I headed off to the Cotswolds this week to meet an industry insider, a lovely part of the country. I am doing a bit of a tour of the UK at the moment, mostly looking at the state of the high street for the Brands Retail Post and sharing some of my findings with our attendees and brands that take part in our conferences. I hear conflicting views on whether it has been a tough year, or not, I suppose it depends on what part of the supply chain you are in.
When we get to Brands Retail winter conference on the 20th January in London I am hoping that the 24 golden period for everyone coming and taking part has gone well. With the resetting of the clock at midnight on the 1st January for a new year I think everyone is hoping that there will be better growth into 2025, out with the old and in with the new is the saying at Hogmanay.
I stayed in the beautiful village of Chipping Norton, or Chippy as the locals call it. I was expecting to see a fish and chip shop called ‘The Chippy Chippy’ but no one has thought of that.
However there apparently is a highly successful ‘independent’ farm shop which was setup by Jeremy Clarkson called Diddly Squat. When I arrived to the Clarksons Farm filming location my word, the high street giant retailers could only dream of footfall that Jeremy gets, they were forming outside the door. I hadn’t seen that kind of queuing since the toilet roll gold rush a few years back.
I was told by one of the regulars in the queue who pops in to get his milk every day that this was quite a short queue when I visited. They had witnessed cars queuing along the road right into the village when the new season ‘dropped’.
Jeremy has setup a nice cash cow here, no pun intended, a bit like Glastonbury Festival, as that is a working dairy farm and not just a music experiential wallet opener. Build it and they will come is the saying,.... and charge a lot when they get there.
Diddly Squat has a wide range of products on sale, and I must admit I do like his Hawkstone Beers. Retail needs to think outside of the box more and more now, they need to do more activations to get people into stores and Diddly Squat is a great example of that, what with it’s burger bar round the back and also some pop-up shops.
That morning I had a call from someone in the location-based entertainments side of the business. We have a nice panel forming for Brands Retail Winter 25 conference in Jan, which will be announced shortly, and I was picking their brains on some discussion points. But after I put the phone down it got me thinking, the footfall Jeremy has at Diddly Squat farmhouse I estimate to be about 50,000 people a day (not verified figures), well perhaps he should put in an application with Oxfordshire council and setup a Diddly Squat theme park.
It would certainly generate a lot of employment in the surrounding areas of Chipping Norton. Some ideas for Jeremy’s LBE team could be – you can go raspberry picking with Jeremy and his hoover (fans of the show will know that reference) or drive a combine harvester with Gerald or Kaleb. Then exit through the giftshop of course. Cynics might say he is making you pay an entrance fee to the Theme Park and then getting you to do the hard labour on the farm, but people love experiences like that. My nan when she was a child was ushered down to Kent in the summer to pick hops during the war. Different times now though.
Building a theme park on your farm land is possible if you have a reasonable council for planning permission, (not sure on the inheritance tax side of it though).
I don’t think they like Jeremy at Oxfordshire Council after watching season two. Talking of councils, there is still no news on NBC Universal’s planned theme park in Bedfordshire, the last news I heard was the government was meeting NBC Universal.
Let’s hope by the time Brands Retail Winter 25 conference comes along there might be some news on that and some greenlighting is done. Would be a huge boost for the Bedfordshire economy, and with Luton airport close by it would attract the international visitors.
Anyway I’m now off to ye olde Stratford Upon Avon to go and ‘ave a butchers hook at Shakespeare’s gift shop, and see what he has to offer in his shop, Shakespeare, arguably England’s other greatest IP export, Clarksons Farm being the other.
Have a great week and see you all next Sunday. Ill let you put in the Shakespearean quotes in the comments below.
Ryan Beaird – Brands Retail – Editor
Visit www.BrandsRetail.uk/thepost for more industry news
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