Store Owners Hooked by Wright & McGill Displays

When Wright & McGill, makers of Eagle Claw fishing hooks, began shipping its latest point-of-purchase displays, some store owners offered to buy the units even though they didn't carry the company's products.Since January, the full-color, corrugated plastic, die-cut mobile of an eagle snatching a fish has captured the attention of consumers as well as retail buyers. It's also a great decoration in any sporting goods environment."As a company," notes Ken Alley, director of marketing, "we've done a little point-of-sale through the years, but not much. This year we've really focused on in-store promotion of the Eagle Claw line." The driving force behind the Denver-based company's new attitude stems from focus group studies conducted last year in five U.S. cities."We targeted all different types of fishermen -- bass, crappie, saltwater, trout, the whole gamut," recalls Alley. Results of the study indicated that "the Eagle Claw name was by leaps and bounds the most recognized brand name in fishing tackle," he says. "We need to capitalize on that, and where better to do it than in the store."In addition, the tackle section in stores "has gotten real confusing with a proliferation of brands," Alley says. Point-of-purchase displays seemed to be the answer to eliminating some of that confusion and pointing the way to the "brand that you probably came in the store to buy in the first place," he says.Enter the Eagle Claw Hook Center.Made of bright-blue corrugated plastic, the 3 foot by 2 foot hook center merchandises 39 different products. Because vendors in different parts of the country carry the hook style appropriate to their area's fish stock, hook numbers are screen printed onto the display instead of specific SKU numbers. The numbers correspond to individual planograms.Defining the display's edges, the Coroplast material wraps around rectangles of plastic foam for a three-dimensional effect. Total unit weight is just 3 pounds.Another eagle is printed in the middle of the hook display. Its wing tips extend above the display proper -- a feat that required extra attention to design and die cut. The die cut, Coroplast eagle mobile can hang from the ceiling above the hook center to help consumers locate the display. The hook center is free with a "pretty large minimum purchase," says Alley. Distributors have the option of buying it outright for $30."We do almost exclusively pegboard marketing," notes Alley. "So the battle for shelf space is always important to us." The hook center represented first, a space saver and second, an opportunity to "expand our presence in the store away from the tackle section -- say in a convenience store over by the beer cooler." Alley notes that hooks, at an average of $1 to $2 a pack, "have a lot of opportunity as an impulse buy."The hook center is expected to have a "shelf life of two seasons," according to Alley, who admits to some concern over the unit's survival through the off season."We anticipate this being a multi-year program that will increase as it goes along," Alley says.A third element of the merchandising program is a white sign panel. Used in conjunction with the hook center or alone, the sign panel uses special pegboard hooks that are perpendicular to the pegboard display wall. With the corrugated flutes running horizontally, hooks fit into the flutes providing a sign easily seen from store aisles. The signs are printed on both sides with full-color illustrations of fish species directing consumers to the right hooks for the right fish.The display's manufacturer, Proma Marketing of Englewood, Colo., has been working with Coroplast, the manufacturer of the corrugated plastic used in the unit, for more than five years."We don't just sell fishhooks, we sell a whole program for dealers to move product through their store so they get the turns they need to be successful," Alley says.

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