M&S looks upmarket for profit recovery

Marks & Spencer's troubles over the past year have been well documented in both the fashion press and the business pages. With a warning in January that annual profits would fall from £1.17 billion sterling to less than £675 million, the store is now looking to high profile fashion designers such as Betty Jackson and Katherine Hamnett to lure back customers who have become simply bored with the brand. Last Thursday, the company launched its designer-led Autograph concept in 16 stores, three of them outside Britain. The Grafton Street store is one of the latter along with stores in Paris and Frankfurt.

There is nothing unusual in chain stores linking up with catwalk designers - Debenhams and Principles have brought designers on board to enhance their fashion credibility - and M&S has gone down the designer route before, working, for example, with Ghost founder Tanya Sarne and menswear guru Paul Smith.

However, Autograph is an instantly visible change in M&S's approach to retail. The Autograph section functions as a store within a store with a radically different fit out.

So, while the main section of M&S on Grafton Street follows the standard chain store utilitarian look with bright lighting, bland decor and rack upon rack of cloths, the 2000 sq ft Autograph section is very much a designer boutique. It has been fitted out with leather couches, soft lighting, plush fitting rooms and, in true designer tradition, the rails are sparsely filled to give that all-important illusion of exclusivity. Even the sales assistants look different. Instead of wearing M&S uniforms they wear tailored black.

"Autograph is clearly more upmarket, with merchandise that's very different from the core range," says Mr Jonathan Bradburn, M&S marketing manager in Ireland. "The rest of the store can look regimental and a bit dull and boring but Autograph has a definite boutique feel."

The company is pushing Autograph as a stand-alone brand, so while it has signed up four highly marketable fashion designers to develop the 2000 spring/summer collection, none of these are actually named either on the labels or in the stores.

"The emphasis is on the label itself because we will be working with a constantly changing line-up of designers," said Mr Bradburn.

To further enhance the idea of exclusivity and to prompt customers to buy as soon as they see a garment they like, a completely new collection will be launched every four or five weeks.

The range was launched in Britain last week with an intensive PR campaign, which has resulted in coverage in all the main glossy women's titles. However, in Ireland, the marketing approach is quite different with the local PR campaign being backed by advertising.

"A national advertising campaign in the UK would be impossible," say Mr Bradburn, "because the range is only available in 13 stores, so it would lead more to frustration than anything else. Ireland is a more localised market so we're advertising in press and on radio."