ARTYSMITH2: ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

All you need is love. Call me an old romantic but isn’t this always the case? We see plenty examples of people caring and sharing their love for humankind every day, unfortunately these stories often get buried in the media by the bad stuff.

The high street is in the news most days, sometimes for good but more often for bad, but over the last twelve months the high street has seen a bit more love coming its way! We’ve witnessed real affection for many of our local high streets with retailers supporting each other and communities and businesses rallying round and coming up with evermore inventive ways to keep us engaged. It goes without saying that the high street is a vital part of our community and our economy.

If you’re a retailer on the high street by now you should be at least giving a nod to Valentine’s Day. Now you may be thinking that you don’t sell anything remotely linked to Valentine’s Day but does that really matter? At Christmas time the majority of retailers put up Christmas decorations so why not do the same for Valentine’s Day.

I know that traditionally the majority of gift purchases for Valentine’s Day will be flowers and chocolates but this is changing as customers get evermore inventive with their buying. Sometimes you just need to point the customer in the right direction. This year in the UK alone we’ll be spending in the region of one billion pounds on Valentine’s Day and this market is growing so don’t miss out.

So, the blog post today is a gentle push/reminder to all retailers who haven’t yet embraced Valentine’s Day, you could be missing an opportunity and, if you’re stuck for ideas I’ve included a few photos below for inspiration. For me, some of the best Valentine’s Day campaigns involve a few words, a song title or common phrase but something we all instantly recognise. If you really can’t come with anything then at least get the red paper and scissors out and cut out a few hearts, all you need is love…