Over the last 30 years, we’ve designed and manufactured thousands of custom POP displays for companies in dozens of industries. Every product presents its own set of merchandising challenges. Creating an interactive POP display for a consumer electronics product can be technically challenging. Bulky products like pillows and dog beds have their own set of merchandising challenges, not to mention finding creative ways to display products like electric toilet seats, automobile decals, adult diapers, roofing tiles, and ice augurs.
But, relative to the merchandising challenges we encounter with some of the examples listed above, we find creating custom POP displays for the wine and spirits industry to be perhaps the most challenging of all. Why?
● For starters, it’s a very demanding industry from a creativity standpoint. A lot of the merchandising concepts for liquor displays are driven by brand teams and ad agencies that are often highly creative. However, the originators of these concepts tend to have less experience in engineering and manufacturing, which often makes it challenging to execute the POP display in a way that aligns with their vision.
● Second, the industry is very promotionally driven which means that the requirement for fresh ideas and eye-catching designs in never ending. POP displays are critical for the wine and spirits industry, particularly since 40% of U.S consumers who buy adult beverages have not decided what they are going to purchase when they walk into a store. And, of the 60% who do have a planned purchase, 21% end up changing their minds once they are in the store. We discussed this and other shopper marketing research in greater depth regarding point of purchase displays and why they matter in the alcoholic beverage industry.
● Third, display budgets are always tight so creating custom POP displays that are cost-effective while also being creative can be tricky.
● Fourth, from a design and engineering standpoint, most of the displays for the wine and spirits industry need to be able to knock-down in a box small enough to fit in the back of a sales rep’s car.
● Finally, because there are so many people involved in the process of getting agreement on a POP display, the decision-making process is often protracted and timelines for designing and manufacturing displays are often short.
Despite these challenges, we have really enjoyed our work in the industry and thought it made sense to share some of our recent work with the hopes that it might offer some creative inspiration to anyone looking for creative merchandising ideas no matter what the industry. If you are interested in more than the four examples shown below, you can see 10 more examples in our blog “POP Display Concepts for the Wine & Spirits Industry.”
The first example shown below is an authentic decorated wine barrel for Charles Smith Wines. Designed to be direct and quirky to fit the brand aesthetic, this wine barrel featured the black and white color scheme of the brand with a painted black barrel, white painted metal bands, stenciled graphics, and vinyl branded add-on graphics. An in-store shot of the barrel fully merchandised is also shown below.
Our second example is a partial staircase we made for the well-known brand Woodbridge. The idea was to create a display that would bring shoppers into their home where they can enjoy a glass of Woodbridge wine. We built a staircase out of MDF and stained solid wood. We used real staircase spindles and mounted picture frames with 2-sided pictures.
Our third example is an outdoor arbor display we made for the Kim Crawford brand. Designed to evoke pleasant summertime memories, this branded arbor featured a set of painted MDF arches, side wire ring panels with Kim Crawford branding, wire connecting rods, and a hanging metal chandelier.
Our final example today is a little more traditional, but we wanted to share it since it is an example of a solid wood display that we made for Landmark Vineyards. This 3-tiered modular display was constructed using solid pine which we finished with a golden oak stain. The display featured contoured wood holders for lay-down bottles, metal logo plates, single-bottle glorifiers, and side and header screen printed graphics.
Custom POP displays are vitally important for the wine and spirits industry and always a good source of creative inspiration.
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.