Marks & Spencer Marketing Strategy

Our plan Our aim is to make M&S a truly international, multi-channel retailer – accessible to even more customers around the world. We have created considerable momentum through a wide range of activities and are making good progress.

Focus in the UK

Trusted food – In a year when trust was more important than ever, customers turned to M&S for great quality, responsibly sourced food. Our innovation kept them coming back – with over 1,900 new lines. Cheshire Oaks – Every aspect of the new M&S format comes together at our new store. Showcasing all our products in a visually stunning environment, the store boasts impeccable green credentials and has performed well ahead of plan since launch. Perfectly edited – Our Perfectly campaign brought together a carefully edited collection of the iconic quality wardrobe staples that set M&S apart. Each ad offered easy style advice, showing different ways to wear these key items. New Home concept – With clearer segmentation and a more multi-channel approach our new M&S Home concept drove a reappraisal of the offer. The new format is now featured in 33 stores.

Multi-channel

Online sales – More people than ever chose the convenience of shopping with us online. Improved navigation, greater choice and exclusive ranges and offers boosted online sales by 16.6% this year. Free next day delivery – Shop Your Way orders increased this year, after we introduced free next day delivery to our stores. 54% of orders are now collected or placed in a store. Castle Donington – Our fully mechanised 900,000 sq ft e-commerce distribution centre is the UK’s largest. It has the capacity to process and ship up to a million products per week to customers’ homes and M&S stores across the country. iPhone app – Sales via mobile increased 200% this year, following the launch of our first transactional iPhone app. It had received over 580,000 downloads by the year end.

International

Multi-channel expansion – We are building our European presence through a ‘clicks & bricks’ approach. Complementing our French website, we launched Shop Your Way at our two Paris stores. We have two additional full line stores due to open in 2013. New stores – M&S has a clear and targeted strategy for international growth. We continue to expand in key locations across our priority markets, employing a mix of ownership models including partnerships and franchises. Golden Bell – The Shanghai region is one of our strategic international markets. We expanded our presence here with the opening of our 4,500 sq m flagship store at Golden Bell Plaza – one of the region’s most popular shopping destinations – giving us a total of 14 stores. Reaching more customers – We are extending our reach across new and existing markets through our online development. Following launches in Germany, Spain, Austria and Belgium, we’re now online locally in ten markets and deliver to over 80 countries.

Plan A

CO2 neutral – We were proud to retain our status as a certified CarbonNeutral® company across our operations in the UK and Republic of Ireland. We are actively developing programmes aimed at encouraging our suppliers to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Plan A products – 45% of our products now have a Plan A quality – such as fairtrade, organic or made from recycled material. We’re making good progress against our target of making this 50% of products by 2015. Responsible Retailer of the Year – In recognition of the scale of our eco and ethical programme’s achievements, M&S was named Responsible Retailer of the Year at the World Retail Awards in September 2012. Zero waste to landfill – We continue to work at reducing the amount of waste produced within the business. Working closely with our contractors, we fulfilled our commitment of sending no waste to landfill from our UK stores, office, warehouses and construction activities.