‘Wanting comes before buying’: The emotional reimagining of Michael Hill
Michael Hill marketing boss Jo Feeney has spoken of her journey to return meaning to the brand in an emotional presentation dedicated to her CEO Daniel Bracken, who died suddenly last month.
Feeney, who took up the CMO role at Michael Hill in 2021, was the core driver of the brand’s makeover from low-end discounter to upper tier jeweller. The company was founded in 1979 in New Zealand by Michael and Christine Hill, who are still closely involved in the business.
Jo Feeney presenting at Mumbrella’s summit
A New Zealand native herself, Feeney said she reached deep into the brand’s heritage for inspiration. For example, the green chosen for the store refits was inspired by New Zealand greenstone (pounamu).
“Luckily for us, Australia is pretty green too, which was helpful, but I think it’s also just a beautiful palette and a beautiful color. It did have meaning in that space in terms of the New Zealand landscape. So it was a very important part.”
“Even our fonts are from a New Zealand font family,” she said.
Feeney, speaking at Mumbrella’s Retail Marketing Summit last week, put great emphasis on the role of emotion in marketing. The Michael Hill repositioning involved using longform video content – short films – with high production values and well-known music.
“[Before the rebrand] we certainly felt very emotionless is what I would say,” she said. “ We were selling discounts not diamonds, and we certainly weren’t seen as a modern nor aspirational brand in the eyes of our consumer.”
“ The thing was that we forgotten the basics of human behavior. First of all, you’ve gotta want to buy something,” she said.
The brand went cold turkey, banning price points in advertising, revising the logo, palette, store experience and commissioning videos that explored the origin of the business. Famous and expensive music – INXS’ “Never Tear Us Apart” and Yazoo’s “Only You” – features in the videos.
“Music choice is so critically important,” Feeney said. “I have in my career been very passionate about music for quite some time in terms of the role it plays in advertising. It was quite a nice marriage with myself and Michael in terms of getting to bring that sort of passion of mine to life as well.”
The full origin video is 6 minutes long and tells the story of Michael’s lifelong connection to music – he aspired to be a concert violinist – and the foundation of the jewellery business in Whangarei.
“[The New Zealand connection] was something that was really important, and I think every decision we made in the brand journey and the process to reestablish the brand had to be, in my eyes – and obviously in the eyes of the team and business – grounded in authenticity and in our DNA. That’s part of our heritage. It’s part of our story.”
Reconnecting with the past and turning up the emotional volume has worked, according to Feeney. Average transaction value (ATV) has gone up and many other indicators are positive.
“[The ATV increase] is part of the strategy for the repositioning,” she said. “ [In our first year] we had achieved an 82% increase in store visitors globally in our three countries [Australia, Canada and New Zealand]. We’ve seen 39% increase in our bridal sales, one of our core parts of our business. We’ve seen overall 36 million increase in our profits.”
“It’s certainly not been an easy journey,” Feeney said, referring to the overall project of the Michael Hill reinvention. “But good things often are hard, and if you are confident and resilient and curious and you stay the course. You can actually achieve what you set out to achieve.”
Tribute to Michael Hill CEO Daniel Bracken
Feeney dedicated her presentation to Michael Hill CEO Daniel Bracken, who she worked with closely on the Michael Hill reinvention and who she described as a friend and “my incredible boss”. Bracken died unexpectedly in the final week of February, reportedly from an adverse reaction to medication. Chief Financial Officer Andrew Lowe is standing in as interim CEO while the company undertakes a global search.
“Daniel passed away suddenly and it’s been a really hard time for the Michael Hill team. But I wanted to be here for him today. That was really important.”
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