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POINT OF PURCHASE THE POP PIVOT Looking back over a decade in which the best retail marketing activations have been honoured annually at the Shop! Awards, and pinpointing the themes that have propelled the craft to what it is today, celebrating pioneering brand executions that have expanded horizons. BLy Shop! ANZ Marketing, Events and Membership Manager Zita Watkin. et me set the scene. We were gearing up to celebrate 10 years of the Shop! (formerly POPAI) Global Retail Marketing Awards in 2020. The awards were to take place in June at GlobalShop Expo in Chicago. But by the end of March, Covid-19 had changed our world, and the global awards celebration, including a wonderful showcase of POP displays, was transitioned to an online event. My annual trip to the US to see the best of the best retail marketing activations was put on hold. I needed to pivot. Knowing how much retail transformation has occurred over the past 10 years, I set about to create a research piece to understand our path to now and consider how we can leverage this to create amazing retail shopping experiences in the future. The following trends and insights are a snapshot of my findings. Ten years of retail display innovation The past 10 years have brought major technology-based innovations that have changed the way that we shop. Apple introduced iPads in 2010, and mobile phones became a shopping tool. Almost overnight, we had more options and ways to buy what we want. These alternatives to in-store shopping didn’t kill physical stores. Quite the opposite. Online shopping upped the ante for physical retail marketing. Now omnichannel marketing is more important than ever. But some of the biggest changes haven’t been technology-led, but rather have stemmed from the fact that we’re seeking more personal and human connections and experiences. Here are some themes driving retail display innovation, illustrated by examples. ‘Phygital’: phones and physical Among the major changes of the past decade has been the fusion of traditional physical-store shopping with mobile phones. In 2011, Sportsgirl’s flagship store in Chapel Street, Melbourne shut its doors temporarily for large-scale renovations. Sportsgirl saw an opportunity to do something both truly trailblazing and innovative while keeping sales rolling in. Sportsgirl launched Window Shop, which allowed customers to buy products without entering the store. At the time, mobile sales were a relatively new service for the 50-year- old retailer. The Window Shop 24- hour interactive execution was critical in driving awareness and customer education about the brand’s mobile and tablet shopping. It also assisted in driving awareness and customer education in QR functionality, cementing Sportsgirl’s place as the nation’s leading ‘mobile retailer’ in Australian fashion. Reinventing category Category management has had a significant makeover, addressing consumer behaviour and making shopping a far more engaging and collaborative brand experience. This new strategy means that shopping aisles are becoming in-store ‘micro destinations’, creating a one-stop shopping experience that drives growth for the whole category regardless of the brand that might be taking the upper hand in the activation. A great example of this can be seen in the Mixxit@Home cocktail display launched in 2012. Since the late 1990s, much of the innovation in retail’s liquor sector had been product-based pre-mix solutions. But in 2011-12, due to the popularity of shows such as MasterChef, creating gourmet-style meals at home and interest in mixing cocktails was enjoying a resurgence. Coca-Cola Amatil created a retail solution that delivered cocktail recipes made easy with a full suite of ingredients accessed via an interactive touch screen display. Mixxit@Home became a central destination shopping experience, and a brand new ‘cocktail couture’ category for bottle shop aisles. Iconic displays You know you’re onto a good thing when a display is created that reflects brand in an iconic way and is repeated year on year. 72 RETAIL WORLD OCT, 2020