Seasonal promotional themes are especially important for wooing customers at the point of sale. Aside from the best known occasions such as Christmas and Easter, seasonal events such as Carnival, Valentine’s Day, World Health Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Halloween, Football Championships and the Olympics also provide tremendous opportunities to drive brand communications and increase sales through themed promotional displays.
During seasonal peaks, creative promotional concepts are instrumental in effectively showcasing products and attracting new consumer groups. The right display concept in the right location in store can trigger purchase intent and boost sales significantly. Marketing displays are unique in that they convert brands and companies into a distinctive in-store experience. As well as conveying important brand and/or product price information, these promotional display stands activate shoppers through interaction, an important success factor in any POS campaign.
Anything that successfully drives interaction or memorable contact with shoppers in store – a sampling promotion or sweepstake, or new technologies such as QR codes or Augmented Reality – is a sure way to gain maximum attention. When it comes to integrating online and offline communication, bricks-and-mortar stores have a definite advantage over online retail: a physical retailer can present online options in store alongside physical display stands, but the virtual world behind the computer screen cannot offer consumers any physical contact or experience with the product.
Large-format promotional displays, unusual shapes, light and motion all help to grab shopper attention. Eye-catching promotional display stands help to win the First Moment of Truth and encourage the shopper to reach for the product. Essentially, a marketing display is 3D communication in its purest form. Special finishing with contrasting matt, gloss and UV varnishes to highlight brand creative or reinforce particular brand characteristics is very popular these days. Gold and silver inks, pigments, holograms or stamping foils are often used to enhance the promotional display and to draw shopper attention to the display, the product, the price, the brand and/or the company. Textured finishes, fabrics and even haptic varnishes can help to encourage physical contact between the shopper and the product.
From a marketing perspective, promotional displays drive sales in various ways: by creating a brand experience, generating emotion, perfectly showcasing the product and, through clever design, motivating a shopper to pick up the product. Sales uplifts generated by creative marketing displays can reach and even exceed 300 per cent. One thing goes without saying: display stands must guarantee a return on investment. It can be hard to know which display design will most appeal to shoppers and have the greatest impact on sales. That’s where ROI Light™ comes in STI Group has developed a predictive tool that enables different display concepts to be compared at a very early stage of design, separate from any price offers, before committing to production. This display validation tool helps to maximise the return on promotional display spend.
Displays are part of the communications plan within the marketing mix. A promotional display (also sometimes referred to a marketing display), often dubbed the 'silent salesman', is a free standing secondary display that showcases the company and its products and price offers away from their regular shelf location – the effectiveness of this additional point of contact with shoppers is what generates additional sales.
Surveys and campaigns show that the sales lift generated by promotional displays can be anywhere from 25% to over 300%, depending on the product category and the nature of the promotion. Campaigns in which display stands are combined with advertisements in flyers, discounted price promotions or other favourable rates, can be especially effective. ROI Light™ can help predict which of a range of display concepts is likely to be most effective in store for a given product or brand.
Promotional displays are designed to showcase products as part of a limited time offer or price, within a specified promotional period. For this reason the display stands used for such promotions are mainly made from cardboard and corrugated board, because these can be produced at a low price and are easy for retailers to dispose of after the campaign’s successful conclusion.
Campaigns for Christmas and Easter are normally the most popular, although it can depend on the product category. In Germany, Oktoberfest is also a big draw these days, coming in at the number three spot. Country-specific promotions or merchandising organic products or locally-sourced products, can also make effective merchandising themes when using promotional displays.
In addition to brand communication, logistical aspects are central to companies when designing marketing displays. The displays should be easy to set up in store, easy to fill with product, and allow easy handling in fully automated warehouses.
Always diverse, these requirements depend on the country, sales channel and individual retail chain. STI Group designers take all these factors into account when designing display stands, as well as the unit price and customer budget.
The ’One size fits all’ approach does not really work for display stands because of the different retail requirements and shopper habits in different European countries. What is required is a display with a modular design that allows country-specific adaptation for stocking and merchandising, alongside suitable price savings. STI Group designers are in regular contact with local retailers, and understand the display needs of each country and retail chain. They are skilled at translating all these requirements into functional modular display concepts, which can be tailored to each market.
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