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POP advertising, or Point of Purchase advertising, can seize on customers' psychological vulnerabilities and use refined copy to emphasize product features and advantages. POP stimulates purchasing enthusiasm at the terminal and is hailed by the industry as the 'second salesperson.'
According to data, 'About two-thirds of customers' purchases at the point of sale are unplanned impulse buys, while about one-third are planned purchases.'
Attractive POP advertising not only triggers impulse purchases but also effectively encourages planned buyers to make decisive, immediate purchases. Therefore, creating successful POP and effectively utilizing its media characteristics can provide the most critical and direct consumer stimulation at the point of sale, achieving unexpected terminal promotion effects.
POP Functions: Tempting You to Pay More Attention
Attractive POP should awaken consumers' latent desire to buy and spark their interest. Thus, it's essential to fully leverage POP's functions to emphasize product advantages and enhance consumer attention.
Notification Function: Most POP ads first serve to announce new products. When a new product launches, POP should coordinate with other mass media to inform consumers at the terminal about the new product's arrival, highlight its features and price, help them recognize and remember the brand and characteristics, and explain usage methods to attract attention and stimulate purchase desire.
Awareness Evoking Function: Even though products are widely promoted through mass media in early stages, consumers often forget these ads when entering a store. POP uses on-site displays to remind consumers of the product and evoke their latent awareness.
'Supermarket Salesperson' Function: POP is most commonly used in supermarkets. When consumers face numerous products and are indecisive, POP placed around the products continuously provides product information silently, attracting consumers and helping them make purchase decisions.
Sales Atmosphere Function: POP must feature strong colors, beautiful patterns, prominent shapes, humorous actions, and accurate, vivid advertising language to create a strong sales atmosphere, capture attention, and stimulate purchase impulses.
Image Enhancement Function: Successful POP not only boosts product awareness but also focuses on corporate image promotion. Like other ads, it attracts consumer attention while also building and enhancing the company's image at the terminal, maintaining good customer relations, and increasing product interest and brand affinity.
POP Roles: Tempting You to Consume in Three Steps
Beyond creating a pleasant sales atmosphere and pre-informing consumers to trigger purchase impulses, POP's most important role is to tempt consumers into purchasing and increase terminal sales. Therefore, POP should focus on the following three aspects to successfully tempt and prompt immediate purchases:
Tempting You into the Store: Since two-thirds of actual purchases are made on the spot, terminal sales are directly proportional to customer traffic. Using storefront POP like signboards, standing displays, and life-size samples to showcase product features and personality is key to luring customers in.
Observing the Product: The second step is to make POP compelling enough to make customers stop and examine. For example, impactful and provocative POP can make consumers pause involuntarily. By capturing their interest and combining with salesperson demonstrations, free samples, and trial offers, you can fully induce purchase behavior.
Stimulating the Final Purchase: The core function of POP is to trigger the final purchase, representing its ultimate impact. Effective POP should address customers' concerns and provide answers, achieving a tenfold sales effect even without a dedicated salesperson, leading to the final purchase.
POP Principles: To Be Tempting, You Need Substance
As a crucial promotional tool at the terminal, POP must prioritize accuracy, logic, and artistry in information delivery.
Accuracy Principle: Advertising revolves around product promotion, so it must accurately grasp the consumption characteristics of the terminal market (daily necessities, convenience), product features (practical, affordable), and consumer characteristics (customer types, income levels, price sensitivity).
Logic Principle: POP conveys promotional intent and information visually, so it must logically establish a visual order, avoiding excessive or chaotic visuals. This requires orderly relationships among terminal pricing, decoration, and products, with appropriate decoration and emphasis.
Artistry Principle: POP aims to promote sales, so its form and methods must be 'practical' rather than 'aesthetically pleasing'—avoid pursuing pure artistic expression at the expense of actual advertising effectiveness.
Communication Principle: POP's communication process is linked to the consumer's purchase journey, as shown in the attached table.
To effectively support promotional activities and create a strong sales atmosphere in the short term, a single POP ad may not achieve the desired temptation. Therefore, multiple types of series POP media can be used in combination.
First, POP can evolve from single to series formats, then incorporate new technologies, processes, and materials, combining sound, light, electricity, lasers, computers, and automatic controls to create innovative POP forms. While high-tech POP is costlier, its effects are incomparable to ordinary POP.
Second, hand-drawn POP can be used. As some companies do at terminal stores, they create all POP ads by hand. According to their planners, this method requires minimal production costs and no elaborate printing—just a bit of creativity and simple tools to produce beautiful POP. It quickly provides product information, connects emotionally with customers, and its on-site effect surpasses mechanically produced POP.
However, hand-drawn POP should be eye-catching, easy to read, and clearly convey the advertising focus. It should also be aesthetic, creative, individualistic, and maintain overall unity and coordination.
Additionally, the explanatory text on hand-drawn POP should be brief and powerful, limited to 15–30 characters; it must highlight the specific features and content of the promotional item and its value to customers; language should align with current trends and customer needs; it should reflect product usage; and wording should vary based on different consumer segments.
Link 1: Example of a Product's POP Advertising Setup
- Create a 1×0.5m guide sign (display board) with prominent branding, clear key messages, illustrations, and sturdy construction. Place it at store entrances or suitable indoor locations.
- Paste posters on clean walls (1.4–1.8m high) outside both sides of the store, on glass doors, or on clean interior walls (1.4–1.8m high). Arrange them neatly for better visual and promotional impact.
- Place tabletop cards on counters near the product, containing brochures or booklets for detailed product information.
- Hang hanging flags in parallel at a height of 2.5m from the entrance, above the front counter.
- Indoor light boxes should be placed above the product. (The planning center will provide color prints; follow requirements for consistency.)
- Store signs are low-cost, high-grade, and durable. (The planning center provides color prints; local ad agencies produce them.)
- Product models come in indoor and outdoor types. Indoor models are arranged in a 'pyramid' style and fixed with transparent tape; outdoor models should be protected from damage.
- Large banners: 6×20m, offering excellent visual impact and grandeur, but ensure wind protection. (Hang on the front of large malls, supermarkets, or walls facing high-traffic areas.)
- Outdoor billboards: Large billboards near the store (point of sale), placed on the fifth floor rooftop or podium (consider during market growth to maturity).
- Vehicle (sticker) ads: Initially buy rear or front stickers on main bus routes; during product growth, consider full-body vehicle ads.
Link 2: The Origins of POP Advertising
POP advertising originated from in-store ads in American supermarkets and self-service stores. In 1939, the American POP Advertising Association was formally established, granting POP official status. However, in terms of form, ancient Chinese examples include wine gourds and flags outside taverns, shop signs outside restaurants, banners outside inns, medicine gourds or plasters outside pharmacies, and festive decorations during holidays and celebrations—all can be considered precursors to POP.
In a broad sense, POP advertising includes all advertising materials set up in commercial spaces, purchase locations, around and inside retail stores, and at product displays. This includes store plaques, storefront decorations and window displays, inflatable ads and banners outside, interior decorations, displays, posters, service signs, in-store advertising publications, advertising performances, and broadcast/video electronic billboards.
In a narrow sense, POP advertising refers only to promotional displays and advertising media placed inside purchase locations and retail stores, such as special display counters and ads hung, placed, or arranged around products to promote sales.
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