I watched Magda Szubanski on The Project on Network Ten last night and could not help but be moved by her coming out as gay, on national TV. Kudos and respect to Magda.
It got me thinking about the broader issue of marriage equality and the high profile campaign by the Get Up! organisation. Reports indicate that the push has the support of the majority of Australians.
Then I started to think about the marriage equality campaign in the context of our newsagency businesses. Where do we stand on these campaigns? Hang on, that’s too hard … to expect our newsagency channel to have a unified view. We’re a diverse bunch.
I then started to wonder not so much abut where we stand on a particular issue like marriage equality but how we would feel about being a place where opinions could be gathered, collated and noted.
What if in our businesses we have a facility where locals could vote on an issue or note a comment or connect with an issue in some way, an issue of the day or the week, an issue of community importance – local or national? Wouldn’t that facilitate the relevance of our businesses? Would’t that show our connection with issues others care about, regardless of where they stand? In think so!
I am not advocating that newsagents take a stand on an issue, rather we give the community to voice their opinion, in a respectful way. Sure there would need to be some moderation and control – but that would be okay given the traffic which could be generated. Traffic is vital to any retail business after all.
Just as The Project on Network Ten is offering a fresh approach to current affairs TV, newsagents could offer a place where locals could share opinions on a topic and where the channel could, somehow (IT maybe), gather those opinions and share them in a way which is meaningful for the greater community.
No major retailer competitor of newsagents would try this. We could be the channel of local voices and local opinions and through this demonstrate a commercially valuable relevance to our communities.
Thanks Magda Szubanski for being the catalyst for these thoughts.
FOOTNOTE: Some reading this will quite reasonably say that with social media people have a range of options for expressing their views. What I am thinking of is a simple way, in-store, of harvesting opinions and making a visit to your newsagency count for more than buying a card, a lottery ticket or a newspaper. It could reinforce our position as a community hub.