Publishers Poised For P-O-P Push

Faced with a wide array of SKUs to promote and various retail restrictions, publishers have traditionally taken a conservative approach to P-O-P. But with a growing market, both publishers and retailers are beginning to take a closer look at their merchandising options. That attitude seems to run through every industry niche, from books to newspapers to magazines -- even comic books.Each publishing segment faces distinct P-O-P challenges. Traditional and specialty book publishers must deal with the consolidation of their key retail channel, the bookstore, as well as strict clean-floor policies. Newspaper publishers are looking to expand their markets as specialty stores arise while continuing to deal with the constant changes in customer traffic patterns and a larger paper on Sundays.Magazine publishers want to break out of the standard magazine rack to find new ways to target their splintered and very niched audiences. And comic books must deal with a three-pronged distribution channel -- specialty stores, newsstands and supermarkets/drugstores -- while also convincing all of those retailers that comics aren't just low-margin pamphlets directed at kids.Many of these challenges have existed for some time, of course. The difference now is that, across the board, publishers are seeing P-O-P as a key to reaching new markets and sales goals in the coming years.Papers Look To ExpandNewspaper marketers offer the best example of the new attitude. Long satisfied with their positioning on every newsstand and in every supermarket, newspaper publishers knew they had a monopoly product and saw little need to go beyond the marketing basics. That's changing, now."We probably have the most antiquated product in the world in terms of how we display it," admits Eric Wynn, assistant circulation director/consumer marketing at The Dallas Morning News, Dallas. "Because most of us are now in one-paper markets, we don't have the challenge of having to be innovative. I'm not too impressed with what our industry has offered up."With the incursion of a national newspaper, USA Today, into local markets -- and its innovative, aggressive approach to marketing single copies -- that thinking has changed. "Now we're wondering: Will we always have it this way?" Wynn says. "I can't say that." In addition, competition heats up as floor space rises in value. "Anybody who sits in the space we want -- gum, magazines, ketchup, whatever -- is our competition. That means we have to be more creative to obtain and hold that position.""USA Today taught everyone a lesson," says Tony Mineart, manager of retail sales at the Washington Post, Washington, D.C. By expanding the market through convenience stores and other specialty chains, it taught local-newspaper marketers that there was a much bigger market, he says. It also taught them that they had to listen to what the customer wants. "Our biggest change has been to move away from going to an account and slamming down a wire fixture, end of story," he says. "Our first investment was to start designing displays that were more congruent with the distribution channel."That has led the Post to produce displays for locations where the paper isn't even distributed. For the Giant supermarket chain, for example, the Post created a chain-wide permanent rack display to hold newspapers and magazines, even though the Post isn't distributed in some parts of Giant's market. "We're producing more permanent, upscale pieces rather than the wire, portable pieces of junk we used to use. We had to come in with pieces that met the merchant's needs."That often means offering alternatives such as combining the newspaper rack with facings for magazines or free real-estate guides, or sometimes creating an entire publication center. "We learned we have to listen, because we want to improve our position in the store and also expand our locations," Mineart says. "But each type of store has its own needs, its own aesthetic concerns. Each account is a unique merchandising challenge."Wynn is learning how to meet these unique needs by tapping into the minds of marketers at a local company adept at P-O-P innovation: Frito-Lay Inc. "By working with Frito-Lay, I'm learning how they view their products and how that translates into store displays," he says. "I want to create more awareness and generate impulse buys for my product, too." In fact, he adds, the two companies are discussing the possibility of creating some displays together."We're strong advocates of retail relationships from a marketing perspective," Wynn says. "But the final frontier for us is the merchandising display. That's where we're really going to get aggressive in 1998." His goals are two-fold: increase sales at existing locations and add new accounts that have resisted in the past."If we get more progressive with displays and incorporate them into our proposals, we can really work to brand the store and obtain a position with them," Wynn explains. "But it has to be something they decide they can't do without. I don't know what that will be, but it's going to be a high priority for us this year."Magazine Tie-InsMagazines face an entirely different challenge from the near-monopoly enjoyed by newspapers. With the proliferation of highly targeted publications, it's hard for a magazine to stand out on the rack or even be assured it is finding its niche audience. But retailers are open to new ideas, says Joe Mueller, national accounts manager at Conde Nast in New York."Retailers want us to do more things, but they want us to do them more creatively," he says. "Traditionally, we've supplied corrugated displays as floorstands or counter displays. But more and more, they want us to draw attention by tying in with their retail circulars. That opens the door to create promotions with our own advertisers, especially in drugstore and supermarket accounts." Often, this takes the form of header cards, sweepstakes, giveaway tear pads or other promotional ideas.Retailers are also looking for magazine publishers to make a more serious commitment to permanent fixtures, he notes. The good news is that the retailers are open to creating these in departments outside the traditional magazine aisle. At Dominick's in Chicago, for instance, wire magazine racks for cooking magazines are attached to the plastic-bag dispensers in the produce department.A few mass merchants are also taking this approach in departments such as sporting-goods and cosmetics, Mueller says. Target Stores Inc. has approached the publisher about joining its monthly themed promotions with a related magazine. That includes offering positions for temporary displays in the store.Supermarkets can be a tough nut to crack, Mueller says, because checkout-counter slotting allowances are upping the ante. Magazines sometimes have been charged lower rates for these prime locations, he notes, because customers expect publications in these positions. But some companies are offering to pay higher prices to place their P-O-P there, especially beverage companies with cooler displays."It's a tough challenge for retailers, because there are a lot of options that could make them money," Mueller says. "We've fought off the soda companies, and the cigarette brands have faded, but greeting cards are still vying for that space, as are batteries. Our competition is anyone who would push us out of our positions."Books Fight For SpaceGeneral book publishers have seen their bookstore market consolidate into a few major players. Coupled with stores' desire to keep aisles clear, the result has made it much tougher to place displays. That, in turn, has made them more creative, says Arlene Aizer, director of marketing production at Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc., New York.Being creative has meant taking a closer look at new technologies and ways to make displays more useful, informative or attention-getting. Bantam Doubleday Dell's most recent offering features a moving vertical-pane header that switches back and forth between two images to promote a best-selling author's new book.Specialty lines, such as children's and inspirational/religious books, are growing elements of both mass merchant and bookstore product mixes. As a result, both are looking to create store-within-a-store boutiques that expand these spaces or present the department as a unified whole."Clean-floor policies have caused us to move more to on-shelf displays," says Ronnie Gandler, corrugated and fixturing manager at Golden Books Family Entertainment, New York. "What we're focusing more on is cross-merchandising where traditional book displays aren't usually located, and we're making inroads. Anywhere a retailer has a childlike product makes a perfect location for a display." Options include anything from videos to baby formula, she notes.Thomas Nelson Inc., Nashville, has expanded its marketing perspective outside its dominant position in Christian bookstores to gain space in mass merchants in the past year, says Michael Middleton, executive director of merchandising for general markets. Now the company is penetrating book superstores, and P-O-P is helping them do it."These stores often have a good section of space devoted to religious or inspirational products, but they aren't doing a really expert job with them," Middleton reports. "We're finding we can take on a consulting role to help them find ways to increase business in the entire category."The goal is to use P-O-P to make the category consumer-friendly for those not familiar with the products, just as home centers and other warehouse operations must do for detailed lines. This includes color coding for different types of Bibles (study, family, children's) and creating special headers and promotional pieces. "Our goal is to tell shoppers that there's something special in this department they should take a look at and then help them find products."Middleton hopes the company will make gains in superstores much as it did in the general market. There, the company started with a few items and moved into a wider selection during seasonal peaks. "Once we proved the shopper was there, we convinced the accounts that the same shopper was coming in all the time and they needed to make a home for the products."Stores have been fairly easy to convince once they've seen the impact the approach can have, Middleton notes. The company is currently developing a specialized fixture for Wal-Mart that offers better density and easier categorization, and it has also completed a self-organizing signage program for Kmart. "Once they saw what we wanted to do for our products, they liked it so much they expanded it to the entire department," he says. "They've gone from being behind the curve to leading the pack on merchandising these products."Comics Diversify, ExpandComic books are also finding retailers open to new ideas and new packaging, following a period when comics were in one of their cyclical lulls with traditional outlets. Ironically, after an unprecedented boom in sales during the early 1990s, comics sales in general are in a three-year downturn. That, in part, has made publishers eager to find new formats and push into new markets after relying on comic-book stores for the past decade or more. The result has been many hardcover and trade paperback collections of comic stories, plus new upscale formats geared to a bookstore market."Bookstores are moving away from spinner racks and looking at shelf positions for our books," says Rich Johnson, national accounts manager for book market sales at DC Comics, a division of Burbank, Calif.-based Warner Bros. "Clean-floor policies are making racks a big issue, and retailers are becoming aware that comics in trade-paperback formats need more than a comics spinner."Most P-O-P options are still theoretical at this point, he admits, but he's optimistic that growth is coining. "The wind is shifting on retailers' interest in comic book collections," he says. "Retailers are saying they want to emphasize our books more, and they want us to give them ideas on how to display them."Options for the traditional newsstand channel are also expanding, says Bob Kerekes, vice president of sales at Marvel Comics, New York, and chairman of the rack committee for the Comic Magazine Association of America, which represents most newsstand comics publishers and supplies their fixtures. "We used to only offer 40-pocket spinners," he says. "But we found they often wound up in the back of the store and then out the door." Today, the association offers a variety of wire options with anywhere from five to 40 facings.Other permanent options, including wood and clear plastic models, are becoming more popular, as is the use of header cards featuring characters from all the publishers, Kerekes notes. "The smaller size can become an in-line display and requires less inventory," he adds. CMAA is currently talking with Wal-Mart about creating a plastic unit, and Marvel Comics is toying with wood fixtures. "The chains are encouraging these ideas, because they want something that's off the floor. If you can do that, you've removed a big negative," Kerekes says.The existing comic store channel, which has dwindled as sales dropped, also has floor-space problems. But here again, that has made retailers more open to new ideas rather than resistant to P-O-P altogether.Says Syndee Barwick, manager of marketing services for comic book stores at DC Comics, "Mobiles are very successful for us, as are window static clings." The latter has proven so popular, she adds, that she's looking to expand sizes up to 3 feet square. "The graphics are cleaner, brighter and snappier than we were doing three years ago."Standees offer some potential, primarily for store windows and other out-of-traffic locations. New technologies also offer great potential. "There are terrific things being done with lights and motors that I really want to tap into," she says. "We've now investigated some avenues I've only entertained thoughts of doing in the past. I think the stuff you'll be seeing from us will be progressively a lot different in the future."That seems to be the trend across the publishing category. Retailers in general are reported to be open to new ideas -- if the marketers have some creative approaches that meet the stores' specialized needs. If marketers move their focus from floor displays and tap into other industries' innovations, consumers could begin seeing entirely new concepts when they pick up their reading material.

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