Consumers are forcing retailers to continuously reinvent their advertising campaigns and product offerings to meet their ever-changing needs.

South African fast food chicken outlet Nandos marketing director Quinton Cronje says the company’s advertising campaigns are about pushing the boundaries and engaging current societal issues.

He was speaking at the South African Council of Shopping Centres Research conference, held at Sandton, this month.

“In the past, we had advertising campaigns that focused on the political landscape of the country and our neighbouring countries. These adverts created a national debate on how we satirise such situations, while simultaneously selling our brand. With one of the controversial adverts, we managed to get media coverage equivalent to R5-million, which was good for our public relations,” he said.

The University of South Africa’s Personal Finance Research Unit head, Professor Bernadene de Clercq, said consumer spending in South Africa kept rising year-on-year, with credit spending at the top of the list.

“Saving is prominent only within the high-earning individuals grouping and, with the economic downturn three years ago, consumers were barely managing to save and only managing to survive from month to month,” she said.

Retired retailer Brand Pretorius said that a significant principle during times of crisis was to continue with business as usual because “the moment you start trying to forecast future outcomes is when the fear of the unknown will overwhelm you and this might lead to failure”.

“During the economic crisis in 2009, I was working for a car manufacturer and the previous year new-vehicle sales recorded the highest ratings ever. Most businesses invested significant amounts of cash in refurbishing their dealerships, as the trend was expected to continue. Unfortunately, businesses were then faced with plummeting car sales and some were forced to close. This was a shock and the surviving ones had to continue with business as usual under such circumstances,” he explained.

Pretorius added that retailers should focus on delivering value and market share would follow.

Meanwhile, UK-based retail analyst firm Planet Retail global research director Natalie Berg said the South African retail market had to brace itself for global retail trends, such as private labelling, multichannelling and customer endorsement.

“The consumer is more knowledgeable and it is no longer about retailers just presenting an end product without the input of the consumer through the research process or even product testing.”

She noted that, in recent years, the trend in the global retail sphere, particularly in the UK, was to involve consumers from the manufacturing process of the product through to the selection of flavours of the product. “In this way, the consumer feels part of the process of creating the product – hence, the loyalty that follows . . . buying the product,” said Berg.

Blind adventurer and motivational speaker Hein Wagner highlighted the point that retailers take blind customers for granted by not providing the necessary support structures for them.