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Put signs in their place

Retail signage mistakes sever the customer connection.

January 23, 2008

This article originally published in Retail Customer Experience magazine, Feb. 2008.Click hereto download a free PDF version.

 

Although U.S. retailers will spend more than $17 billion a year on in-store marketing, ineffective in-store communication prevents many of them from getting their money's worth.

 

Unfortunately, too many of the billions of dollars spent on in-store signage is wasted on installations that are placed incorrectly, both from a purely physical as well as a shopper-behavior point of view. Retailers miss out on the expected sales lift and return on investment, but don't always know why, blaming it on messaging or merchandising. Good sign placement won't help ineffective content, but poor sign placement can doom otherwise useful content.

 

"One of the most important things is getting the signs in the right place," said Stephen Nesbit, president of Dallas-based Reflect Systems, provider of enterprise-level digital signage software and services.

 

Timely signs

 

Whether the signage is a 42-inch plasma screen or a cardboard wayfinder, placement plays as much of a role in its success as effective content. In retail settings large and small, competition between creativity and practicality may result in a sign that's placed too high or is otherwise out of the customers' preferred line of sight.

 

A signage system suspended far above line-of-sight blends into the background and becomes easily ignored as one more piece of clutter.

"The big flaws are placing signs where people can't see them — essentially an ergonomic issue — and not communicating the right message at the right time," said Gwen Morrison, chief executive of The Store, the Chicago-based retail practice of advertising giant WPP.

 

For instance, some retailers hang video screens from the ceiling of their big-box stores. The screens certainly are visible over the rows of shelving, but do shoppers wending their way through aisles 10 or even 15 feet below notice those screens?

 

"Research shows shoppers go through these stores with blinders on, and a large number of people aren't even aware of the high screens," said John Rosen, an executive director at Marketing Consulting Associates and coauthor of the forthcoming book "Stopwatch Marketing."

 

All types of signage, not just digital, suffer from poor placement. Signs may be mounted too high, on the wrong side of the store or in the clutter of shelving and décor where their impact is lost.

 

Rosen considers eye-level placement the best for most signs. But the sign has to fit into the overall design strategy, as well as the marketing strategy, of the store.

 

"There's a continuous tension between the need to arrest the customers, stop them in their tracks and close the sale, versus competing values like store design and image, ease of traffic flow, minimizing customer hassle and frustration and so on," he said.

 

Strategic journey

 

Understanding the shopper's journey through the store is the critical element behind strategic in-store communications. Before placing the first digital screen, shelf sign or wayfinding poster, the designer must understand where in the store shoppers will be standing still and where they simply will be passing by. In store sections where the shoppers' purchase decision involves information more than price, such as selecting a new computer or choosing capture their attention as customers dwell in one spot for several minutes. In more price-conscious sections, the buying decision comes more quickly and price points typically are more prominent.

 

Retailers should place longer-format video content or signage with detailed information near queues to inform captive shoppers, not in high-traffic areas where customers don't stand long enough to make use of the information. The signage and information strategy has to account for whether shoppers can circle the outer ring of a store without venturing into every section or whether they drift from aisle to aisle.

 

To reach customers, retailers often take one of two approaches that "are different but equally wrong," said Morrison. "They strip the store of visual clutter so there's virtually no signage or POP elements, and those stores tend to be sterile and lose the sense of engagement," she said. "On the other hand, stores also make the mistake of repeating everything is new, new, new and sale, sale, sale. Everything cannot be equally exciting. There has to be pacing of information for the consumer."

 

Installing video screens in retail locations in an airport concourse is a waste, Nesbit says, because travelers rushing to make their flights don't have the time to watch spots that may take 10 seconds or more to run.

 

This digital sign is integrated seamlessly into the merchandise display at a comfortable height near eye level. It clearly relates to and attracts interest in the surrounding merchandise without blocking it or impeding access to it.

"A lot of stores put screens in pass-by locations, which is a mistake. You want to be sure your audience has more than half a second to look at it," he said. "Look at where the shoppers are idle in your store; you could put a screen at the end of aisle or someplace where shoppers can see it for a while."

 

Test drive

 

Ultimately, understanding the target audience is the best tool for avoiding signage placement errors. That understanding also drives messaging strategy that makes well-placed signage most effective. The basic philosophies work in virtually all retail formats, with adjustments for any particular category.

 

Morrison cites a three-step purchase-decision process: engagement, transition into the information, then the final decision making at the point of purchase. "The trick is, every format has a different time commitment from the shopper and a different spatial challenge for signage," she said.

 

Whether a store uses the latest remotely managed digital network or a chalkboard, the signage has to be readily available to the consumer and provide information in the right way at the right time.

 

"The principles behind good communications should apply no matter what elements you're using," Morrison said. "With all in-store media, whether it's cardboard or digital, you want to see changes in shopper behavior."

 

Testing shopper behavior can resolve disputes about signage placement strategy, in Nesbit's view. Often, that's the best way to settle disagreements among internal groups.

 

"If one group wants to put the signs in a high location, do it that way in 20 stores and then do five stores where the screens are lower," Nesbit said. "Most of the time, the lower locations will have triple the recognition."

 

Testing should lead to signage placement and content that is not distracting to the shopper, while supporting the store's overall design and branding strategy.

 

That's the challenge, Morrison said. "Brands that understand the staging of information leading to purchase are the ones doing the best job."

 

Gary Wollenhaupt is a freelance writer and regular contributor toRetail Customer Experience magazine.