Sporting Goods P-O-P

Imagine a sport in which players don't talk and refs can't keep score. According to some, that's the name of the game in sporting goods P-O-P these days. In a new survey conducted by P-O-P Times and the National Sporting Goods Association (NSGA), sporting goods retailers say they're rarely consulted about proposed P-O-P and that when they are, their ideas aren't taken seriously. What's more, the scarcity of scanner data available in sporting goods stores makes P-O-P's effectiveness difficult -- some say impossible -- to monitor.That said, P-O-P soars higher than Michael Jordan in the eyes of sporting goods product marketers. According to the survey, two out of three marketers believe that P-O-P is more important to their efforts than ever before. Gus Blythe, president of Paso Robles, Calif.-based Second Wind, terms P-O-P "essential" to marketing his company's shoe care products. "Our items aren't really items that people know about, so they make a buying decision when they come into the store. In the last two years, we've spent nearly $1 million in P-O-P and merchandising items," he says. "I firmly believe that if you can't afford a $10 million ad campaign, put your eggs all in one basket and do it in the store."Sporting goods marketers in every category agree. "The role P-O-P plays within the Starter organization has changed significantly over the past year," says Kevin McCarthy, director of retail marketing for the New Haven, Conn.-based apparel maker. "We realized that although the Starter brand has created significant consumer awareness by being worn by more professional teams in more professional sports than any other brand, P-O-P needed to communicate this point of difference. Consequently, P-O-P has become strategically important to us."Phil Piccolo, director of corporate marketing at Escalade Sports, Evansville, Ind., concurs: "A lot of the products we make -- like table-tennis tables -- are big. Sometimes P-O-P is the only thing that we have to sell the product because you can't put the product on the floor." Piccolo says P-O-P also is essential when stores assemble and display these large products full-size: "They don't want the system just sitting in the store with a price tag on it -- they want to spell out the features."For baseball and hockey equipment-maker Easton Sports Inc., Van Nuys, Calif., P-O-P also carries much greater weight today than in the past, according to Kerry Jarrell, marketing communications manager. Working closely with accounts, Jarrell says, the company has recently begun to "put a lot of thought and effort into how we can make it easier for the retailer to sell Easton."Retailer DilemmaGiven the historic difficulties retailers have encountered while trying to merchandise the sporting goods category's often bulky items, the creative challenges in P-O-P would seem ripe for teamwork. Yet retailers feel left out. According to the survey, more than half say manufacturers seldom consult with them about product displays."We don't have a whole lot of opportunity to voice our opinions as retailers," says Chris Lauritzen, director of store planning and construction for Oshman's in Houston. "We'd prefer to have more input."Generally, those sporting goods marketers who stress the educational attributes of their products on their point-of-purchase displays get the highest marks from dealers. The technical features of all sorts of sporting goods, from the high-tech fabrics in apparel to the different user options in health-improving equipment, demand explanation. Equipment marketers find this particularly true. "The more innovations, the more you have to explain to get that message to the consumer," says Escalade Sports' Piccolo.Randy Black, president of Rawlings Sporting Goods, St. Louis, agrees: "The more technically oriented and the higher the price point, the more dealers are looking to the manufacturer to step up and explain what's going on to the consumer."Carol Rueckle, district manager/store operations for Dick's Clothing & Sporting Goods, an East Coast independent specialty retailer, says that she's noticed that the better P-O-P seems to come from equipment makers rather than apparel or accessory makers. Fishing tackle manufacturers in particular, she says, "are very proactive to make sure that their product is lined up in the planogram and that the displays fit our stores."But a growing number of retailers will turn away P-O-P that doesn't specifically apply to their store. At Oshman's, Lauritzen estimates, "We use maybe 10 percent of what is offered to us." And then, that's only because "there are certain fixtures where that's all that's out there in the marketplace that will actually hold that type of merchandise."The same holds true for The Finish Line, Indianapolis, one of the fastest growing chains in the industry. "Over the last three years, we've really cleaned up the look of our stores," says Kevin Flynn, vice president of marketing. "We turn down almost all vendor P-O-P. We think our shoe wall should be clean and the shoes should sell themselves."Last year, an adidas fixture showcasing a new shoe and a gift-with-purchase was one of the few vendor-supplied items to cross The Finish Line's threshold. That display made the cut, Flynn says, because "we got to help design it. It was a short-term window and it was exclusive to The Finish Line. We don't want to look like everybody else."The urge to be (or at least look) unique rages in the athletic world and stores are no exception. "Many accounts want their own specially designed displays," says Patty Johnson, senior marketing services manager at Converse Inc., North Reading, Mass. "They want a custom piece that will not be used in any other store. They are somewhat more flexible in accepting a similar image or graphic treatment, as long as it is applied to a custom display."Flynn says the in-house creative staff at The Finish Line prefers to manipulate manufacturers' images to create custom window or tabletop displays. "We've been trying to get manufacturers to provide us, in advance of the release of a shoe, with the artwork, photography and graphics -- hopefully on disk -- so that we can prepare our own P-O-P." But with the exception of Nike, he says, vendors simply aren't complying.Others find that even with customization and a fair amount of investment, there's resistance to P-O-P in the store. Blythe says Second Wind attempted to build a special custom display for a major athletic footwear chain, but the project couldn't get past the gatekeepers. The proposed display was a four-sided unit that featured a recorded voice offering information on Second Wind's products. "First they said it was too tall, then they said it was too loud, then they said the voice insulted their salespeople," he recalls. Eventually, he gave up the attempt.Measuring P-O-P EffectivenessLack of proof as to what P-O-P accomplishes is perhaps at the root of dissension between suppliers and sellers. Relatively few sporting goods marketers use scanner data or other empirical methods to measure the effectiveness of their displays. (In other categories, such as grocery and cosmetics, nearly 50 percent of marketers measure display effectiveness.) "In terms of the true effect," says Rawling's Black, "it can't totally be measured because we have products in other parts of the store. We're not able to segregate that inventory totally to just what's moving off one display."Sporting goods retailers are even less interested, with fewer than 10 percent making an attempt to determine a display's specific impact on sales. Many believe such a feat is impossible. "I don't know how anybody can judge the effectiveness of a display," says The Finish Line's Flynn. "We look at sales data to see if a certain product is moving, but there's no formula for judging [a display's] effectiveness. There are too many other factors. The shoe may sell just as well without a sign -- we'll never know."Other retailers believe a display's success can be judged by using common sense. Dick's Clothing & Sporting Goods' Rueckle says golf displays have "really improved our business. We started using some beautiful racks a year ago and our golf business is on fire right now." Of course, she says, that increase probably stems "from 10 different factors, but I think that those fixtures do lend a premier look to the department, and that helps."David Hill, president of Kids Sports World in St. Louis, refuses all display and collateral materials. However, there is another kind of P-O-P -- display packaging -- that he welcomes: "I will buy items that are packaged well, that are colorful, have good graphics, and explain the product's benefits and features. I look at those types of things when I'm buying product because even though our stores are small with very high service, you still can't take care of all the people all of the time."Hill's five stores, offering a full-line of sporting goods for children age 12 and under, won't even hang vendor-supplied posters. "It just clutters up the store," he explains. But the right package "makes things pop off the shelf," he says. "P-O-P is nothing more than a graphical presentation that makes the consumer want to buy the product. And that same graphical presentation can be on the product itself."P-O-P Assembly ProblemsIt's not just philosophical or aesthetic differences that make some dealers less than excited about P-O-P. Repeatedly, store personnel cite difficult assembly and inadequate instructions as the reason a P-O-P display languishes in a stockroom before being pitched. Others say some P-O-P campaigns go flat because no one at the stores was notified of its impending arrival. "They put together beautiful P-O-P and then they don't tell the store how to assemble it, in easily understandable wording," stresses Dick's Clothing & Sporting Goods' Rueckle. "Or they may ship parts separately and not have them all arrive at the same time."Increasingly, marketers are attempting to rectify this problem. Reebok and Columbia Sportswear, for example, both send representatives to the stores to help set up merchandising materials, says Rueckle. But all manufacturers could help simply by supplying a photograph of "what the finished product is supposed to look like," she says. She gave the example of a recent footwear display that arrived in stores. "It had a beautiful lithograph print for the wall and a plexi-cube for the shoe. Every store I've been to has it set up differently because nobody knew how it was supposed to go together."Easton, for one, plans "to hire a service company that will put up displays," says Jarrell. "We [figured] if we're going to put this kind of money into a display, let's be sure they don't get shipped to the retailer and then sit in a box because it's too difficult to put together."While retailers may be more restrictive about the P-O-P they use, few have yet to charge for placement, at least directly. Oshman's occasionally requests a slotting fee, but as long as the materials are free and the vendor offers advertising co-op dollars, usually there's no charge. "We'll go back and ask for advertising money all the time, though," Oshman's Lauritzen says.Paul Kid at San Diego-based Pro Kennex, says requests for slotting fees are a growing trend, but adds, "we will not pay for the space unless it's so compelling we have to. We will offer [to supply free] P-O-P, however."The same goes for footwear makers like Converse. "For some of its key retailers, Converse will design and supply at no charge special concept shops or endcap displays. But the company will not pay for space," says Johnson.Second Wind's Blythe takes a more harsh position. "We've had retailers say we want a slotting allowance, and I say: 'Go back to the industry you came from because that's not sporting goods. I'm already giving you a display, training your people, pre-ticketing your goods, taking back anything that doesn't sell. What part of retail are you going to take responsibility for?'"Other marketers say they've yet to encounter requests for payment. Escalade has never been asked to pay for placement, says Piccolo, "but if it got into that situation and the margin was there, I could see how we would start to look at that."Rawling's Black sums it up, "We're not actually paying for shelf space, but you pay . . . in a lot of different ways."

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