HMV bounds back and finds its voice on the high street – Brand Index
Are we witnessing a comeback from traditional high street retailer HMV? Recent figures suggest so, with announcements highlighting stronger sales and consumer perception.
There was much public hand-wringing when HMV were placed into administration, leading to the closure of a number of stores following competition from online retailers such as Amazon. Since then, the brand has tried to rebuild, and my evidence suggests they have been making gains, specifically from supermarkets.
HMV has looked to refocus on its core music and film offering as well as rethinking their store layouts and marketing. What then, does YouGov’s BrandIndex data suggest has been going right? In most of our key metrics, we have seen improvement, featuring a good degree of consistency, a contrast to the tumult HMV experienced previously. YouGov’s Index rating includes a variety of metrics, including quality, reputation, impression and value – HMV’s stands at a very healthy 10.6.
YouGov’s Buzz metric shows there is room for improvement. The measure shows whether respondents heard anything negative or positive about the brand in the past two weeks. Here, HMV has only recently gained a positive rating, currently standing at +0.2. This is up from -2.4 at this time last year. More good news is that HMV did appear third on our mid-year list of top buzz improvers in June.
YouGov’s ad awareness metric from September until December last year, shows a large spike coinciding with the Christmas bounce. Looking beyond it, this shows HMV felt they were strong enough to commit once again to a high profile campaign. Its future forays into advertising will be key for their redevelopment.