IN 1967, MARSHALL MCLUHAN, the Canadian educator, best known for his thought-provoking postulations on communication, told us that “the medium is the message.” This notion perhaps has more meaning today than ever before as the unrelenting march of technology has provided a superabundance of cutting-edge modes of communication. Simply stated, McLuhan’s hypothesis was that the form of communication used to convey information is, in fact, as impactful as the message itself.
Media, the plural of medium, can best be defined as a conduit for the mass dissemination of information. It includes, but is certainly not limited to, broadcasting, publishing, cyberspace, telecommunication and even the old school billboard.
Retailers riding the ubiquitous wave of new media platforms will be swept away to the open seas if they don’t know when and where to drop anchor. The ebb and flow of communication should bring the voyager back to the environment where the rubber truly meets the road. Sure, retailers are downsizing and closing stores, yet the wholesale closing of stores will not be the beacon in the storm that brings the retailer to safety in these unchartered waters. There’s not a retailer on record who has navigated to prosperity simply through cost-cuts, layoffs and store closures.
Though many brands floundering in the wake of the pandemic sought the false, if not transient, security of cost-cutting measures and store closures, others saw fertile ground for store openings and even expansions. All across the retail landscape, digitally based brands are enthusiastically opening brick-and-mortar stores. Many traditional retailers are reducing their fleets in today’s challenging times, and online retailers are recognizing the important role physical stores play. Digital retailers now understand that in order to stay afloat, they must plant their flag in strategically positioned land-based, brick-and-mortar locations.
Even as retailers navigate through the maelstrom of media saturation, they still measure the efficacy of each physical store location in terms of the once tried-and-true formula, sales per square foot. And while most have accepted the fact that to survive, retail must change and adapt, they still haven’t strayed from the bean-counter mentality that a store’s worth can only be measured in dollars and cents. The calculus for determining the true worth of the store has changed. It’s no longer the dollar and cents equation of the past, but rather an indelible sense of the intrinsic value of the brand presently as well as further into the future.
The physical store is a tool of communication; it’s the moment of truth, the 3-D and tactile representation of anything the retailer has ever said through all other forms of communication. The physical store is the hard copy, it’s the most important media channel in a retailer’s arsenal of communication and remains the most vital touchstone of a brand. In fact, it’s the communicator of a brand, the representation of everything a brand stands for.
If mobile communication through the long reaching arm of cyberspace is the new storefront, then the physical store environment is the new show window. McLuhan was correct in his hypothesis, “the medium is the message.” The physical store is a dynamic media outlet and the message is the attributes of the brand.