About POP
What is POP for?
It has been said that POP has only one purpose - to make the customer stop and investigate! This may be to ignore some other benefits of POP but it is the main reason for POP to exist. A merchandising unit has only seconds in which to create interest and in turn persuade the customer to make a purchase. The importance of the instant imagery that the merchandising creates is therefore hard to overstate. This is not something that the product could achieve on its own. In those critical few initial moments, the merchandising unit is the brand!
Having drawn the customer's attention POP has then to convey something about the brand and the product that will entice the customer to dwell for longer.
Reflecting the brand imagery can be achieved in a number of ways, including lighting, colour, shape, graphics and choice of material. A good example is the unit we designed for the Karen Millen range of cosmetics in Boots. The back-wall colour and shelf down-lighting created an immediate snapshot illustration of the corporate brand imagery, encouraging further investigation.
If the main purpose is achieved, POP can home in towards its target - the sale. It can:
- Educate and inform the customer
- Display the product itself to best advantage
- Provide opportunities for sampling or experience
- Amuse or entertain, cementing the brand in the customer's memory
- Offer opportunities for interaction or, with the aid of today's technology, collect data such as contact information from the customer.
A high proportion of consumer decisions are made at the point of sale. For most types of product, decisions are not made at the time of exposure to other forms of advertising.
We have all heard that half the amount spent on advertising is wasted but that nobody knows which half. POP, however, is more easily measurable - a successful POP initiative can be seen in "before and after" sales figures. Usually in a pilot exercise prior to a full roll-out, the performance of a "POP" store can be compared with a similar retail outlet that does not yet have the POP display.
POP can be a cheaper alternative to above-the-line advertising spending or it can be used to remind customers of above-line advertising at a crucial moment.
Shopping is increasingly a leisure activity and POP is a marketeer's not-so-secret weapon in the fight for the customer's attention.