15
PRODUCTE, CONSUM, COMUNICACIÓ: EL NOU PUNT DE VENDA,
1998
A new offer for a new marketAfter having taken part in some of the main battles
for consumer defence in France
and having made that improvements obtained form part of commercial usage, the
FNAC intends that intelligence preside the simple and reperitive act of
shopping, whose cultural and social echoes become increasingly complex. This
brings about the need for involvement in all stages that lead to buying and
derive from it. An obligation of involvement that can be characterised by innovation,
prescription, and mediation.
In regard to innovation, this can be declined in many
different ways. The first, and perhaps most obvious, is related to all the
novelties this end-of-millenium technology is surprising us with almost every
day. Internet, CD-Rom, and so on, are products the FNAC wished to divulge from
the beginning. Now, for example, is the moment of DVD and we can perfectly
legitimally ask «What
does DVD give us that is new?»
The FNAC is leader in the field of broadcasting new technology and informs the
public by means of publications and presentations in commercial centres. As
soon as they reach the market, these products are tested and selected by our
laboratory and, for this reason, no products with mediocre features are to be
found.
But innovation also has many other aspects which are
not as apparent as technological novelties. The FNAC also intends to he
up-to-date in innovation in the field of artistic creation, especially music
and literature, and it is here that prescription appears, the capacity to
recommend specific products and proposals and be believable. This
believableness is based on a key point: absolute independence from suppliers. Independence has several
signs; sales personnel at the FNAC are forbidden to exert pressure of any kind
on customers to obtain a sale; they only attend a customer if they are asked for attention or advice; the
total absence of supplier LSP's in the FNAC premises; the non-existence of
loudspeaker publicity messages to stimulate consumption. These are all signs of
independence. Thus, there is the possibility of prescription, of setting style,
because we act like a truly independent business, which is proved by the
loudspeakers and even the relationship of
salespeople with customers. To sum up; what is most profitable in the long term
is respecting the consumers' independence. Cultural products are not just any
merchandise, and at the FNAC customers have the opportunity to handle them
(thumb the books, listen to the music, try the technical aparatus, and so on)
with complete freedom and with no-one to scold them. This is what we understand
as commercial mediation.
A distinctive aspect of the FNAC as opposed to the
competition is its extremely extensive cultural programming. The FNAC forum
turns into an art gallery, a music hall, a conference and chat hall, a book
presentation forum, a cinema, etc., every day. In fact, cultural programming is
the most intense activity carried out by the communication and marketing
department, an activity which means more than 400 cultural acts a year in each
establishment. This strategy distinguishes us from the competition and attracts
to our premises a great amount of people interested in the world of art and
culture, that is to say, our potential customers are those who really value the
FNAC's efforts to offer a different cultural activity every day. This gives
added value to the simple art of buying and, in a way, makes our customer not
just a buyer, but also a spectator and actor who takes part in out cultural
acts. The forum acts in themselves become elements of news interest picked up
by all communication media. Thus, public relations and media relations work
carried out by the FNAC is a task of vital importance for the communication
department.
In this strategy sketched out here, publicity is
conceived of almost always as a support to priority public relations actions in
the company's communication policy, as, for example, specific actions we carry
out with NGO's like Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and Medicus Mundi, with
campaigns such as «Score
a Goal for Peace», or «Donate
Books».
Corporate identity is shown both in our publicity
communications and shop windows, leaflets, posters, etc., and reflects an
aesthetics we believe agrees with our public objective, an aesthetics which
tries to reach the mentality and manner of a young audience which makes up the
majority of our customers, with an avantgarde, open taste. We use a happy,
relaxed expression, a visual language from the world of the comic, a way of «being FNAC».
Besides all this, the FNAC also has the more
conventional ways of customer loyalty, such as, for example, the FNAC card. One
of its main attractions which distinguishes it from other cards is that the
owners receive the FNAC agenda with the forum's cultural programmes, besides
the more usual advantages like credit access, free parking, and the convenience
of plastic payment with delayed payment at the customers' will.
In the field of records, the extreme market and
communication media concentration on an ever-increasingly limited number of
titles endangers renewal, creation and diversity of music. FNAC's
responsibility as one of the main record sales points commits the FNAC to offer
a launching pad for new talent, to favour publication by record companies, to
give a specific place in the sales line-ups, and allow them to find an audience
within the shop's forums, which are encounter and listening points quite alien
from commercial activity. The forums not only allow musicians meeting with the
public, but also are a promotion platform not to be sneered at, both for
musicians themselves and for record companies. Some data help to affirm this
statement. In Barcelona, for example, in four
months we have programmed at the forum several concerts which cover the whole
range of music, from well-known artists such as Revólver or Texas to young promises like Jarabe de Palo
or Konic Theatre. We must not forget all other genres, including classical
music, jazz, or new age. At the same time, the FNAC has opened its doors to
DIBA, a platform of independent record companies from Barcelona which chose our forum as the most
adequate space for making itself known to the press.
In the case of literature, there is also a marked
concentration, although less than in the record market. The selection of
novelties proposed by our booksellers cannot be conceived other than by the
widest possible selection of books. More than three thousand publishers, from
the great multinational groups to the small, local independents are on reference
at the FNAC, and a book that is not available can be ordered at no extra cost.
In the same way as in the case of music, the FNAC forums are a platform where
writers can both make their new books known and debate among themselves and
make contact with their audience. In the same way as in the case of music, the Barcelona forum has
presented works by young authors such as Francisco Casavella or Flavia Company,
besides other books by very well-established authors like Ferran Torrent,
Vicente Verdú, or Carlos Castilla del Pino.
The FNAC's differences are based on its capacity for
serving as a platform for new cultural actors, new technology, new ideas, and an incessant adaptation of
its services to its consumers' needs. If we had to define the key to the FNAC's
success, we could do so as follows: it is a new commercial answer to a public
with qualitatively new requirements which, contrary to what happens in other
fields, makes of the buying of cultural goods a conscious, pleasurable act.
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Sobre l'autor
JOSÉ MARIA COBOS
Responsable de comunicació, FNAC de Barcelona
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