The financial collapse of the once-great UK music retailer HMV in January this year marked a major shift in the cultural and business landscape. Eventually the stricken chain was forced into selling many of its remaining 116 stores across Great Britain to new investors.
Now a former HMV employee has been embroiled in a legal tussle with the company and its owners after opening his own music and entertainment retailer called HVM.
Disgruntled Derry-based retailer Tony Cregan opened up the replacement store after the HMV branch he managed for more than a decade in the Richmond Centre was closed down earlier in the year due to the financial re-structure of the chain, as NME reports.
Cregan opened his HVM store after he got 15,000 signatures for a petition to save the original branch, seeing an untapped market following its closure. “We thought what is the point calling the new show Local CDs, or whatever, we’ll just call it HVM. HMV is gone,” says Cregan of his shop. “We thought what is the point calling the new show Local CDs, or whatever, we’ll just call it HVM. HMV is gone.” – Tony Cregan
It wasn’t long before the former HMV manager was contacted by Hilco, the US-based restructuring firm that owns HMV Canada and bought out the ailing UK chain, asking Cregan to rename his new store. Contacted by their legal team, Cregan was told that his shop was confusing customers and its “continued presence in the market… operating under the name HVM has caused and will continue to cause substantial damage to our client’s reputation and goodwill.”
Cregan’s creative solution? Turning the sign upside down to read WAH. A move inspired by the twang in the accent of a local customer, the former HMV employee told The Guardian. “We were talking in the shop about what was going on and some boy who overheard us turned around and said ‘HM what?'” explains Cregan; “so we just turned the sign upside down and now it’s called WAH.”
A small sign in the style of a speech bubble was also added to the newly titled WAH that reads: “His Master’s Voice has told us to change.”
(Image Source: Belfast Telegraph)
As well as taking satisfaction in his cheeky victory over the former retail giant, Cregan says he’s rallying support of the local community and his customers in the fight against HMV, who still have issue with the shop’s visual presentation despite the name change.
“In their legal letter, they quoted our use of their colour scheme – pink and black,” Cregan notes. “People are saying do they own the alphabet and the rainbow as well? Did they copyright them?… It’s like David and Goliath. People are saying to fight them.”
It’s not the first time the HMV fallout has produced a rogue employee, in February – shortly after the news that the high street music chain was going into the hands of administrators – an employee hi-jacked HMV’s official twitter account and began live-tweeting the staff cuts as they happened.
“There are over 60 of us being fired at once! Mass execution, of loyal employees who love the brand,” read one post from the rogue twitterer.
Meanwhile, HMV and its new Hilco administration are attempting to negotiate the return of its flagship Oxford Street store in London, as The Evening Standard reports. HMV has reportedly exchanged contracts on the shop’s lease with its currently occupied lease holders, Footlocker, and is awaiting approval from the landlord.
