Principles of Powerful POP Display Design

A POP display is actually a one piece brand experience. It’s also a retail shelving unit. The ability of a POP display to stand out and use its power to sell is completely in the hands of the manufacturer/designer.

Shampoo Product Captures Eyes

Do you know what it is about a display that stops a shopper and generates a purchase? Some display designers feel that any display placed on the floor is going to sell.

They might be right, except that the display’s selling power can be optimized to outperform anyone’s expectations. The designer/copywriter have that kind of power.

Take a look at some of these successful POP displays.

What then are the design and other criteria that ensure you’ll win at point of purchase? How we can jazz up your displays so they sell like crazy?

The Brand Experience is Key

Your POP display is a brand experience, not just a background container. The brand and its features and benefits must register with shoppers emotionally. The display does your selling.

You’ll see plain displays in retail shops, because the belief is the brand logo, name and packages themselves will sell well enough. You should demand better.

I don’t know how many times I walked by a big clunky Coca Cola POP display and did not buy a bottle. If the brand is all that’s needed, why did it miss the mark so many times with someone who actually likes Coke?

Displaying your precious brand and products as commodities is the worst message.

I’ll tell you what happened. The display didn’t reach out to me and create a brand experience I wanted. It was just a poor quality cardboard shelving unit with pictures of polar bears and pro football players. It wasn’t good enough to get the sale.

Your brand and your display need to: Entice. Engage. Motivate.

Entice: here’s where your display hooks the shopper with a relevant benefit or promise; something that creates an emotion.

Engage: The display can’t be blank. It needs copy, images, interactive pieces to make the shopper use their imagination – to think about how they’ll use it and benefit from your product, and pre-experience feelings of satisfaction.

Motivate: The longer your display makes them stop, the more likely they are to buy. How about an interesting fact/benefit written in smaller font? How about a visual anomaly in the display structure? How about 5 different flavours for them to drool over? How about the details of a contest to win a tropical vacation? These are persuasive features that hold onto the shopper.

10 Must Have’s for a Winning POP Display

1. It’s eye catching and sexy looking
2. It has a benefit/promise that might satisfy their need
3. It’s the right height and width
4. It may have bold, contrasting colours, and shapes
5. It makes the products stand out physically
6. It has a header that communicates the selling proposition clearly
7. Display material and printing are both high quality
8. Conforms to retailer’s standards document
9. The products easy for shoppers to grab with their hands
10. The sales copy is bold, direct and clear

All of the above contribute to an excellent brand experience for shoppers and for the retailer who wants displays that sell, not just get in the way of their customers.

Ask your designer why and how the custom display will create a great brand experience that entices, engages and motivates shoppers.

Are your current displays memorable and do they really capitalize on shopper impulse? Are you leveraging the value of sustainabilitywhich shoppers find compelling?