Buying Custom P-O-P: Strategies for Success

Contents List articlesA Blueprint for Buying: 2006The P-O-P business has changed dramatically, on all levels, since the first "Buying Custom P-O-P" report was issued a decade ago. The typical display run is much shorter. Taking direction from retailers is not merely a good idea these days, it's considered essential. Merchandising programs are routinely designed to fit specific retail channels and, quite often, be customized by individual chain. Brand messages on TV monitors in stores are novelties no more.Advertising and promotions agencies, meanwhile, have begun to take this field so seriously that most now refer to it as "in-store marketing." No one summed up this attitudinal transformation better than John Pender, director of visual marketing at Schering-Plough, who told the P-O-P Industry Congress last year that the increase in the power of in-store marketing was finally becoming evident to the people who control marketing dollars. "We don't turn away any program anybody wants to do," he said. "We do that with traditional media. We cut media budgets all the time. But if Wal-Mart comes in at the last minute and says, 'We have a $700,000 opportunity, and we want displays in six weeks,' we jump on it."No matter what the basic business is called, however, one thing hasn't changed: Physical, merchandise-bearing displays and signs will still need to be conceived, prototyped, approved, engineered, manufactured, shipped, tracked, delivered, set up and then scrutinized for effectiveness. It's the everyday push-and-pull between display producers and their CPG company clients ... between brand-building visionaries and their company's purchasing department pragmatists ... between design gurus and the manufacturing floor realists ... that make this business so much fun to watch.On the pages that follow, we'll take an in-depth look at one aspect of this complex process - how clients and their producers do business with each other, from cold calls and arguments about RFPs to complex, contract-based partnership agreements. We thank the good people at Eastman Chemical Co., Kingsport, TN, for sponsoring this as a service to the industry.-- William Schober, Editorial Director, P-O-P Times Message from the PublisherA very special thank you goes out to Eastman Chemical Co. and Michael Hartmann's team for their sponsorship of this special report. As a long-time supplier to the in-store marketing business, this exclusive analysis of P-O-P purchasing practices (which can be downloaded via the Eastman website at www.spectar.com, demonstrates Eastman's ongoing commitment to industry leadership.Eastman's deep understanding of the retail businessenables the company to develop the right materials at the right times, placing it at theforefront of in-store marketing'sever-changing landscape.You'll find their brands to be tough, clear, environmentally preferred and easy to work with and with plenty of technicalsupport from the company's product specialists.Feel free to give them a call with your next in-store materials challenge.-- Harold Fischer, Publisher, P-O-P Times and P-O-P Design

Buying Custom P-O-P: Strategies for Success

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