What we know about point of purchase and in-store

marketing
Source: WARC Best Practice, June 2018
Downloaded from WARC

Explores how best to approach in-store marketing and explains how the best of in-store activation
needs to benefit categories overall not just one brand, and deliver gains for shoppers, brands and
retailers alike.

Point of Purchase and In-Store are just two touchpoints where brands and retailers can engage with
shoppers. At their disposal are a raft of old and new technologies but these will only be effective if
they are used to solve a real consumer need. As shopper marketing activities typically return low ROI,
brands and retailers have to measure effectiveness. The best of in-store activation needs to benefit
categories overall not just one brand, and deliver gains for shoppers, brands and retailers alike.

Definition
Point of purchase (POP) and In-Store are shopper marketing activities that happen at the time and place where
a purchase is made. Points of purchase may be real, (a ‘bricks and mortar’ store), or virtual (an electronic
retailer that sells goods and services online). Typical activities include expert advice, product demonstrations
and special offers and discounts. In real stores, product sampling, on-shelf communication material,
merchandising displays and out-of-home - inside and surrounding the store - are also common.

Key Insights
1. Shopper marketing activity and in-store execution are vital for brand and category
growth

Falling prices, product range rationalisation, the growth of online shopping and digital assistants are some of the
factors affecting how brands and retailers influence shoppers. As these businesses look for growth, effective
activation of shopper marketing and in-store execution is increasingly relevant, particular given that according to
trade body POPAI 82% of in-store purchases are unplanned. Elsewhere, the 2017 IRI European Shopper
Insights report shows two thirds of consumers prefer to grocery shop in-store, rather than online, the cited
advantages of shopping in store include:

The ability to see and touch the products

Shoppers can look for new items
They can easily compare prices

That said, online has a growing influence with one third of shoppers stating they search for information online
before shopping in store. Brands and retailers therefore need to continue to drive consumers to ‘bricks and
mortar’ and influence buying decisions there.

Measuring POP and in-store engagements enables companies to assess which activities work for each brand
and for each retailer and gain collateral to negotiate activation type with various retailers. Notably, in-store
marketing activity not only impacts specific product sales, it also has a strong halo effect on the brand as a
whole.

Read more in: How to analyse and maximise your in-store shopper marketing strategy and Shopper
marketing: Afterthought or strategic imperative?

2. Effective use of technology can increase in-store transactions and future-proof

business

Shoppers’ expectations for faster, flexible and more personalised offerings have never been higher. Retailers
and brands alike need solutions maximising the effectiveness of their shopper marketing activity in order to
increase in-store transactions and future-proof their businesses. At their disposal are various digital solutions
based on locational, experiential and conversational technologies. For successful deployment, new tech-based
in-store marketing solutions need to:

Be driven by shopper insight and resolve a real need

Be tailored for specific shopper journeys, and individualised by retail partner
Be aligned with the retail macro trends of simplification, differentiation and digitisation
Be task driven, planned and based on rigorous methodology with testing and KPIs built in.

Read more in: How to use technology effectively in your in-store marketing strategy

3. Brands are enhancing in-store experiences to compete with the growth of online
shopping

Brands get long-term value from customers once a relevant and meaningful relationship has been developed -
and in-store is one way to achieve this. Many traditional bricks and mortar outlets are focused on offering
enhanced in-store experiences. Brands and retailers can do this by:

Creating community and shared experiences among the brand’s core audiences
Making the customer experience more exclusive
Combining the in-store experience with online by offering click at home and collect in-store and in-store
ordering for home delivery services
For example, MARCO POLO, the German travel guide relaunched its entire series, to both book stores and
consumers, in a highly crowded market (and one challenged by online competition). The relaunch included a
range of activations. More than 82% of the potential book store partners participated in the campaign and the
brand’s market share increased from 17% to 22%.

Read more in: Reimagining retail: When going to the store has the feel of attending an event and
MAIRDUMONT GmbH & Co. KG: Marco Polo Relaunch Campaign

4. Mobile and location strategies can drive in-store sales

Using contextually based mobile advertising and real-time location-based data, Pantene, the hair care brand,
embarked on a shopper marketing campaign in partnership with Walgreens, the US pharmacy chain, and The
Weather Channel to address a key consumer pain point, ‘bad hair days’. Upon checking the daily forecast on
The Weather Channel, mobile phone users were served a personalised "haircast" with suggestions for the most
appropriate Pantene product to suit the conditions outside. Shopper marketing included merchandising and
retailtainment. The partnership with Walgreens (where sales increased by 24%) smoothed the path to purchase,
and consumers received relevant discounts and rewards.

Read more in: Coke's three steps for IoT marketing and Clorox gets close to consumers with proximity
marketing

5. Using VR to pre-test planned shopper marketing activations can help efficiency

Research into pre-test shopper marketing activations can help hone efficiency, but many brands do not test due
to associated costs and logistical issues. Global agency System 1 Research details a pilot where virtual reality
(VR) simulations were used to predict and show the effectiveness of different activations. At the heart of the
approach is the premise that good shopper marketing relies on ‘moving power’ rather than the traditional
‘stopping power’. The pilot, using a VR Walmart Neighborhood store, enabled some problems with traditional
shopper research to be overcome:

It allowed context to be considered in a more realistic setting

It encouraged system 1 thinking
It was agile and could simulate in-store ‘test and learn’.

The pilot was conducted with various brands and Hershey’s, for example, identified the positive and negative
impacts of different display activations. Challenges encountered, such as the ability to scale-up for quantitative
research purposes, resulted in several System 1 Virtual Shopping Labs being established across the US where
activations can be tested.

Read more in: Moving power not stopping power using virtual reality and system 1 thinking to predict
and produce in-store sales

6. Eye-level is not necessarily buy-level for in-store shoppers

Eye-tracking based research using 205 people who shopped across 44 categories has challenged some well-
established mantras about shoppers’ behaviour:
 1. Eye-level is not buy-level. The research showed that the eye-level shelf attracted only 16% of purchases
compared with 27% for the next shelf down (arm-level).
2. Time spent in supermarkets aisles is not 8 seconds; in fact shoppers spend an average of 86 seconds in
the aisles of large stores and 40 seconds decision making.
3. More than 70% of purchase decisions are made at the fixture

Such findings imply that traditional shopper research has taken place in artificial environments without due
consideration to the context that can hamper real behaviour at POP and in-store such as distractions and
cognitive load.

Read more in: Rethinking received wisdom in shopper marketing

7. Brands need to measure effectiveness in order to identify which POP channels work
best

According to marketing analytics specialist Ebiquity, investment in shopper marketing represents up to 25% of
many brands’ total marketing spend. Yet little attention has been placed on measuring in-store channel
effectiveness despite typically very low levels of ROI. The Test Match tool uses test versus control analysis and
allocates some stores in the retailer’s estate into the test condition (where specific shopper activity is taking
place) and other stores into the control condition (where it is not). By keeping all other factors constant, the
incremental impact of different shopper activities can be measured giving brands the ability to optimise the
channel mix as well as data it can use to negotiate with retailers.

Read more in: Targeting shoppers as they shop

More on this topic

WARC Topic: POP & In-store

WARC Case Studies: POP & In-store

WARC Webinar: Shopper marketing: Purchase journeys, behaviours and pre-triggers

Further Reading
Using VR in consumer research

Beyond numbers: How Colgate-Palmolive used CRM to help Identify key in-store touchpoints

Weetabix: The shopper moment of truth

Coca-Cola culture club: exploring brand execution at point of sale

The new technology in shopper marketing

Six shopper marketing tips for Thailand

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