Make Your Products P.O.P.
As shelves become more & more crowded with new products, you need to find innovative ways to make your product stand out in the market.
One effective method is to pull your product off the shelf entirely & to make it stand out in the aisle & the consumer’s mind by placing it in a Point of Purchase (P.O.P.) Display.
With a P.O.P. Display, you can effectively get in front of your consumer, ahead of your competitor & into the shopping cart before the consumer even begins to compare products on the shelf.
Design Principles & the Impression Hierarchy
According to Branding Strategy Insider, the brain follows an impression hierarchy of factors in order to process packaging information while shopping. In other words, the brain creates an impression of your product & its packaging based on:
• Color
• Shape
• Imagery
• Words
Since P.O.P. Displays are forms of product packaging & are directly tied to a product’s primary packaging (the packaging that covers the product itself), this impression hierarchy applies to P.O.P. Display design as well. As a result, designing P.O.P. Displays can be a complex process.
However, this article covers 3 key design principles & how incorporating them into your P.O.P. Display design process can target the impression hierarchy & ultimately increase the value of your P.O.P. Display.
Design Principle 1: Keep It Simple
The most important concept of P.O.P. Display design is to keep your message simple. Studies of consumer behavior show that you only have about 5 seconds to grab the consumer’s attention & convince them that the product is worth buying.
In order to simplify your message, use color carefully & maintain a balance between the images & text on your display. Doing so will effectively target three of the four factors of the impression hierarchy & create a lasting impression on consumers.
As you brainstorm design ideas, ask yourself these questions in order to effectively incorporate imagery & wording into the design:
• Do the images you use stimulate an emotional response so the consumer connects quickly to the product?
• Can someone quickly understand the product’s value or do you have to read too many lines of text?
• Do the images & words on the display convey the same message or do they conflict?
• Is there a good balance between text & images?
Design Principle 2: Functional Before Fancy
By following design principle 1, you make it easy for the consumer to understand what the P.O.P. Display is selling. The other critical design principle to follow is to make your display functional-both for the consumer & the environment it will be placed in.
If consumers have to think about how to place the product in their carts, they won’t. Therefore, ensure that you balance the wow factor of your display with the proper shape. Your display’s shape needs to be both structurally sound & eye-catching.
To determine which shape style will best serve your product, consider the following:
• The shape of the product & its primary packaging
• Placement in store
• Length of time in store
• Target consumers
• Target stage of the shopping process
• Competitor P.O.P. Displays
Design Principle 3: Store Placement & Requirements
It is important to remember any retail store requirements, competitor designs & the actual location of your P.O.P. Display in the store, as these may limit your design capabilities.
Check with each store & compile a list of the requirements/restrictions before you create a prototype of your P.O.P. Display. The store may require that you use a certain shape or material for example. They may also have size restrictions, & these will impact your design as well.
Lastly, do not forget to compare your design to competitor P.O.P. Displays in your target markets. If you don’t, you could accidentally design a very similar display & undermine the entire purpose of creating a P.O.P. Display in the first place.
- The Bottom Line