Creativity at the Razor's Edge

How did you get started in P-O-P?I got started with P-O-P when I started in business communications. It was a position I held for Gillette Canada. I was responsible for producing posters, brochures and display materials. That's how I learned the industry.What areas were you involved with prior to your work in merchandising?I've been with Gillette for 21 years. I was in direct sales and I was a retail account manager so I have a sales background. I had a lot of sales experience before I started to get involved with the P-O-P industry.How did your sales experience affect the way you view P-O-P?It made me understand the importance of P-O-P and the way it impacts sales. It helps me to develop things that I know will be effective at the store level. I know that area. Having come from that area, I can say that this is something that will attract the consumer and help the store merchandise. I always try to develop stuff that is easy to merchandise because I know the staff at the stores don't have the time to mess with complicated displays. I try to make displays that are as easy to set up as possible. That is something that you learn from working in the field.Describe your current role at Gillette.My whole department is responsible for developing and creating all permanent merchandising systems for all of our brands -- Braun, Oral-B, Gillette and Duracell. We're involved in developing displays for new product launches. We try to help grow the category by developing innovative displays that help to sell our products. We develop concepts based on requests from the field and from marketing. As my people work on the road and I'm on the road in stores, we check the displays from our competition and displays from outside of our product categories. We come back with ideas. Then we get our design house involved to come up with a picture. We send it out to the field to see what they think.Have you and your team developed a display or merchandising system that you are particularly proud of, or that performed beyond expectations?The Venus launch was big. We developed a whole array of displays for the launch of the product. It was a product that was trying to grow the women's shaving category. It was designed to introduce more women to shaving and shaving products. We found that women find shaving to be more of a chore than men do, so we tried to change the whole perception of shaving for women. We had to come up with some really nice, feminine-looking displays. It has been a very successful launch.What are the greatest challenges involved in creating outstanding P-O-P?Dealing with all of the custom requirements of the trade. More and more, the trade wants P-O-P that is specific to them. Because of their store restrictions or clean floor policies, we have to come up with things like power wings that are attached to something. Dealing with the nuances of their demands and their specific needs makes it a lot more difficult. We're doing more small programs, as opposed to one large national program. If one display was good for everyone, then it would be easy. Now, everyone wants a special display. They may use the same graphics and have the same look, but we have to make it adaptable to different chains.Do you expect to see more or less emphasis on P-O-P materials in your particular product category? Why?I would say that it will remain constant or that it will grow. Our P-O-P depends on the activity that the brand generates. If the company is constantly improving products and coming up with new products, then the use of P-O-P for that category will grow. If it stays stagnant and the product remains the same from year to year, then my job is to develop materials to support the existing brands. When a brand remains the same from year to year, sometimes the display demands diminish. But based on all of the activity and new products that we have, I think that it will grow. It may be different, but it will grow.What have you found to be the most important elements of a successful product display?Consumer education about the product. When you develop a display you need to make sure that it has an area that talks to the features and benefits of that product. That will help the consumer make the right purchase decision. Consumers are bombarded with messages every time they walk into a store. There are displays everywhere. There is P-O-P everywhere. An important part of making P-O-P a success is to communicate the message to the consumer on the display. Then the consumer can say, "Yes, these are the features that I'm looking for. I'm going to buy this product."What have been the most significant changes affecting the use of displays or other merchandising in the past five years?Right now, we're seeing a lot more use of interactive displays. A lot of displays are using motion. That works great to attract attention.How are new materials and processes changing the design, engineering and longevity of P-O-P materials?For us, things don't change that much because of the nature of our products. For example, with Duracell, because of the weight of the product, we have to use a lot of metal and wire. For blades and razors, we either put them on wire or on plastic displays. Sometimes there are improvements to the materials, like plastic that doesn't scratch, but we really aren't using many new things. We use plastic, wire and wood. That's what we've been using for years. How we use it is what makes the difference.What market forces and cultural changes are affecting your company's use of P-O-P materials and how will this affect your displays in the future?The consumer continues to get more and more sophisticated. Also, at retail, the consumer has a lot more choices. That forces us to be more creative in trying to make them buy our product. The consumer wants to be educated at retail. They want to make the right buying decision. We have to be more creative to help them make the right decision.What do you like best about your job?It is different every day. Every day there is a different program, a different campaign, a different product, a different display, a different chain. It is creative. I get to let the creative juices flow. The job is never the same.What advice would you give to anyone just breaking into the P-O-P business?Open your mind. Don't let anything that has traditionally been done limit you. Just because it has been done that way for years doesn't mean that it has to remain that way. Think out of the box. It's not always good to repeat history.

Creativity at the Razor's Edge

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