Going in to Marks and Spencers‘ store in Sandhurst on Sunday, I couldn’t help but see this large wall poster at the store entrance:
It wasn’t so much the statement that caught my attention but more the web address - www.marksandspencer.com/PlanA.
I like a company who says they have a Plan A for any purpose. It brings to mind a sense of connection with the way people tend to see things, plus a bit of humour.
So a visit to Plan A at the M&S website brings up a wide range of information, rich in its breadth and depth that tells you what this retailer is doing about climate change and things related.
One section is a number of videos with M&S senior executives talking about the company’s climate change initiatives and activities.
A bit stiff and corporate for my taste but ok nevertheless. I wonder how much more effective such video content would be if they’d just recorded regular employees talking informally with no scripting. More credible perhaps.
And what about uploading them to YouTube? That’s how you could really gain big exposure to your corporate video messaging, reaching a broader audience who will likely talk about you and your messaging (and that talk will be pro and con).
Perfect for this type of topic to get a conversation going.
While there are lots of videos about M&S on YouTube, there’s nothing there about M&S and climate change.
I’m reading the statement again in the poster above.
I wonder why the company says “We’ll aim to make…” rather than “We aim to make…” or “We will make…”? The “we’ll” as a contraction of “We will” is a bit lame, don’t you think?
Still, this is probably just nit-picking as I think M&S deserve praise for what they say they’re doing.
