3. What has been
your favourite project
to work on?
A chat with…
Jon Howland-Nielsen
1. What is your
professional
background?
Sales and Marketing executive
with over 10 years of selling and
marketing within the Mobile and
IT sectors.
2. What projects are
you working on at the
moment?
My most recent project I’ve
been working on is setting up an
MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network
Operator) within HP, using my
past experiences from my mobile
industry roles. The concept is to
provide 3G/4G connectivity to
anyone purchasing a HP tablet
or some notebooks to enable
them to be more productive in
the commercial space and never
have the fear of missing out on the
latest viral Facebook clip for the
consumer space.
20 LITRS OCTOBER 2015
My favourite project has been building
a business from scratch in HP. The
accessories business (bags, mice,
keyboards) basically anything that
isn’t a computer, printer or ink is vitally
important for any PC company as it’s
the area that delivers the most margin.
I had the opportunity to own, grow
and push this business for HP for over
2 years and loved every minute.
4. What trends are
you seeing emerging?
More and more consumers want to be
connected and the “Fear of Missing
Out” is leading to the demand for
connectivity on devices anywhere,
whether it’s a Sim Card in a Laptop
or Tablet, or just using the hotspot
function on your mobile phone more
and more people are choosing and
needing to be connected.
real world needs. Manufacturer’s are
also reigned back by the retailer as
they want certain things done “their”
way which makes the customer
communication harder, less intuitive.
6. What are your thoughts
on incorporating digital/
social media technologies
into in store marketing
communications?
I think this will become more and
more prevalent in 2016 and beyond
as customer continue to change the
way they purchase big ticket items
in particular. Showrooming is more
important than ever and it’s not all
about seeing instore and purchasing
online, it’s about the whole experience
with that brand you are purchasing or
the retailer you are purchasing from.
7. What part do you
think ‘green’ retail will
play in the future of in
store marketing?
5. How would you describe
the HP in store experience? I think less demand on paper for
HP’s instore experience is better
than it has been but still has room to
improve in the way we communicate
to customer via our POS materials
or how we talk about our products
and services. We need to be less
about specs and more about the
fact tag and communication instore
moving to more digital elements will
save wastage, but personally I think
it’s the product’s manufacturers that
will change, small packaging or none
at all...less cardboard, paper, plastics
means less frustration unpacking and
less impact on the environment.
OCTOBER 2015 LITRS 21