Brighthouse Are Trying Hard to Improve
Radio Rentals brings back shocking memories of mullets, Ford Cortinas and episodes of The Sweeney on ailing television sets. However, one of its close descendants BrightHouse is starting to recapture the place it lost on the high street through the rise of the likes of Currys, Dixons and Comet and the decline of the price of televisions.
BrightHouse was created out of Thorn-EMI, the owner of Radio Rentals, by Terra Firma, Guy Hands’s private equity group. It gained infamy for very high APRs and expensive mandatory extra cover. Currentlythe retailer is on the front foot, attempting to clean up both its branches and its reputation as it embarks on a very ambitious growth programme. It plans to inaugurate 21 outlets next year and estimates that there is enough market for at least 600.
Only a dozen of BrightHouse one hundred and seventy eight stores are in the big smoke, but, as Leo McKee, the sincere chief executive of the company, is fond of saying the high street turns into a very different place beyond the M25.
Its clients, almost solely from the lower socioeconomic segments are having trouble to get credit - if they ever could - as lenders cut their risk profiles.
“We are targeting areas that [Lloyds] TSB are moving away from,” Mr McKee explained. The prospect of BrightHouse stepping in to give credit to our poorest communities will not satisfy everyone. Nevertheless Brighthouse’s CEO believes that this is an old perception.
“When I “began my time at Brighthouse [in 2004], we “commissioned “external “market research to examine “our positioning asking: ‘Is it sufficient?’ and: ‘Does it have longevity?’ he said.
“The results came back: your name on the high street is garbage; you’re seen as a rip-off merchant; the prices were high, the stores shabby.
“The first decision I made was to change all the prices to match the high street, on the day I found out [the results].”
The old approach was that as long as customers could afford the weekly installment, they would not notice about the final price. And this thinking had knock-on effects across the whole business.
That is what Brighthouse are now trying to solve so their image improves amongst the general public.
