Beverage Manager - Page 31 - October 2010
Point of Sales: The new way to the customer
The battle for customers at the Point of Sale (POS) is intensive and the prize fight extends to the West-Europen market.
“Up to 60 percent of the sales of manufactuires is through promotions”, says Alexander Kunert, Account Manager at iMi, a marketing agency in Eltville (Germany), with an eye to the German market. A favourite promotion tool nowadays is check-out couponing, whereby the shopper will receive a discount on his next purchase. “We habe observed a further tendeny at the POS of vendors and /or brands with strong budgets permanently blocking secondary display space. More and more, many activities of other manufacturers only find their way to customers at the shelves or in the isles”, according to Alexander Kunert.
Some brewers and mineral water vendors try to get better visibillity and differentiation by festooning their beverage cabinets with strong brand labels or by placing new containers. Soft drink manufactures use advertising cooling cabinets with their logo as additional sales points, they strengthen their presence thereby and offer the costumer additional benefits by cooling the drinks.
Although digital signage (digital advertising) is being discussed ans already applied at over 32 percent of POS positions in the European market (Goldmedia 2008), the retail trade is adopting a wait-and-see stance. The Englisch and French retail trade may still be ahead of their European neighbours, in view of falling prices for scteens and the high effiacy of the measures, a brodly based breakthrough may well succed in the near future. According to a Nielsen study that looked at the efficiency of advertising on displays , sales rose up to 33 percent because of digital signage for four out of five products. “The digital presentation attracts attention, creates ambiuence and appeals to customers. It makes the product more easily accessible to the customer”, explains Gastro-Cool managing director Christan Macvhers, whose business is specialised in marketing beverages at POSs. His prognosis for the future for the European market: “Interactive marketing of products through mobile communication tools will gain in importantance.
Free communication solutions, such as Bluetooth and WLAN, create excellent conditions for that”. First tests, whereby Bluetooth interfaces were integrated into advertising refrigeration devices and coupons could be transmitted free of charge to mobile phone were very promising indeed. (bmg)
