Point of purchase displays have long been advertisers’ prime weapon in the battle for customers’ eyes and attention. These days, it’s difficult to impossible for potential buyers to walk through a department store or supermarket and not get bombarded with an arsenal of point of purchase (POP) material, ranging from the traditional cardboard sign to high tech devices.With limited shelf space and new products entering the marketplace every day, it’s become more critical to have effective POP material. Where yesterday’s consumers may have been easily impressed by a colorful display, today’s buyers will only invest attention on the most sophisticated efforts. Being effective is not so easy.
"...We're seeing more and more unconventional patterns, materials, and silhouettes, all to create a personality to set off the merchandise. The new breed of designers have to be a combination of visualist, designer, technician, and philosopher." - Tom Jordan, Senior Project Director of Miller Zell, Inc.It’s up to companies specializing in POP to give a product a fighting chance. In Atlanta, there are a number of firms which focus on providing manufacturers with the tools they need to stand out in an increasingly cluttered retail environment. “External advertising brings the consumer through the store’s doors and into the building,” says Tom Jordan, Senior Project Director for Miller Zell Inc., a company that works with retailers in developing brand and marketing strategy and integrated store design. “Point of purchase motivates them to buy it off of the shelf. You have to find a way to differentiate your product for the consumer, and POP helps your product stand out from the masses.” POP specialists often use themes and concepts developed by the product’s ad agency. “We like to refer to ourselves as the ‘in-store agency,’” says Pete Carpenter, a Principal with ERMCAR, a retail store design, consulting, and implementation firm. “Such media as broadcast and print gets the customer to the store. When the customer crosses the threshold, that’s where our specialties and our expertise takes over and carries the same message that the advertiser has decided upon.” Although POP is generally part of a company’s overall advertising strategy, the goals are a little bit different. “Whereas broadcast advertising is designed to generate awareness of a brand or reinforce a brand’s positioning or it may be to drive traffic to a store; POP is generally a little more action oriented in terms of calling a consumer to action at that point,” says Najjar. “It’s integrated to the degree that the message a brand communicates via broadcast or direct mail should be the same message and the same positioning they see at point of purchase.”
Donald Bermudez, Creative Director for USMotivation, says that POP specialists don’t always use existing advertising messages. “If they started something with that product,” he explains, “we’ll mimic the existing campaign and go in line with that. At the other end, if they haven’t had any luck, we’ll develop a whole new look for it. It’s a great opportunity when you can start from scratch, because then you know everything is fresh and new in terms of what you’re trying to do.”
Najjar says that current economic realities have made point of purchase strategy more challenging. “The retailer is more in control of the situation,” she explains. “In the old days, Coke, Frito-Lay, and P&G would ship point of purchase advertising materials to a retailer, and the retailer was happy to get and display them. Now that there’s just an explosion of products, retailers are having to become more picky about what they put on the shelf. Retailers are consolidating, so the ones that are now around are more powerful and they’re starting to dictate the terms of advertising at retail. They’re taking control and becoming more sophisticated marketers.” Indeed, controlling shelf space so the product isn’t buried is a prime objective of POP. “There is so much competition on the shelves that whatever you can do to make sure the customer is aware of that product will help you,” says Romanuck. “If you’re one of the many who don’t have their own display systems and are just on the shelves, the product is liable to get lost or shoved to the back. POP keeps things in one area and keeps them standing upright so consumers see the product better.” Along with space, shelf life for such displays has also been shrinking. Says Charly Palmer, Principal with TP Design, “I’m amazed at how much time and energy may go into a [POP] campaign, and how little shelf life it has. You would think that after all the time spent, these things would be up forever, but I’m seeing them up for as short as three months or less.” Grabbing the customer’s eye is the name of the game, and there are some basic elements to reaching that goal. Along with color, Romanuck says ease of information is an important factor. “In a lot of cases,” she explains, “we’re putting several products on one display, so there need to be consistent graphics that tie in that are simple, clean and easy to read.” Pete Monti, President of Media Imaging Inc., a systems integrator for visual communications technologies, says that video-based displays are becoming popular POP devices. When using such technology, he stresses that the form of the display is important. “You can’t put a TV up in a corner and put ads on it at point of purchase and expect people to gravitate to it,” Monti declares. “Consumers are numb to those things in a retail environment. The overall display design with electronics put in a different type of format really gets their attention. If you can create a visual message with an ‘eye candy’ twist that’s interesting to look at, that will really work.” Whatever medium is used, the goal is to establish a look that inspires the shopper to further explore the display. Gary Andonian, General Manager of Photobition Atlanta, a producer of POP display materials, says merchants and advertisers are looking for displays that work with the whole look of the room. “They want a clean look,” he explains. “They want an environment that you walk into, rather than just a sign on a shelf.” The look has to be colorful, yet simple. “POP has to make an impact and get the customer’s attention from a distance,” says Palmer. “Usually, it has a lot of energy but simple readability. The trap that some designers fall into is they want something that’s fun and exciting, but they distort the type too much or do something that makes it difficult for people to read it. We’ve always approached it with the idea to make it fun and exciting, but legible.” Jordan says that computer technology has had a major impact in the look of displays. “Today’s shoppers have grown up with computer imagery,” he states, “so they’re used to seeing bold colors and striking geometry. That’s mandated to the retailers now to display their products in a similar way in order to capture the shopper’s attention. Therefore, we’re seeing displays that combine a variety of colors, textures and shapes in combinations that would have been considered to be in bad taste just 10 years ago. And they’re becoming more popular. We’re seeing more and more unconventional patterns, materials and silhouettes, all to create a personality to set off the merchandise. The new breed of designers have to be a combination of visualist, designer, technician, and philosopher.” Before developing an effective POP piece, Jordan says there are certain factors that designers must consider. “You have to understand the strategy of the brand in the marketplace and reflect it in the POP,” he states. “You have to do your homework before doing any design work. The piece of art has to support the brand strategy, or else it’s just a pretty piece of art and doesn’t fulfill the mission.” With increased competition, Jordan says it’s more important than ever for POP to help differentiate the client’s product from those around it. “You have to build a logical argument for your difference,” he stresses. “The difference that separates you from your competitor does not necessarily have to be product related. Whatever it is, you demonstrate that in your POP design. There are always surrounding competitors trying to make the same argument you are with your POP piece, therefore your message has to make sense in the context of category.” When creating POP displays, designers have to make sure that their imagination balances the client’s budget. “A key thing for the designer to come with is not only an idea of the design, but a budget for what the customer wants to spend,” says Lori Kirschner, President of MEI Display Works, a company that produces plastic component parts. “Very often, designers come with an elaborate display and perhaps might have sticker shock [when they realize the] cost of producing that display. One of the things they need to be amenable to is how to simplify that display and make it more cost effective to their customer. They can do that by using different media or different processes. They have to be open to that, they just can’t come with a single design and say ‘this is what we want’ and not be shocked when the price is higher than the budget.” Kirschner adds that the designer needs to keep the weight and size of the display in mind. “Shipping becomes an issue,” she says. “UPS will only take up to a certain weight and size before charging extra.” The use of sound in a display is another factor in the designers’ toolbox. Before adding a continuous sound loop, the designer has to place themselves in the position of what it’s like to hear the tape played repeatedly. “There’s a fine line between effectiveness and something that may be very irritating,” says Carpenter. “You have to know the environment you’re working in and have an idea of the likes and dislikes of the target customer and the store’s personnel. I’ve heard store people say that they shut off talking displays after the first day because they can’t stand them.” Perhaps the main thing to keep in mind is how easy the display is to install. Often times, the person putting the piece together is a high school student, and if the display is too difficult to put together or the assembly instructions are hard to understand, the POP will stay in the back of the store or in the warehouse. To overcome this, some POP has been developed so that it’s in “shippers” where the product or content is shipped within the POP display itself. Nonetheless, Carpenter says not thinking through the installation process is a major roadblock to success that’s easily avoided... “You need to provide a simple design and a wealth of instructions that are highly visual in nature without a lot of copy and text that shows how each one of the parts and pieces go together,” he explains. “A lot of times, that is the most important piece, and many people will leave that for the very last and do it as an afterthought.”Over the past few years, POP displays have moved away from traditional materials like corrugated cardboard and into such things as plastics and cloth. New printing and photo reproduction techniques have given designers additional tools.
“It’s whatever can get someone’s attention,” says Bermudez. “If a consumer sees a different material, it intrigues them. That also plays into the design and the product being sold.” “Different types of plastics give different looks,” says Kirschner. “It’s our job to recommend a particular material for the desired look. We can take the designers a two dimensional concept and turn it into a three dimensional engineered idea in a way that’s doable using plastic as a medium.” In the last decade, POP has become increasingly electronic, utilizing everything from video monitors to computer touch screens. Monti cites studies showing that a moving image will get 10 times the eye contact and twice the message retention of a static image to praise.“One of the goals is to make a brand stick out more than someone else’s, and that’s being done more through electronics now,” Monti declares. “It’s more visual. Computer based imagery displayed in retail environments specifically to show the latest products, specials and any other type of visual communications related to a product, giving the shopper more than enough necessary information.
“The sky is the limit with digital and electronic imagery,” Monti continues. “We can guarantee high resolution displays placed where people are shopping and we can create an image inexpensively and distribute it to multiple locations overnight. About 40 percent of POP productions never get hung up, but we can guarantee that the display is running that image. We can guarantee the execution of a promotion. It’s a new industry, and people are wary of being the first on the block to embrace it. I feel that the people who do embrace it will get the advantage of it in the long run.” John Carter, now with Wide Open Films, served as Creative Director for a video-based POP effort that Retail Media Group concepted and put into place in 14 W.H. Smith airport stores nationwide. Programming was displayed on monitors near cash registers, which ran a seven minute loop containing entertainment, information, news and advertisements for products for sale in Smith stores. “You keep your message simple and specific,” says Carter of the content of the program. “You tell more about what that product can do for that person right now, and you keep the brand up almost constantly. You have to assume your consumer will glance at a monitor and have just a two second opportunity to be exposed to the product. They may just hear it and not even look at the monitor, so you have to cover both audio and video in the ad. Simple sophistication works for that kind of ad.” Carter says the biggest challenge came in changing his mindset from the :30 commercial model. “It took us a while to understand what works for a retail store in a busy atmosphere,” he says. “You’re designing for an environment where there’s tons of stimulation and you have to punch through with something. You assume your consumer is going to have a brief exposure, so you have to imprint on them within a very short amount of time in a way that works for the brand without conflicting with everything else going on.”Many feel that interactive kiosks are the future of POP. Along with presenting consumers with information about the product, the kiosks also provide advertisers with a way of gathering data about the buying habits of the person at the touch screen.
“If you have a digital kiosk, people will go to it,” states Bermudez. “People are in tune with that and will get on it... People are desensitized to that traditional printed, three-dimensional POP. Once you get a consumer inside one, you can get information.” Jordan predicts such interactive kiosks will be in every store. Consumers will be able to touch, see, feel, and eventually smell the products and use the technology to educate themselves further. “Technology will have an impact on every retailer’s business and will turn the POP world upside down,” Jordan declares. “Virtually anything you need to know about a product is at your fingertips on a touch screen. The only limitation is a consumer’s attention span because you have unlimited information at their disposal. That’s changing the paradigm of POP strategy. Kiosks carry the POP further than the standard corrugated cardboard box that’s been printed with a header on it. With cost of flat screens going down and technology advancing, we’ll start seeing more and more kiosks.” Palmer, for one, sees a downside to the increased use of high tech. “We get so caught up in the technology and all the effects that can be created on the computer,” he declares, “but it becomes more clutter than information. If given an opportunity, a designer will try to show everything they’re capable of doing, so they’ll throw too much information into a POP, and the point is no longer successful. There are all these techniques the customer won’t pay attention to, but will instead do the opposite and tune it out.” After all is said and done, Carpenter says there are three basic factors that make for successful POP : “It needs to be colorful, informative and have that stopabilty to make that customer want to take a second look.” At the end of the day, whether or not a point of purchase piece is high tech or low tech, corrugated cardboard or a special plastic printed with brand new ink, the only thing that matters is the customer who not only stops, but buys.