THE SILENCING OF HIS MASTER’S VOICE?

The latest trading figures from the retail and service sectors make for sobering news – and there can be little doubt of worse to come. There have been positive vibes from the likes of John Lewis (consistently great service coupled with value surely being no coincidence) as well as in the form of budget hotel chain Travelodge’s expansion plans, but what of those names whose long-held tenures on our high streets – and in our hearts - look increasingly precarious.

HMV is one patient seemingly headed for the retail intensive care unit and in numerous respects it is pretty easy to understand why. You can easily see this on a marketing exam paper as a challenge to students to suggest ways in which the once domineering entertainment retailer might reinvigorate its brand. Or is it all too late?

There are a number of things wrong with HMV and a number of areas in which the business seems to have slipped into a coma while many around it respond to the ever-evolving ways in which we buy and consume music, film, computer games and new technology.

Step into an HMV store and little has changed in a long time: the same layout, same shop fittings, same branding…everything, in fact, appears the same as it was five – maybe even 10 - years ago.

The likes of Amazon, Play and the formidable iTunes no doubt helped to see off Virgin and then Zavvi from the high street and it’s beginning to look a lot like HMV will follow suit.

It is a great shame as it was once a gold standard high street name and there are undoubtedly things it could have done to preserve and, maybe even, secure its future position.

Why, for instance, has it not partnered with Costa Coffee or Starbucks to bring them into their stores, complete with complimentary wi-fi? The major US bookseller Barnes & Noble does this successfully in many of its shops, and both Waterstones and WH Smith in the UK have followed suit in some of its larger outlets. It creates a dual draw and helps to encourage both footfall and the length of time a customer potentially remains in store.

HMV might also have installed docking stations where customers could purchase and download music, films and television programmes to iPods, iPads and other devices, and while the benefit of loyalty card schemes remain in doubt, HMV was way too late embracing the concept.

Its stores should have had a major makeover four or five years ago, while its website appears to have never really taken off. Do you know anyone who buys music, books or DVDs online and who uses HMV over Amazon or Play?

If it was serious about its online presence, HMV needed to do much, much more to promote and position its website – and to learn from Amazon’s emphasis on tracking consumer habits and then cleverly leading them to product suggestions in line with their buying history.

I recently purchased an iPad and at no point did the idea of buying it from HMV even enter my head.  Accepted, the obvious place to which most people would head is one of those glossy and seductive Apple stores (and I did), but I had also considered buying it at John Lewis (for an extended warranty) and Argos (purely for ease).

The HMV experience is one that has largely stagnated while, as a brand, it has committed the cardinal sins of predictability and complacency.

Can it claw things back? I would like to think so, but it needs to address the double-whammy of having left it too late and of then trying to reverse the fortunes of a struggling (some might say dying) brand against the toughest retail backdrop in decades.