Hall of Fame Profile: John Brock

How did you get started in P-O-P?I guess that I've worked with P-O-P all of my life in retail. It really didn't hit home to me how important it was until I joined the "R" Us corporation.You said that your view of P-O-P changed when you joined Toys "R" Us. What happened to change your view of P-O-P?I went from a department store mentality where the thought is that if you have the right product at the right price at the right time, you can sell it well. When I joined the "R" Us corporation, I found out that if you want to sell more product, you can do it only with a great display.What areas were you involved with prior to your work in merchandising?I've always been involved in merchandising in some way. I was a trainee, an assistant buyer, a buyer, a divisional merchandising manager, and a general merchandising manager, and I held several vice president positions. I've been in charge of operations. I've worked with advertising. I've worked with the procurement of merchandising materials for the company. I think the thought process that I had as a consultant -- to help people that were in the retail business become profitable -- was also very beneficial. That was about controlling expenses and focusing capital moneys in the right areas to turn businesses around and to help them grow.Describe your current role at Babies "R" Us.I oversee the visual department, the design and development department, and the merchandising department, which includes space management. We also design the lay-out of the stores -- new stores as well as existing stores. We handle the renovation of each of our existing stores. I also oversee the implementation team. Those are the people that go out into the stores and set up what we've designed and developed. They travel across the country to all of our locations.Have you and your team developed a display or merchandising system that you are particularly proud of, or that performed beyond expectations?One that was very gratifying and a lot of fun to develop was a display that still exists and was expanded worldwide. It was a car seat pod. When I first started to look at car seats in our stores, they were just thrown on the shelf. Every time someone picked one up and set it back down, it was in a different angle and it looked disorderly at best. The pod was a piece of plastic that was molded and shaped so that anybody could put the car seat in there and gravity would pull the seat to the front and it would sit straight and forward. It now exists in all of our stores.We also did something with the columns in our stores. Sometimes the columns end up right in the middle of an aisle. We created a column wrap. It's a plastic slatwall that carries impulse items. We wrap it on two sides, sometimes three or four sides. That utilizes space that we weren't using before. The problem is that I can't keep the product on it because it sells so quickly.One of the most fun things that we designed recently is our baby registry kiosk. It has a modern and updated look. It is a key driver of our business. We have stores that literally print out hundreds of baby registry print-outs a day for people looking for what to buy new mothers.What are the greatest challenges involved in creating outstanding P-O-P?I think that the number one challenge is to know where to spend your money. That is one of the things that I've been blessed with in my background. I'm a merchant first. I can see where the trends are going. You don't want to spend money in a business that isn't moving forward. Sure, you can say that if I had better displays that I'd do more business, but that doesn't always hold true. You have to know where to spend your money to get the biggest return on your investment. That is the biggest challenge in P-O-P.Do you expect to see more or less emphasis on P-O-P materials in your particular product category? Why?More. Definitely. It's just beginning, especially in a business like we're in. We are dealing with mother. She motivates the purchases for the whole "R" Us corporation. When it comes to her baby, she is picking out what she really wants on the baby registry. We need to find ways to keep her educated and informed and to keep her coming back to Toys "R" Us, a company that she can trust. Of course, we're doing that by having the product that she is looking for and having it at a reasonable price. Also, we're able to inform her about the product. A little education can go a long way to help sell product.What have you found to be the most important elements of a successful product display?I think that we're in a fashion business. No matter what the store is, customers are very astute to fashion, colors, images and finishes. We have to stay in front of what is going on at all times. We have to keep our environment alive and moving. We're in the process of refreshing stores already that are only five years old. We opened our first store a little over five years ago, and we're refreshing some of them for the second and third time now.What have been the most significant changes affecting the use of displays or other merchandising in the past five years?I think that our vendor relationships are better. We have a meeting every year with our key P-O-P and fixture people. We walk them through the store. We have dinner. We play golf together. We spend two or three days together to talk about where the opportunities are going to be in the next 12 months. We try to figure out which suppliers are going to be best to work with on a display or a sign. What comes from that is one of the big changes. When I first got involved here, it was like pulling teeth to get creative work done in eight or 12 weeks. If you wanted a sample, it could take another bunch of weeks. It could take months to get things done. Now, it takes days.How are new materials and processes changing the design, engineering and longevity of P-O-P materials?New materials are incredibly stimulating. Looking at new materials and trying to think of what they can do for a display is one of the personal gratifications that I get. Watching what is happening with plastic -- making plastic look like wood at half the price and the fact that it will hold up longer -- is exciting. New materials will drive the business. It's a piece of that fashion statement.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?At Babies "R" Us, mothers look to us as a consultant, if you will. She knows that she can come to us and we can tell her what she needs. I think that we need to go further with that. We need to educate her. We have a whole series of endcaps that we call information endcaps. They aren't selling product, they are selling the category. For example, selling the safety reasons of why you need a car seat. Another example is displaying what goes into a diaper bag. We can give advice on packing the bag for occasions like going on a picnic or on a three-hour car ride. That's educating. What is wrong with us asking mothers if they have their doctor selected and if they know what hospital they are going to go to? We're actually reaching out and looking for these connections so that we can pass it along as a service to mothers.What do you like best about your job?I love the people. I got out of being an architect because there were no people around. Also, I'm stimulated by pressure and this is a fast-moving business. I think the days of building a display and shipping it out three months later are over. The product could be on a mark-down rack before the display shows up. You have to move quickly. All of that, to me, adds up to fun.What advice would you give to anyone just breaking into the P-O-P business?The people that are in this business have to be innovative and have ideas of their own and be able to communicate those ideas. Be positive. Don't be afraid to copy an idea and make it better. We all have to be champions of change. Our only opportunity to improve something is to change it.

Hall of Fame Profile: John Brock

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