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Hugo Mills: “A holistic approach to exceptional, innovative and memorable travel retail activations” |
INTERNATIONAL. Last October DC-Activ, described as a “˜leading shopper marketing agency’, announced a thrust into travel retail to create “world class activations in travel retail”.
The plans included the appointment of former Diageo Global Travel & Middle East (GTME) Managing Director Phil Humphreys as Non-Executive Chairman and a new strategic partnership with Kantar Retail, the shopper insight and strategy consulting arm of WPP, the world’s largest communications group.
Since then the travel retail arm has been renamed DC-AV8, with former Diageo GTME General Manager, Gulf Hugo Mills revealed as its Managing Director. Mills spoke recently to Martin Moodie about his ambitions in the new role.
MARTIN MOODIE: How did all of this come about and why the name change to DC-AV8?
HUGO MILLS: Well as we all know, globalization is having a profound effect on the world, with changes in economics, demographics, consumerism and technology shifting the existing rules of retail engagement.
With an industry predicted to double in the course of the next ten years, the passenger journey is already rapidly beginning to change as airlines, retailers, brand owners and airports all look to engage and inspire an increasingly more sophisticated consumer.
Travel retail is now becoming the most important strategic global shop window for brand building and consumer engagement activities and there is a real opportunity to better understand and inspire the passenger. DC-AV8 has been created as the dedicated Global Travel Retail division of UK shopper insight and activation specialists DC-Activ. For the past 18 years, DC-Activ has partnered with the UK’s leading retailers and brands to deliver some of the most pioneering and insight-led shopper activations.
DC-AV8 provides a platform to bring our expertise in shopper insight, strategy and activation into the shop window of global travel.
We have been helping retailers and brand owners of all sizes in international domestic markets better understand their consumer and have become increasingly more involved in the global travel arena. Through our strategic partnerships DC-AV8 provides the holistic capability to transform passenger intelligence and insight into the ultimate in shopper engagement and retailing environments & experiences.
Tell us about your various stakeholders and partners and their credentials within travel retail.
Our strategic partners are industry experts in shopper and passenger behaviours, consumer and industry media & PR, commercial design & retail development and new wave shopper technology.
We feel that complements our core capability of shopper planning, engagement and activation, making us the most advanced holistic travel retail consultant globally. What also makes us unique is our global presence and network having 19 offices in 13 countries worldwide.
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We have recently added further weight to our insight and research partners by agreeing a strategic collaboration with the Futures Company, the leading global foresight and futures consultancy specializing on future-facing qualitative research & intelligence. This is in addition to our partnership with Kantar Retail, the pre-eminent global provider of compelling and actionable market insights and strategies.
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Hugo Mills: Providing clients with the latest insight, intelligence and trends, the strategy and the activation plan |
You are charged with creating and driving the global travel retail division of the operation. What are its aims? How will it work with industry? What does it bring to the party that is not already there? And how will it be structured?
It is our vision to be the leading insight and intelligence-driven passenger engagement specialist in global travel retail, bringing innovative retail solutions and cutting edge design & creativity to shopper activations and passenger services and enviroments. We will facilitate collaborating between airlines, airports, retailers and brands to bring a holistic approach to exceptional, innovative and memorable travel retail activations.
Fundamentally we aim to help our clients plan for the future. We are able to develop unique and creative solutions to client challenges and equip them with cutting edge insights and trends that we develop into strategy and activation plans. DC-AV8 is what you might call a “˜one-stop shop’, and we are unique because of the expertise we carry in every field.
You said at the time of your appointment: “Our core expertise will focus on providing market intelligence & insight, shopper planning & strategy, next generation store design & retail innovation and end to end brand & category activation.” That’s a lot of buzz words. What does it mean in reality?
There is a real limitation to the availability of new insightful consumer and passenger intelligence and data in this channel. In domestic retailing, insight is the critical component to devising the most successful shopper strategies and targeted activations and it should be the same in global travel retail.
Put simply we provide our clients with all three components, the latest insight, intelligence and trends, the strategy and the activation plan. We offer varying packages of insight-strategy-activations dependent on the depth of insight, and the scale of investment our client wishes to undertake.
You’ve talked previously a lot about “˜Trinity’ partnerships in terms of enhancing the passenger experience from start to finish. Again that sounds like a positive message but what does it really mean? And are you confident you can get industry buy-in?
As an independent industry consultant we hope to bridge that gap. We are already unique in that we are working independently with airports, retailers and brand companies around the world; we have already been quite successful in creating some new collaborations; and we are working on some exciting new developments at present.
DC-AV8 really is a vehicle for encouraging collaboration, in fact it is a service where we actively introduce airports, brand owners and retailers to one another on insights we have, or future ventures and opportunities we are working on.
Who’s your key audience – airports, retailers or brand owners?
As holistic industry specialists we work with brands, developing categories with retailers and look to support the enhancement of the overall passenger experience in airports and services.
Our access to the most compelling and insightful research and future trends allows us the ability to work with airports, retailers and brand owners.
Whether it is in-store creations, fixture and promotional design and activations, or airport environments and services, we underpin everything we do with the best market intelligence available, which we believe makes a unique and invaluable partner in global travel retail.
What’s next?
Well, we are setting up our global HQ in Dubai. We have recently opened our first office in Poland and appointed a regional manager for business development across the Eastern Europe region. We are also looking to create an interactive passenger portal for downloading their experiences of travel.
CONTACT
For more information contact:
Hugo Mills
Managing Director
DC-AV8
+971 50 854 0982
hugo.mills@dc-av8.com
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