The chief objective of visual merchandisers is to capture shopper attention, captivate shoppers intellectually and emotionally, and ultimately convert them from shoppers to customers. Delivering on the 3 C’s- capturing, captivating, and converting- is becoming an increasingly difficult challenge in today’s highly competitive, visually noisy retail landscape where hurried and distracted shoppers no longer read but instead are obsessed with, or perhaps, possessed by their cell phones and social media. Faced with these modern-day challenges, what is the best way to get your product and your custom POP display noticed by shoppers?
The answer is easy: there is no best way. Rather, effective custom POP displays leverage a combination of best practices, including things like ensuring strategic primary and secondary placement of your display, using bright or attention-grabbing colors, incorporating storytelling into your display, using lighting and/or digital media players in your display, making your display interactive, and decorating your display with graphics that can establish an emotional connection with your target customer. At the end of today’s blog, we’ll provide links to some of our other posts that address these topics.
Today we’ll focus on using the power of dimension to capture shopper attention. So, what does “dimensional” mean? The Oxford Dictionary sums it up well: “having sufficient depth and substance to be believable.” Creating the perception of authenticity and making products believable is at the heart of a visual merchandiser’s mission. According to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, there are 3 spatial dimensions and one time dimension. Using all 3 spatial dimensions- length, width, and height- can be used to enrich the visual experience of shoppers who, after all, are accustomed to living in a 3-dimensional world. Let’s look at 2 simple and practical ways to do that in any retail environment.
The first way is to use dimensional lettering and dimensional graphics. This is common and relatively easy to accomplish in many different materials, including wood and wood composite materials like MDF, metal, acrylic, PVC, and various other materials. The example below shows how we used orange painted letters to make the Puffin logo stand out relative to other brands that utilize 2-dimensional logo treatments.
We incorporated 3D laser-cut metal graphics into the Vuori apparel fixture shown below.
Another approach is to create multi-layered dimensional signs. To dress up one of our stock displays, we created the Kastifel sign below by using an MDF core and then adding a clear acrylic layer on each side that we attached with aluminum stand-offs. We then glued 3D laser-cut acrylic letters to the acrylic panels to draw attention to the logo and uplevel the entire display.
We frequently combine 2D and 3D graphics in the same space as we did on the Fahlo header sign shown below. This approach makes sense when the text or graphical elements are small and harder to laser cut because of their size or when one graphical element is designed to be dominant. In this case, we wanted to highlight the printed 3D acrylic logo and use the 2D printed graphics below as more of a tagline.
Dimensional lettering as been around in the world of graphics and retail décor for a long time, and what we are highlighting is really nothing new, but our point is to emphasize the wide range of applications and the way it can make a simple sign like the slatwall sign below pop more than a standard 2D printed sign.
In addition to 3 dimensional letters and signs, another technique to bring visual interest to your display or to the décor of your store, is by incorporating dimensional or panels that can be carved using a CNC machine or a digital flatbed cutter. Similar to the hero image shown at the top of today’s post, these panels can be quite artistic and eye-catching. Once the panels are carved, they can be painted like the panel we created below which we made using expanded PVC.
The close-up view below shows the dimensionality of the above panel. The dimensionality, the unique pattern, and the painting combine to create a distinctive look that can make your display or décor surface stand out in any retail environment.
These types of architectural panels can easily be attached to walls, the front and sides of cash wraps, or used as background panels with a wide variety of displays. As shown in another example below, 3D carved panels can create a contemporary, premium look that can go a long way toward elevating a brand.
The close-up view shows more detail of the carved pattern and painted finish.
One-color applications of 3D patterned panels can be a great way to bring an artistic vibe into any surface in a retail environment like the two images shown below.
The examples we have shared in today’s post really only scratch the surface with regard to the endless possibilities of using 3D applications to enhance any image, elevate a logo or brand, and make any retail environment more visually interesting and enriching for shoppers.
You may be interested in checking out some of our previous blogs that discuss other ways to capture shopper attention at retail, including:
Is Your Custom Display Hidden in Plain Sight?
How to Make Your POP Display Shout at Retail
Custom POP Displays: 5 Tips for Making Your POP Display Stand Out
“Look at Me”: 10 Ways to Make Your Retail POP Display Stand Out
Jim Hollen is the owner and President of RICH LTD. (www.richltd.com), a 35+ year-old California-based point-of-purchase display, retail store fixture, and merchandising solutions firm which has been named among the Top 50 U.S. POP display companies for 9 consecutive years. A former management consultant with McKinsey & Co. and graduate of Stanford Business School, Jim Hollen has served more than 3000 brands and retailers over more than 20 years and has authored nearly 500 blogs and e-Books on a wide range of topics related to POP displays, store fixtures, and retail merchandising.
Jim has been to China more than 50 times and has worked directly with more than 30 factories in Asia across a broad range of material categories, including metal, wood, acrylic, injection molded and vacuum formed plastic, corrugated, glass, LED lighting, digital media player, and more. Jim Hollen also oversees RICH LTD.’s domestic manufacturing operation and has experience manufacturing, sourcing, and importing from numerous Asian countries as well as Vietnam and Mexico.
His experience working with brands and retailers spans more than 25 industries such as food and beverage, apparel, consumer electronics, cosmetics/beauty, sporting goods, automotive, pet, gifts and souvenirs, toys, wine and spirits, home improvement, jewelry, eyewear, footwear, consumer products, mass market retail, specialty retail, convenience stores, and numerous other product/retailer categories.
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