It’s a sunny, spring Saturday morning in early 2019 and I’m having coffee at the local Costa in Brentwood, an Essex town where I’ve never been before. There are plenty of people out and about and smiling. I have a couple of hours to spare so I’m planning to wander around and have a look in the shops. Then my phone pings: “Surprise!” It’s a promotion from M&S. “Here’s 20% off when you shop online”.
The Brentwood branch of M&S is just a couple of doors down from where I am – I just passed it. But the notification isn’t suggesting I go there. On the contrary, this special offer will deter me from shopping in an actual shop, on an actual high street, where I know I’d now be paying 25% more (if you start from the lower price) than I would if I bought online. It is, in effect, a counter-advertisement – taking me away from the shops and towards a virtual, online-only future.
Around this time, M&S had been closing stores in numerous locations. Many of these shops had been there for as long as people could remember, and were part of the towns’ identity. Like “our” NHS, and unlike most other commercial brands, M&S evokes a feeling of belonging to a shared history.
