Can Packaging Build Brand Value?

While the star of the show is always your individual product packaging, the supporting cast has to be your POP promotional materials.  To sell, your POP must stand out.  Your branding and value proposition has to be good and that means good POP display.

You might think your brand has the power to grab shoppers as they pass by, however stats show that relying on your brand power to sell is not enough in today’s retail environment. No-name brands are gathering marketshare so major national brands don’t seem to possess the power they once did. Or is it just the packaging and POP display quality that is lacking, thus dragging down brand power?

The point is that those marketers who get their unique value proposition finely tuned and their advertising focused, are better positioned to take more of the market for themselves. Big brands are growing sales, perhaps not through the quality of their branding and value proposition, but perhaps by just being more visible. So we’re left wondering, how much can in-store visibility increase sales and brand equity regardless of individual brand’s promotional campaigns? And is POP display a key contributor to brand equity?

Jostling for Position

An explosion of cardboard displays, floor advertising, shelf talkers, hanging displays, and window posters in many retail environments work to blitz consumers. The reasoning is that if consumers are making purchasing decisions in-store and are more open to buying something other than the usual, then a big presence in the store might magnify the end sales results.

Stats show that remote displays have significant selling power. More and more these are in the form of pallet displays at major traffic routes. Great Canadian Superstore has them placed near the back of the store near the freezers and coolers that contain milk, juice, and frozen hamburgers. These big displays grab attention, yet they always contain products you’ve walked by in the aisles. It’s amazing that this additional in-store exposure is enough to get you to buy the product, yet we all know how important repetition is in the advertising industry.

Product packaging on the shelf simply can’t deliver the intensity of branding you need by itself. POP displays and posters have the visual size and presence to use creative to grab attention.  When people shop, particularly in grocery stores, they walk by the same spot several times, so the impressions really add up.

You wouldn’t get an argument from brand managers that it is the power of the brand that makes a sale, so any increase in sales in-store from product or POP exposure, must be from the brand lift created by POP advertising. The chart below shows how much lift specific product types benefitted from POP promotion.

Spawned from their 1995 Consumer Buying Habits Study (no longer available online), POPAI developed a brand lift index to gauge the average increase in in-store purchases.  The study showed significant brand lift for certain categories of products yet most benefited. If instore product/brand exposure increased purchases, it stood to reason that this exposure would have given the brand a lift in equity.

The chart above shows very strong brand lift for products such as film processing, adult apparel, food, etc. These are widely differing types of products. Film processing saw a 47% increase in the likelihood a consumer would purchase the product. These are purchases shoppers were not intending to make before entering the store. Some product categories had astonishing multiplication of sales. The study doesn’t appear to indicate the duration of the study, however if brands persist in strong POP presence, it stands to reason that the brand lift may increase over time.  As long as the brand refreshes its value proposition, imagery and POP styles, the consumer continues to treat the brand as relevant and valuable.

Looks like POP display packaging can make a difference for any brand and perhaps allow small, new brands to “bud in” the line and grab attention. If you manage a new or early stage brand or need a technique to boost sales of a specific product, your POP strategy can kick start brand equity and take your company to the next level.

Let us know about your brand building in-store activities. Have you seen a positive brand lift from your POP campaigns? Where do you think the real brand lift came from specifically? Is POP the way to reduce the loss of brand power today?