Weekly Pic | 2nd Jan | That Time I Saw The Future

On January 2, 2023January 28, 2023 By pauljbenthamIn Photo of the Week

5 years ago | The Great Barrier Reef, off Queensland, AU | 4th January 2018

Five years ago, we snorkelled in the Great Barrier Reef. Let’s just let that just sink in for a moment…

Even as I type those words, part of me can’t quite believe I’m able to. It’s a preposterous thing to be able to say. I grew up in a pretty normal 80s household, watching ‘Russ Abbot’s Madhouse’ and having sliced bananas in milk for ‘afters’ at teatime. Ten year-old me would think it an impossible thing for grown-up me to have even contemplated doing.

The Barrier Reef was the sort of thing we’d see on a David Attenborough programme. Of course we knew this was somewhere on the same planet because, well, it couldn’t not be. But it wasn’t realistically in our orbit. It existed solely “on telly”, in the same way that JR Ewing or Hilda Ogden did – and it might as well have been equally as fictional.

And so, when the opportunity came to see it ‘in real life’, it had to be taken. We were on the third leg of our Australian tour. We’d spent Christmas in Melbourne and New Year in Sydney, with a still-hungover flight up to Cairns on New Year’s Day morning. An hour’s drive north is place called Port Douglas and it was recommended to me by an old business contact from Geelong as the best place to do the ‘Reef.

He wasn’t wrong. It’s a small town by a big beach, surrounded by resort hotels and a tropical rain forest, but with a charming main drag of pubs and restaurants. There’s a look-out point from which to admire the view and a harbour from which to book your Reef adventure.

The parts we’d snorkel in were about twenty miles out to sea and as we skipped over the waves in our 40-foot craft, we were treated to just about the best – and certainly the most Australian – ‘safety announcement’ I think I’ve ever heard:

“If the boat gets into difficulties, we’ll ask you all to put on your lifejackets as we drift aimlessly around. I’ll send our location on the radio and set off a flare – and then we’ll get the tinnies in while we wait for the Channel Nine news-copter to come and find us”

Anyway, before long we got to our intended location, slipped on the jellyfish-proof ’stinger’ wetsuits and jumped in the ocean. Reader, I won’t lie, it was every bit the awesome, “pinch-me”, unbelievable experience that I’d expected it to be.

The bit that was different to billing was the distinct lack of vibrant colour that, thanks to the aforementioned Mr. Attenborough, I’d been led to expect. There was some colour and plenty of exotic species but it wasn’t the rainbow-infused dazzle of colour I’d seen on TV at home. The fact it was more drab, more monochrome, more – dare I say it? – bleached meant the experience was just as profound as I’d wanted, just not in the way I’d thought it would be.

You see, there’s something else that we know exists because how can it not? Something that we tend to see evidence of primarily “on telly”, where fact and fiction are less clearly delineated and, much of the time, the endings are already written. Climate change is that real-life storyline and it occurred to me that this was the first physical evidence I’d seen of it with my own eyes, after decades of being shown it via some other medium.

I know none of this should matter. We can all believe the science, we can all know the issues and we can all understand the choices that climate change forces us to face. It’s simply a question of logic. The problem is that human beings are, to a large extent, not logical. That profound sense of witnessing something I’d only previously experienced second-hand has stayed with me ever since.

What I saw was the future we’ve been warned about “on telly” – in real life. Maybe if everyone had the opportunity to do what I’ve done, the issue would be more in our orbit and we’d be closer to solving this most real-life of problems…

ETN: Plus Ça Change, Plus C’est la Même Chose

On March 10, 2017September 9, 2017 By pauljbenthamIn Client: Equestrian Trade News

My first visit to the BETA trade show at the NEC was in 1996, twenty-one years ago. By then, I’d been to the ‘Travelling Fair’, I’d already met many of the industry’s luminaries, attended several fairs in other markets; and spent a childhood punctuated by the county show circuit, celebrating my birthday at the Horse of the Year Show at Wembley.

My first BETA, therefore, wasn’t quite the revelation to me that it might have been but if it’s true to say I was born into this industry, my initial immersion into its annual gathering was certainly akin to a baptism…of tweed!

Despite the impressively forward-looking venue (you can’t deny it, ‘proper’ industries have their trade fairs at the NEC), it seemed to me to be a collective populated overwhelmingly by a certain ‘type’: white, middle-aged, land-owning men – mostly decent chaps of course but very much of a particular sort. Yes, if you looked hard enough, you would find a Lucy Carr-Seaman, a Vanessa Roberts or even an Oliver Skeete breaking the monotony but even then the tendency to tweed remained. As the members of the dance group were themselves back then, ‘diversity’ was a concept in its infancy.

I agree, it’s an easy stick with which to beat anyone’s history, especially an industry built around an animal which has been domesticated for millennia and which became functionally obsolete decades previously. Tradition has always been and will always be a potent selling point and, this being Britain, the compulsion to embrace the past is powerful. It’s therefore understandable that an industry such as ours was unlikely ever to have been at the forefront of inclusivity.

Back then, I was determined to survey this familiar world anew with more objective, more professional eyes. I suppose I was mostly amazed by the apparent presumption that ‘horse’ equals ‘country’ and vice-versa – forever and ever, Amen. I’m not saying that the two are unrelated – we can all agree there is significant overlap – but coming from a Northern town set between two of England’s biggest (and at the time, grimiest) cities, it jarred with my experience of burgeoning district shows in which children of scrap metal dealers competed with their suburban friends on ponies provided by their parents’ hard work and social mobility.

Two decades later, it still jars a little – even though I hope I’ve gained a much wider understanding of the complexion of the market we’re here to serve. I can’t deny that in ‘the Shires’ (wherever they may be defined), that rather cosy relationship pervades but it still seems little more than a continuing stereotype to the majority of the rest of the country.

Perhaps these days, it’s really a case of two separate niche industries deliberately combining to create a more sizeable entity, capable of punching together at a heavier weight. Or it’s just a sign of the inertia that comes with the involvement of ‘The Establishment’. Maybe it’s now being perpetuated by new consumers actually ‘buying into’ the well-spun image that ‘horsiness is next to rural-ness’ or possibly it’s got something to do with the ongoing debate about hunting. I don’t know.

I accept ‘the countryside’ is a fertile area for new participants and I realise we mustn’t overlook that, for the sake of the future but I’ve always felt it’s not the only area worthy of attention if equestrianism is ever going to flourish as much as it can.

I therefore attended BETA 2017 (my twenty-second) wondering whether the pace of change had increased much beyond the glacial, being careful not to set my expectations too high…

I can report that we are still disproportionately comprised by a brigade of such ‘chaps’ but nowhere near as much as we were. Fate, the passage of time and commercial opportunity has seen the old patriarchy loosening its grip and becoming increasingly replaced by new people in a variety of shapes, colours, genders and outlooks.

This is important because difference refreshes the thinking of the companies with which we do business – and that invigorates our product development, our marketing strategies, our operational processes, our employee policies and everything else. A former BETA Council colleague, whom I respect hugely, once told me “if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got”. I won’t embarrass him by naming him – or by pointing out that he’s one of the very ‘chaps’ I considered back in 1996 – but that’s the very essence of the need for diversity and the main danger of consistency and traditionalism for its own sake. As he’s proven, it mustn’t be presumed that patriarchs are incapable of embracing change but I’m sure he would be the first to agree that fresh thinking is a much more elusive commodity in an environment which displays a reluctance to evolve.

What else remains? The tweed – although now it’s a badge of hipster fashion as much as a uniform of the traditionalists. ‘The more things change, the more they stay the same’, you might conclude – but these days, you’re just as likely to hear it said in French.

Look out for my next column, about the impact of criticism, in the April issue of the ETN, out April 1st.

Archive: All Change Online!

On April 1, 2016March 20, 2017 By pauljbenthamIn Previous Work: Robinsons

First published on 23rd March 2011 on www.robinsonsequestrian.com

What an incredibly mad couple of months it’s been! We don’t seem to like doing things by halves and here we are about to open a new store in Cardiff and launch a brand new website in almost the same week! I’ve been promising a blog on our new site about why we feel it’s such a big deal, so here goes…

Some time in April (I can’t say when because at this stage we don’t know), we’ll take the decision to retire our current website, which has served us well for the last seven or eight years and replace it with a new, more powerful, more attractive version. Not only will it look different and do many more sophisticated things, it will also live somewhere else.

We’ve decided that the new website will live at robinsonsequestrian.com but don’t worry about updating your bookmarks or anything; we’ll do all sorts of linking to ensure that anyone going to our current site will be automatically forwarded to the new site instead. Below, you’ll see a graphic of the new homepage (sorry, we’re not really knocking 50% of Puffa jackets!). As you can see, it’s visually very different to the site it replaces but the differences don’t end there…

Avid web users may be pleased to see that it offers a wishlist function – something that lots of customers have contacted us about over the years, er, wishing for. I’m a big amazon.co.uk fan and I was delighted to see that Father Christmas had clearly read my amazon wishlist last year, so it was hugely important to me that we gave him the chance to do the same thing with our new site!
The search box looks the same but under the bonnet, it’s like comparing a lawnmower engine with a Ferrari V8. Our old site only searched the titles of our products and a few keywords, this will look at every word we use about it in the copy – it’ll even decide for itself what to suggest if you spell something wrong. We always had to anticipate that lots of people might search for ‘jodphurs’ and remember to add such keywords ourselves. Now the search engine will do it for us – wherever it thinks it needs to – which means you should find what you’re looking for much more quickly.
In addition to organising our product range by types of product (i.e. footwear, headwear etc.), we will also be able to organise them by the activity you need them for. The new ‘Disciplines’ menu allows dressage riders to see everything we can offer them that are ideal for their sport, just as showjumpers, eventers and a host of others will be able to. You can also drill into this feature (and the new and extended Bargain Zone) even further by specifying items for Men, Women or Children.
Overseas customers will also have the opportunity to order in Euros or US dollars.

2011 web mock 1

Once you’ve found the item you’re looking for, the improvements won’t end there. Here’s another mock-up of the product page (I know, clippers shouldn’t live in the T-shirts section!) showing how we’ll convey a wealth of information about each product to you clearly and legibly.

We’ll have the ability to display upto eight images or even a video file for each item we offer and all the information we hold can be sorted into sections, like johnlewis.com ond other major retailer websites.
You’ll be able to rate an item and write a review, or use the information that others have already left to help decide if a particular product is just what you’re looking for – or not.

In addition to everything we can write to describe the items we offer, we’ve also reached and agreement with the publishers of the Threshold Picture Guides to allow us to use some of their information to help you decide what items are right for you. We’ll also be asking all our suppliers to provide us with as many guides and as much associated information as they can. We really want our pages to be the source of all the information you’re ever likely to need about each and every product in the range.

2011 web mock 2

We’ll be able to offer you ever more sopisticated offers like ‘Buy three rugs and get the cheapest free’ – which our old site would never have been able to handle. We’ll also be able to offer – and redeem – online versions of our popular paper gift vouchers, which is another missing feature that has been maddening to customers and us alike for years! All the best functions on our current site will remain – although many of them will be more prominent which should make them more popular. For example, our Live Chat feature has become a very popular and therefore important tool in a short space of time.

Similarly, the suggestion of related items (which I admit weren’t always that sensible) will also appear on the new site, together with the ubiquitous ‘Share This’ social media links. You always could post an item that impressed you to Facebook or Twitter but I bet you never have, in part, because the button was designed so appalingly. We’re doing away with a separate News section and incorporating all that kind of thing straight into an upgraded blog area and calling it all ‘News & Events’ and we’re also changing the way the site is hosted to ensure that we can cope much more efficiently with the mega-busy days like the first day of an online Sale.

I hope you can agree, this has all been quite sufficient to keep many of our admin team and Pod1, our web partners quite busy for a number of months now. We’re sure it will work and feel much better, which is, after all, the point of the exercise. It may however take us a while to acquire and organise all the extra product details we’ll now have the opportunity to provide. I’m currently leaning on all our top suppliers to get more words, more pictures and more video and of course, we’ll generate our own content too but with over 20,000 products to populate, that might not happen overnight.

Finally, one last little feature that we felt was important: The Trolley. What do you call the *thing* that you add items into when you’re ordering online? Every bit of advice we have been given has been to call it a ‘Basket’. That’s what everyone else does and it’s what customers expect to see. If we were aiming the site at Americans, we could get away with ‘Cart’ but here, it should be ‘Basket’ every time. Why then, did we decide to go for ‘Trolley’?

1980s Shop interior pic

Here’s a picture taken in our ‘New Equestrian Superstore’ when we first opened it in 1982. The thing that made us different then – and to still some extent even now – was the humble shopping trolley. It was a time where only grocery ‘supermarkets’ used them and nobody had every heard of doing their equestrian shopping this way and it caused a huge stir at the time. Some people even thought it cheapened the experience of going shopping.

If you’re under 25, I’m sure you can barely imagine such a ridiculous state of affairs (in fact, I often struggle myself 🙂 *pretends not to be much older than 25*) but it’s true and if I could link to something that agreed with the point, I would. Anyway, that’s why we defied all the advice and we’re going with a Trolley.

Please don’t be confused by this departure from the norm because every piece of website user data indicates that you might be! I’m sure you’ll cope with the Trolley and I hope you’ll love the site. We can’t wait to get it online and I’m sure you’re looking forward to having a browse around too.

As soon as we have a launch date, we’ll let you know!

Paul.