How to be middle class - Loyalty card denial

‘Do you have a Bonus Card? Would you like one?’

A simple question and yet in this instance one fraught with implications that chip at the very fabric of who I am. Data-protection issues? In a hurry issues? No. This is Iceland. What I have is happy to shop in an ‘economy’ supermarket on a short term basis while it’s still part of the recessionista downshifting trend, but still in denial about any longer term loyalty–issues.

Now I’m more than happy to take advantage of Iceland’s cheap branded goods with their easy to add up pricing strategy of everything seemingly rounded to the nearest pound. I get disproportionately excited over its high number of nostalgia brands like Birds Custard Powder and Tunnock’s Teacakes. And on several occasions I’ve bumped into people who I know send their children to independent schools or who work for the BBC eyeing up the Special K. But a loyalty card? Hmmm.

As we all know, loyalty cards mark you out as belonging to a tribe. They make a statement about your lifestyle values, or how you’d like your lifestyle to be perceived. A bit like buying posh jam even though you actually prefer the cheaper one cos it’s less lumpy, or following someone cerebral on Twitter.

Even though it is currently fashionable to mention your Asda online deliveries at drinks parties, or tweet your excitement that Aldi are selling tennis rackets this week, for most of the middle classes it is still a short term adventure, Blitz spirit and all that. Something they assume they can drop as soon as this whole recession thing blows over and they can start booking Ocado daytime slots again (not just those secret deliveries after dark that I’ve noticed creeping in along our street). It’s rather like admiring the clean lines of a classic concrete estate knowing you’ll never actually have to live there.

Am I the only person who never forgets their cotton shoppers when taking a trip to Iceland, and not just for eco reasons? Or who thinks a Bonus Card would sit awkwardly in their wallet next to loyalty cards for Space NK, Village Books and the local non-chain café? Am I the only person still in touch with their inner snob? Would you like a Bonus Card? Well, would you? 

Trickle-up; when middle-class trendies need the masses to show them the way

Flickr: Peter Dutton

Yesterday my wife and I were having that most middle-class of

conversations – i.e. what sort of coffee maker should we buy? If you’ve

had this discussion yourself recently, you’ll know that sooner or

later, you will have to consider a Nespresso machine. You may also

know that if you are a coffee snob you will a) reject Nespresso

because you assume Nestle coffee must be crap, and then b)

read on the internet that The Fat Duck serves Nespresso, and note that

Amazon has about a billion positive reviews. You then realise that

many of your coffee-snob friends have them, and get quite confused as

you reassess a brand that middle-class liberals instinctively hate as

much as McDonalds.

 

Undergoing this process made me realise that there is a little brand-

phenomenon here. The trendy middle classes like to think that they set

the trends, and are among the first people to adopt stuff that

later trickles down to the masses. But since the recession began,

there are many brands that started off as mass market and then became

adopted as acceptable by German-hatchback–driving smart-alecs. My

personal trickle-up top five is below. 

 

1. Nespresso
2. Uniqlo
3. IKEA
4. Aldi & Lidl
5. The X Factor

Now then! If the BBC wants to make more working-class programmes, we suggest it claps its soft southern shandy-supping eyes on this lost gem

Earlier this week we mentioned the 1970s Yorkshire TV programme The Indoor League in a tweet to one of our contributors, and to our surprise it received one of the highest click-through rates of the last few days. For this reason, we thought it might be grand to share it officially on the blog, along with a few words about its short and glorious history. It wasn’t really middle-class at the time, although the middle classes now fetishise this sort of old-fashioned pub culture – so much so that the dimple glass tankard is making a comeback.
 
Anyway. The Indoor League’s premise was simple; a sports programme about the “sports” that men played in pubs. Broadcast from The Queen’s Hotel in Leeds, it featured amateur men (and very occasionally a woman) competing in the arts of darts, table football, shove ha’penny, bar billiards table skittles. The competitors were nervous and untalkative, but for 2007 the visual impact of their clothing and hairstyles is quite enough. At the heart of it all was the host, Fred Trueman, resplendent in brown suede-front cardigans, flared slacks, and thick wedges of hair, tie-knot and sportsman’s muscle running to fat. He look like the question mark at the end of the inquiry – what is this new “casual” style we were supposed to have developed in t’1960s?
 
The really weird thing was that The Indoor League was on during the weekday children’s television slot, i.e. the bit between coming home from school and having your tea. Apparently it was initially tried at lunchtime, but was moved back in the day, presumably for men arriving home from work. For us it meant you could stick Crystal Tips and Alistair or Roobarb and Custard – if you turned over just before the early evening news, you got Fred supping ale and insulting the audience, and blokes with barmy haircuts balancing a Players in one hand and a table skittles ball in the other.
 
However unusual it seems, The Indoor League was a success. It ran for four years, and there were 72 episiodes, all produced by Sid Wadell, now of course a cult darts commentator. There’s a DVD of highlights but it ought to be revived, or at least repeated on Bravo. “I’ll sithee!” Fred used to say at the end of each episode - if there’s any justice in TV land, he will. And this time there’ll be a clothing line as well.

INTRODUCING THE "FLAT SCREEN GENERAL" AND PROBABLY THE BEST CUSTOMER SERVICE TEAM ON THE PLANET

Like all good middle class people I like a bargain, and had decided that Richer Sounds was the place for replacing my clapped out DVD player. However I was slightly dreading it as a quick online browse of their store site led me to believe I would be meeting the entire cast of the Office including Sean the Store Manager (“Mad but knowledgeable, I am sure we can trust the boss, not that we do!”), Terence the Sales Consultant (“The laid back man from Trinidad, he used to sell da Mangos on da beach, he even knows the original Lilt Man”) and the dubious-sounding Judy (“Come see the Glam Rock chick, who can help and entertain with all of your audio and TV needs”).
 
 However from the moment I rang up they could not have been more professional, friendly and helpful. I did indeed speak to Sean on the phone who advised me that a bog standard £50 player was more than adequate for my needs. There was no pressure, no attempt to up-sell me and he didn’t even tell me his title, which I was convinced would be the first thing he said. And on visiting the store I got more smiles, attention and common sense advice from the entire team.   
 
Could budget electrical retail really be this good? I was about to find out, when I got home I fired up the new DVD and was greeted by a fuzzy screen. Bugger, its all a sham. There is a reason John Lewis, are John Lewis. But no, just one call to my main man Sean, and I was instructed to pop back and they would swap it over for another brand new model. No questions or quibbles, just a box fresh Samsung DVD/HD player back in my grateful hands. That night as I sat back to enjoy my perfectly working DVD player, I raised a glass to Sean, Terence, Judy and the rest of the Richer Sounds gang. And just in case you think this is a one-off, apparently all customers get served as much tea & coffee as they can muster and kids get free lollies. So there. 

The eternally-burning question: just what is it that we love so much about M&S?

 

Speaking personally, my very favourite thing about M&S is the tacit understanding it somehow communicates with you as you walk round. It knows you need to feel special about the sweets that you give your kids, so you get the Percy Pig range and that retro Seventies packaging. It knows you don’t want to think of yourself as lazy, so it keeps the ready-made sandwich fillings in inconspicuous places. And best of all, it knows that we know that it knows, that most people use their shops for food and pants, so their Simply Food stores stock underwear and socks as a sideline, with no apologies. If you want a Swiss Roll and a pair of knickers (and who doesn’t?), then fine; all food shops should do this, but only M&S has the bottle. They should rebrand as Simply Food and Underwear, or Simply Snacks and Socks.

 

I was thinking this as I watched a report on the news the other day about the closure of a number of branches of Marks and Spencer, and noticed the extreme upset among members of the public who were being interviewed. There is no other brand that would generate this reaction, or that would touch all classes, and I have been wondering why that is. After all, maybe none of us will actually miss any of its products, you can buy that kind of produce anywhere nowadays. It’s more likely that in these uncertain times, we’ll just like the reassurance of knowing that it’s there, like Antiques Roadshow and BBC costume dramas on a Sunday evening. 

 

I think the reason is that M&S’s true genius is not only communicating with us, but by being different things to different people. The Saga Louts might mourn the loss of well made, reasonably priced cashmere sweaters, for instance. Jamie Oliver’s Army might be unsure where to get the nibbles for their next ‘get together’ and the Damn Wrights will just be angry that another British company is going down the pan. Across the classes people, everywhere will be wondering where to get their luxury food treats and some nice new pants in one stop.