrror a few years back we held discussions with the group in more rosy economic times, regarding them advertising in the Mirror, which we liked to call the "quality popular newspaper" M&S were embarking on their now famous campaign: This is not just cream, this M&S thick double cream from only the finest rare breed Highland cattle in the outer Hebredes! Okay they didn't go quite that far but almost. Do you know what they actually bought it and placed several expensive colur pages across Mirror Group's titles. The problem wth M&S is that they just don't listen to market forces until it's too late. They used to lose bucket loads of customers, me included, for only taking M&S store cards and no other credit cards. They lost even more business, and still do to an extent, by pig-headedly refusing to stock lines other than their own label. They have relented a little more recently, but it's still too little too late. They have an old fashioned, middle market, middle of the road image which an awful lot of people have now switched off from. They don't know where they are going and it shows. If they ever do open a Tonbridge M&S, that is if John "I'm proud to stock Golliwogs" Bartram doesn't stand in their way I'll be queuing up for the job of Head of Strategy and my suitable Golden Hello, it would take me half an hour to tell them what they've pissed a million quid away to find out....