How to Design a Retail Display that Stands Out

Corrugated retail displays play a key role in your marketing mix and sales strategy. They increase brand awareness at the store level, act like a product beacon for consumers, and boost sell through. However, there is a wide gap between a good display and a great display.

A great retail product display is:

• Reliable
• On-Brand
• Appealing
• Relevant

Put another way, a successful point-of-purchase display will help you R.O.A.R.!

Let’s take a closer look at each aspect of R.O.A.R. and how you can design your displays to meet these criteria for success.

Reliable

First and foremost, there is no compromise when it comes to reliability. Your retail display must stand up to the rigors of shipping and the store environment and through it all successfully carry and display your products without failure. A broken display is a useless display.

It is imperative that you work with an experienced structural designer who can design your display around the size, shape, and weight of your product. A structural designer will also help you get the most out of your display based on your goals. Finally, a designer will consider logistics elements such as your pack-out process and palletization to optimize the display design for fulfillment and distribution.

On-Brand

A great point-of-purchase display is your best brand ambassador. This in-person touchpoint must align with your brand colors, imagery, tone, and beliefs. If something is off, the consumer will know it and you will risk their trust.

Color consistency is often challenging in corrugated retail displays, especially when executing large-scale campaigns across thousands of locations. Working with a display manufacturer who is G7 certified is one way to help ensure the final appearance of the print on your displays is consistent from run to run and across machines.

Appealing

Beyond simply reflecting your brand, great retail displays appeal to your target audience in a way that elicits a response. Your main graphics should be simple enough to be seen clearly from a distance, drawing the audience in. If your product is new, complex, or has multiple applications, consider your display an opportunity to delight shoppers with educational content.

Playing with print and shape are two ways to increase the appeal of your display to your target audience. By leveraging digital print and finishing, you can market test a few different designs to see which achieves the best sell-through at retail before placing a larger order for a single design.

Relevant

The best point-of-purchase displays help consumers identify how your product is relevant in their lives. Whether you leverage imagery that reflects your target audience or incorporate seasonal holiday designs into the print of your display, purposefully choosing graphic elements and forms that successfully demonstrate relevance to the consumer in a meaningful way will immediately make your product stand out from the crowd.

The key phrase here is, “in a meaningful way.” Consumers are intelligent. Simply slapping a heart onto your display on Valentine’s Day and swapping it out for shamrocks at St. Patrick’s will not be seen as truly relevant. Taking the time to specifically design a campaign around a holiday and including thoughtful graphics and clever copy to entertain and delight consumers will result in the sales reward you are hoping for.

In conclusion, a great retail display will help your brand R.O.A.R. by being Reliable, On-brand, Appealing, and Relevant to your target audience. If you make thoughtful choices with the design of your display and partner with an expert who can help bring your vision to life in production, then you're sure to reap great rewards on the retail floor.

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Ready to learn more? Join us on March 30th for Creative Executions for Grocery and Retail Display, a live webinar featuring a panel of experts from The BoxMaker. We'll discuss the top considerations for designing a successful retail display and ways to quickly execute short-run promotions, brand partnerships, and consumer engagement opportunities.