The Risk of Going Vanilla in Retail with Ann Summers CEO Maria Hollins | RTS 2026

Hello, everyone.

This is omnitalk Retail.

I'm Chris Walton and I am coming to you live once again.

Once again, yes.

From the Retail Technology show in London in the exclusive Fusion podcast studio.

Now joining me is Maria Hollins, the CEO of Ann Summers.

Maria, welcome to omnitalk.

It's a pleasure to have you.

Pleasure to be here.

Now, you've had a very, very, very, very, I think that's like five verys, very varied career in fast fashion.

You've been in department stores, and now you are running one of Britain's most, let's just say, distinctive specialty retailers.

Tell us about yourself and also what drew you to Ann Summers.

So can I just say, the very, very, very is making me feel very, very old.

Oh, no, no, not intentional.

Not intentional.

I had somebody that was much younger than both of us on saying he's worked for 25 different retailers this morning.

So, yes, you shouldn't feel that way at all.

No, you shouldn't feel that way at all.

As you pointed out, I've worked for a number of retailers, so my background has very much been in fashion, particularly in products.

So buying a merchandising design, that's kind of, kind of really commercial background.

And I'm very fortunate.

I've worked in omnichannel retailers, pure players, big companies, small companies, department stores.

So, yeah, you're right.

It has been very varied.

But variety is the spice of life.

Right?

Yeah.

Right.

And Ann Summers.

Yeah.

So I did a period of consulting.

Okay.

And one of my clients was Ann Summers.

And I originally went there to do a six month consulting piece of work in the commercial aspect.

So advising on products.

And eight years later, really, that's how it happened.

I'm now the CEO.

Yeah.

Wow.

That's wild.

Wow.

What a great story.

What a great story.

And tell.

Tell our audience back home too.

Maybe that isn't as familiar back in the U.S. what is Ann Summers?

What do you guys specialize in?

So what do we specialize in?

So I would say we specialize in lingerie and sexual pleasure.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

Well said.

We like Candor at Omnitalk.

Maria.

We like candor at omnitalk.

So, all right.

You said recently and apologize, tell me if I get this quote right, but you said that Ann Summers had gotten a bit vanilla, so to speak.

Is that true?

That is true.

And a lot of people have asked me about that.

Have they really?

That's so funny.

I guess it's easy to do the research sometimes.

But.

But you know, you said.

So why did you Say that.

And you know, what was the key piece on why you did that and why were you so honest in that diagnosis?

Okay, so Ann Summers is classified as an adult retailer and that causes us some problems, particularly with Google and Meta.

So because we're an adult retailer, we get blocked by safe search.

So if you are online searching on Google and you have safe search enabled, which I would say many people don't know that they have, and even if they do know that they have, they don't know how to disable it.

But if you've got that enabled, you cannot discover Ann Summers.

So we are hidden.

And so you could Google for an Ann Summers product.

I would not appear, but somebody, a third party that isn't classed as an adult retailer, that sells my product will appear with my product.

Really?

Yeah.

Wow, that's Google.

And then on Meta, I'm not allowed to advertise, so I do.

We do have Instagram accounts, but I'm not allowed to advertise my product.

This is all in, in the link to the Online Safety act and Protecting Minors, which I would say we've been doing this for 50 years and we've never targeted minors.

Right.

But yeah, that causes an issue.

So the vanilla piece was.

We were trying, I guess we've always.

Been trying to work around it.

We are so.

We, we are a very bold brand and, you know, we've.

We are renowned for pushing boundaries, breaking taboos, but we thought in our wisdom, well, if we tone it down a little bit and we're less overt about this stuff, maybe these big tech companies might be a bit more lenient on us.

So we did do that.

We went, we went less success than what we have historically been.

Okay.

It didn't make a blind bit of difference, so.

And actually sounds like it was deleterious in a lot of ways.

It was, because I think we really confused our consumer and we saw that reflected in our performance.

And so big intake, sharp intake of breath and a bit of a reset.

And actually we're like, why are we pretending to be something we're not?

People excuse how I put this, but if you come into an Summers, you're coming up with one thing on your mind, so let's embrace that.

Right?

Yeah, Right.

Right.

How did you, how did you.

How did you notice that?

I mean, because it tastes.

It takes guts to make that call.

The performance.

It was just that clear.

But how do you attribute it, the performance, to that?

Because performance can, you know, be attributed to a lot of things.

It can be, but I guess we just weren't getting.

You just felt it as a merchant in you.

Yeah, I mean you have a merchant background.

Sometimes it got.

And actually we had a whole shake up of what we did in terms of our creative and we were like, let's go back to what we're really good at.

And the performance came back.

Yeah, right, right.

So I'm curious too, because you mentioned it, like, how has.

Beyond this issue too, let's talk maybe social media more broadly.

How has social media played or continued?

How does it continue to play into your overall strategy in terms of how you position the brand?

So as I said, we do have some issues around it.

We are censored to a degree, but it is still a really important part of our strategy.

So, you know, it does portrays in perhaps a different way to our store environment, to a younger, digital savvy consumer.

But the way we get around this kind of being hidden is we work with a lot of influencers who then broadcast us on their channel.

Okay.

So it's kind of like using both avenues really.

So it is, that is a really important part for us to get into in front of a younger consumer that perhaps isn't so aware of us.

Got it through like an affiliate structure then.

Yeah, that's how you guys do it.

Okay.

You know, in a similar vein, I'm curious, how then are you evaluating the application of generative AI to your business?

And how does, how does that impact, like what, what happens in the search world in that realm?

I mean, that's a whole next level question in terms of what you've got to be thinking about.

Right?

We are.

And I guess as a business we're very much in a kind of test and learn space on all that AI piece.

So we are, we are dabbling with it.

So some of the things we're doing is we're using Claude for ideation within our marketing team.

Okay.

We are, we're using AI for product copy.

That's been, that has been a test that's worked pretty well for us.

So yeah, we are, we're dabbling, I would say.

Okay.

But as you point out, that is still a bit problematic.

So LLMs don't really like talking about sex.

So all of the restrictions that we have with Google, we're currently finding similar issues with LLMs.

Really?

And are they similar or are they even more amplified?

Similar, I would say, but they similar.

Okay, well that's really interesting to know.

All right, so you've also spoken about how you plan to explore further expansion in the EU as Well as potentially the US as future markets.

So how are you looking at international expansion?

So our international expansion.

So we are probably 99% of our sales are in the UK so we've got off the charts brands awareness.

Last year we opened up in the Middle East.

Okay.

That was going really well.

Yeah.

Mic drop.

Well, yeah.

With your own stores or through like a license franchise approach.

Okay.

Although yes.

The biggest problem for us is actually obviously football has dropped there but I'm told that it's a bit of a.

What they're seeing in the Middle east is a little bit like the COVID impact.

Yeah.

Actually lingerie as a category is standing up pretty well comparatively.

Yeah.

Right.

Well you've got some built in comp growth there down the road at some point.

Right, Absolutely.

And I guess the biggest problem was it's actually getting the stock to them at the moment.

Right, right.

So the Middle east was our first foray.

We are looking at eu so I mean that's on our doorstep.

I think we're trying to navigate.

I think it's really hard to globalize brands now.

Yeah.

You know we're not part of it.

We're not part of the eu.

Brexit was, that was a nice little present for Brexit.

So that makes it harder for us to trade.

You know they're bringing in duty charges that make it prohibitive when you've got a low ASP product which we have.

And then obviously in the US US is a notoriously difficult market to, to, to penetrate and we are, you know, you've got to be not quite noisy there and obviously there's tariffs associated with that.

So I think our priority is what it is E at the moment.

But we'll do that from a digital aspect as opposed to physical.

You will, you'll take the digital approach.

And what does the digital approach afford you to do, you know, versus going, you know, all in?

Well, we can, we can start off by shipping cross border.

Okay.

As opposed to having to put physically put stock in the market which is ultimately what we want to do.

But I think we need to really understand what sells there really to make sure we've got the right stock profile.

Yeah.

It gives you ability to test and learn your way into a market before you over commit.

Right, that's.

Yeah, that's very, very smartly done.

All right, so net net, you've led this, you've led this business through a pandemic, a cost of living crisis.

Now you've got a crisis in the Middle east too.

You know, like that's like three black swan events right there, you know, all in the.

Well, you said seven years.

You've been roughly in the job.

Seven, eight years.

Seven, eight years.

Okay, what's the one lesson from all of that that you've.

Well, I'll say endured, for lack of a better word, endured over the seven years that you'd want another CEO in a similar position to yours to here?

I would say the number one thing is be brave.

Right.

And don't shy away from making difficult decisions.

Yeah, I had a feeling.

Just get on with it.

I had a feeling you said that.

And is that.

Is that captured in what we talked about in terms of the brand positioning, or is it in general, in terms of how you lead in your leadership style?

I think in general.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, I. I have been guilty of perhaps not making some decisions as.

Perhaps as quick as I should do and then look back and gone, why didn't I do that ages ago?

So, you know, sometimes it just.

You need a leap of faith.

It's funny, I had a boss once told me that every decision I could make faster.

That's my biggest regret.

You agree with that?

I totally agree with that.

You agree with that?

Yeah.

Awesome.

Awesome.

Well, Maria Hans, thank you so much for joining me, the CEO of anselmivers.

This was a real pleasure.

I really enjoyed this conversation.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thanks to Vuzion and the Retail Technology show for helping us bring you all this wonderful content each and every day of this conference.

And as always, on behalf of all of us at omnitalk, be careful out there.