In the modern world of business a product promotion and advertising remain the issues of the first priority. During the last couple of decades, the situation with the product promotion media has dramatically changed. The media environment is oversaturated with advertising information and the product market is overfilled with a large number of competing brands and products. All those reasons together with changing shopping habits of customers have had a tremendous impact on advertisers' decisions about investments of their advertising dollars. Today, the point-of-purchase (POP) advertising takes the third place after the advertising on TV and through the printed editions' advertising among other advertising media. The secret of the POP advertising is in the direct promotion of products in the places, where customers make their final purchase decisions. The POP includes such advertising tools, as advertising displays, outdoor mall tables, signs, digital displays, shelf media, etc.
The manufacturing industry of mall media advertising items produces annual revenues of some thirteen billion dollars. Up to forty one percent of this money is spent by advertisers on permanent displays. The main goal of these displays is to attract customers' attention to the promoted products, to create an appealing surrounding for them or to demonstrate the uses of the products. Mall signs, including outdoor mall tables, are used to direct customers to the places of product sales or special promotional offers. These signs may contain more detailed information, comprising product prices. For the mall advertising it is very important to select a right combination of advertising elements. Your main goal in the mall advertising is not only to appeal to your customers through your advertising items, but to direct them to the places, where your products are arranged on mall shelves. It all starts with an entrance area of the mall, where you may situate your outdoor mall tables. Outdoor mall tables are very good for attracting customers' attention. Then, you should proceed with advertising signs, shelf media and displays.
As it has been already mentioned, the POP advertising has gained such popularity due to the over saturation of more traditional advertising media with ad messages. Such reasons, as an increase of families with both parents working or single parent families, have changed the shopping habits of many customers. People have less time for planning their shopping; therefore, most of their purchase decisions are made at the point-of-purchase places. Moreover, the product market offers a great variety of competing products of the same product lines. That makes the POP appeals very potent ingredients of the factors that influence the customers' decision. Thus, the mall media environment has become a field of interest for advertisers.
The researches show that retailers run up to fifty percent of all POP advertising, since reaching their customers through the POP is twice cheaper than the direct mail and ten times less expensive than the TV advertising. All these factors make the POP a very efficient and affordable way of the product promotion.
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