Creative Production

Point of purchase displays: Best practices to boost marketing value and procurement ROI 

Reducing Failure Points

“There are a few failure points that can reduce the ROI of a display. If a display is not easy to assemble or if assembly instructions are unclear, a brand may have a harder time earning valuable retail space in the future”

Point of purchase (POP) displays are key in grabbing shoppers’ attention, enticing them to spend, or influencing them to purchase one brand over a competitor. At this critical juncture in the buying process, missing the mark can be costly. An improperly designed display may fail to earn prime in-store real estate, flop with customers, or even damage a brand’s reputation.

Let’s face it. There is no return on investment on displays that are thrown away because they are too difficult to assemble or ignored by customers who walk right by without noticing them. 

So how do marketers ensure that their brand’s displays deliver marketing value while meeting the procurement team’s goal to optimize the return on investment (ROI)? The answer is to design for maximum customer impact, while reducing unnecessary efficiencies, streamlining processes and eliminating expensive failure points. 

Below are a few POP display design and production best practices that boost marketing value and increase your return on investment. 

Design to connect with buyers

Your POP display will have the most impact on the customer decision making process if it connects with buyers on an emotional level. Even products that are not traditionally seen as emotionally driven purchases may see a boost in sales when messaging includes an emotional component. For instance, a bread display with imagery of vintage lunch boxes and sandwiches may evoke feelings of nostalgia. Family dinner table images may bring new life to dinner staples, such as tortillas or pasta.

In fact, Gallup research has found that approximately 70 percent of decisions are based on emotional factors and only 30 percent are based on rational factors. According to the Harvard Business Review, across a sample of nine categories, emotionally connected customers are on average 52 percent more valuable. 

You only have mere seconds to connect with shoppers, a visual hierarchy is a must. Something iconic that can be seen from a distance and a simple message or call to action once the shopper is drawn in close. Any copy on the display should be designed to persuade the shopper into a purchase.

The messaging should not be overbearing or noisy, but instead create a sense of trust to win over the hearts of customers and create brand loyalty long term. Once a customer is loyal to the brand and sees it as their own, a consistent message is all that is needed to keep them on board. Even the most elaborate POP displays in the world pale in comparison to the displays that elicit emotion from customers. 

Streamline design and approval processes

A significant amount of time and money can be wasted (or saved!) during the POP display design and approval process. For starters, you may not need to hire a third-party creative agency to design your final display graphics. Working directly with your manufacturer’s design and engineering team can reduce costs and cut out weeks of back-and-forth communication. 

Another way to streamline the design process is to start with proven designs and then customize them to meet your marketing objectives. Designs that have been tested frequently and deployed successfully in market can reduce failure points. 

Another area that often slows down point of purchase display production is approval processes. When possible, request the use of real art and vector files for the initial renderings. The closer a rendering is to being ready to go to market, the fewer steps there are in the approval process.  

Reduce failure points

There are a few failure points that can reduce the ROI of a display. If a display is not easy to assemble or if assembly instructions are unclear, a brand may have a harder time earning valuable retail space in the future. In a worst-case scenario, an improperly assembled display may fail structurally and be thrown away entirely. Clear, detailed set-up instructions are helpful in reducing failure points. Easy-to-assemble displays, or even better, designs that are impossible to assemble incorrectly, can drastically reduce failure points. 

Appeal to multiple retailers

Retailers hold a lot of power when it comes to deciding which displays earn retail floor space. It is important to comply with the display guidelines of retailers and understand how they may differ for each retailer to be able to design for compatibility with maximum retailers. If a display does not meet a retailers’ guidelines, it will not be accepted. Displays may be rejected over height restrictions, size restrictions, or rules regarding the use or pedestals, bulk stacking, etc. The more a display can meet the varied guidelines of multiple retailers, the more cost-effective a display becomes. 

If you want to get the most ROI on your point of purchase display investment, consider incorporating these best practices into each stage of the design and production process.   

About the author

Pete Galbiati is the Marketing and Business Development Director for Peachtree Packaging & Display, an Atlanta based manufacturer of high-profile, semi-permanent/corrugated (POP) displays, direct to consumer experiential packaging™ and award-winning graphic packaging solutions. Galbiati has more than 20 years of experience on a wide range of marketing and consumer-driven brand activation projects.

About the author

Pete Galbiati, Marketing and Business Development Director, Peachtree Packaging & Display