The refreshed New Idea continues to sell well. We are helping it along with continued promotion next to our main newspaper stand – as the photo from yesterday morning shows. This is the last week we will use this display unit here – we will find a new high-traffic location for the display next week. I see this stand being used for another month or so and then rested for a few weeks. We dothis with all well bade merchandising unit.
We are promoting Burke’s Backyard magazine at the counter for the next few days. With only one poster sent, we created other collateral in-house.
Publishers need to realise that the best time to promote a title is in the first few days of on-sale. No excuses. While today is a day off for many, newsagencies are open and will get good traffic. Burke’s Backyard is one title I would have liked to receive more collateral for today.
We are pitching Melbourne Wedding & Bride next to the Australian Women’s Weekly for the next couple of weeks – we set this up last week.
This primt placement is in addition to a waterfall display in with our wedding titles. This is a well known title so it makes sense having it in a high-traffic location to catch impulse business.
The delayed billing can mean we’re ahead of the game in cash-flow terms. I wish other publishers would take notice of this.
We have promoted Melbourne Wedding & Bride previously with excellent success.
We are promoting the latest issue of Delicious magazine with our main newspaper stand from this morning. We created this display using colour copies of the front cover – we didn’t have any other collateral available.
This location next to the newspaper stand works well for us with the right titles. Delicious is a good title because it’s a brand people like yet something shoppers tend to not visit us to purchase.
I’d expect our display to drive more business for us than the publisher funded posters put up elsewhere in the store because of the better location.
The photo shows how we refreshed our weeklies display for the weekend this morning. You can see that we have made Who and OK! the focus – as should be done for the display to be relevant to fresh product.
We also refreshed this display on Wednesday to reflect new titles which went on sale that day.
The Year of the Tiger is the theme for the syndicate board created to promote the lottery superdraw for Saturday February 13. Since 2010 is the Year of the Tiger in Chinese New Year tradition and given that Chinese New Year begins on February 14, a promotion of the superdraw around this made sense.
Researched and developed by our manager at Forest Hill (Jason), collateral was sourced online and printed in-store. Other team members setup the display. It looks fantastic – especially given that all of the collateral, except the A4 sign in the middle, was sourced and created in-house.
A choice had to be made between promoting a Valentine’s Day connection to the February 13 superdraw or a Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year was selected because it is a more natural fit with lottery purchases and because it ties with other promotions. Also, it goes beyond the February 14 so there are further opportunities.
There is more to the display than the photo I took. It really grabs attention. It’s located at the front of the shop and is easily noticed by passers-by.
Don’t be thrown off by the small range of syndicates. These are the price points. Once a syndicate fills, a new one replaces it with the same price point.
The That’s Life and Eco Bag counter units work well together for us. Each product attracts their own browser and since they are together, the other product is also noticed. We have had That’s Life and Eco Bag at the counter since last week. We will probably given them another week in this configuration before using them elsewhere – even three weeks in the same location at the counter is a bit long.
We put considerable though into how we use our counter and carefully monitor the results. Our counter tactics are all about adding to the sale at the last minute.
We are promoting Dolly magazine and the free beach towel in a display at the entrance to our main women’s magazine aisle and at the end of our dance floor (premium display space). I expect this location and display to work very well for us as most customers shopping with us will see the display and due to it being such a good offer.
What is not shown in the photo is the rear of the stand – it is also promoting Dolly. It’s the first time we have embraced both sides of the display stand to promote the one title. We were able to do this thanks to the good range of collateral from ACP.
We plan to leave this display up for a week at this stage.
While displays like this are less likely to win best display awards, they are usually very successful because of location and ease of purchase. Sales, after all, are what matter.
We are promoting Take 5 at the counter from today. The free board game with each issue is a compelling offer and should drive good impulse business. The Take 5 display replaced a Cleo display which worked well for us over the last two days. Given the sales decay rate for Take 5 we will leave this display up until Friday. We are not forgetting That’s Life since both magazines are most often purchased together – 65% of the time according to the basket data in our business. We have a That’s Life counter unit near the Take 5 display.
We are promoting Men’s Health at the entrance to our men’s magazine aisle this week.
Our real promotion for the title will come later in the week when we pitch it with newspapers – it works very well there as I have noted here before. That space is committed for a few more days promoting The Phantom.
Juggling space is a challenge sometimes – hence our preparedness to move a display from one location to another when it becomes available – as weill do with Men’s Health.
Our display of health titles last week, while driving excellent browsing, did not generate the sales to justify the premium space. So, this week we have given the space at the front of the store back to weeklies and a couple of other titles. I expect we will see a good result from this move because it’s school holidays and more shoppers new to us are passing by than usual. Weeklies always perform well in this space, especially early in the on-sale. We will refresh the display on Wednesday to connect with That’s Life and Take 5.
This stand is passed by around 60% of our lottery customers. It is also passed by everyone leaving the centre through the exit next to our shop. hence the premium nature of the space.
We are promoting the latest issue of Cleo at the counter this week. The free dress packaged with the magazine is an excellent giveaway and certain to drive good business. We only received one poster so we created our own marketing collateral to help drive sales of this special deal. We will leave Cleo in the prime position and reassess on Wednesday.
We are promoting the latest issue of Time magazine in an acrylic unit which sits above The Age in our main newspaper stand. The image for the Haiti cover story is most compelling. It is a good example of when we need to get the full cover of the magazine on show to drive sales – as awful as that sounds in this situation.
Check out how a retailer at Sydney airport yesterday was treating the collateral supplied by Pacific Magazines for the refreshed New Idea. What is the point of displaying promotional material in a light box if you cover it with a spinner offering unrelated product? New Idea was inside the store, away from the poster.
On the other side of the column is a light box with a poster for a novel. It was not obstructed. Novels were on a stand in front of the poster, not obstructing the view.
When we accept premium collateral we have an obligation to use it well and to ensure that shoppers can easily purchase the product being promoted.
Spinners are a pain in the neck in that they can be placed anywhere by people opening the business, they can be moved by customers, they can be knocked over and they can disrupt traffic flow. But we like them because they make selecting a range easy and they are flexible in terms of where we can place them.
My own policy is that I’ll accept a small number of spinners with a view to removing them at the earliest opportunity. Further, there are strict rules on where they are to be located.
What I saw at Sydney airport yesterday is not what I have seen from this retailer in the past. Looking at the rest of the store, they appear to be cramming in more product. Mthe spinner placement was part of a product density project.
We are promoting the 20th annual special of The Phantom (out today) next to our main newspaper stand. While a true special interest title, I suspect that we will attract sales from people not shopping with us looking for The Phantom – hence the placement at the newspaper stand. We will leave this in place for a week.
The Phantom is one of our most putaway titles so we know we have Phantom customers visiting us.
We have placed this display promoting health and healthy eating titles at the fromt of the store – leading to our main Tattersalls counter. We’re using Women’s Health to anchor the display as the new issue came out yesterday.
As the display shows, we are taking an opportunity to provide prime space promotion to titles which do not usually receive this.
The reasoning behind the display is that this is the time of the year people start to think about healthy eating. Our plan at the moment is to leave this in place for a week.
We are promoting New Idea next to our main newspaper stand this week as well as at our lottery counter as well as in its usual location with women’s magazines. The collateral made it easy to create a display which connects with the theme of the TVC – this is important if we are to leverage the TV advertising spend of Pacific Magazines into retail sales.
I got to visit several newsagencies yesterday and saw similar prime-position use of the collateral.
Better Homes and Gardens is the feature magazine on the aisle end between our two main magazine aisles. This display went up yesterday and is already driving good business. We also have the title in its usual location as well as in two pockets in with the women’s weeklies titles. It warrants all of the real-estate, Better Homes and Gardens performs very well for us. The colours used for the cover make it stand out.
We will move Better Homes and Gardens a couple of times in the month – it responds well to change, especially around weekends when we sell most copies.
We have placed marie claire with Jennifer Hawkins naked on the front cover at the premium space at our main counter as well as in its usual location with women’s magazines. While the counter placement will generate some negative feedback from customers it will also sell more copies.
Personally, I think the interest generates is terrific as it gets people engaging in the body image debate.
The free sunglasses with the magazine are a bonus for an already much talked about issue.
We have placed the oversized issue of Vogue in a ‘dump bin’ at the entrance to our women’s magazine aisle. See my earlier blog post on the challenge. We also have limited stock in the magazine fixturing in its usual space (we reclaimed space from other titles) but we expect the ‘dump bin’ to work best for us.
These wire rack units are useful when you need a quick solution and the ability to move the stock around.
We are promoting the first issue of That’s Life for the year at the counter as well as with the display you can see in the photo – this is placed at the entrance of the shop as people approach our main lottery counter. That’s Life responds well to promotional displays, especially at holiday time when people have spare time on their hands. We will leave this display up until Friday when we will reassess use of the prime space based on sales.
The free travel bag which comes with the latest issue of Vogue, on-sale today, is a challenge to display. It will not work in regular magazine fixturing so we are displaying it in a feature space. To me, Vogue is a destination purchase. I have no evidence to support this, it’s just a hunch. The large bag means that our regular Vogue customers may miss the title. The other challenge is that the magazine is in a plastic bag with the free travel bag. This will frustrate browsers who enjoy flicking through Vogue.
The upside is that the free bag may drive some impulse business – I guess this is what the publisher wants. In an ideal world, I could see Vogue being supplied bagged as it has been with a copy un-bagged, a free travel bag and a purpose created stang to display the gift, the magazine and to house the stock for customers who wish to purchase. I appreciate the cost of this approach would be prohibitive. The problem with what he have this morning is that every newsagent will handle this differently and this may reflect poorly on the brand.
We have placed Prevention and Good Health on display alongside our main newspaper stand because it’s the time of health and fitness resolutions. We see a significant change in customer traffic through school holidays – the opportunity for impulse purchases increases. Given the space the display takes, we’ll leave the display up only for a week.
We are promoting Burke’s Backyard to shoppers leaving our women’s magazine aisle this week. This title has been out a week and has already sold well thanks to our initiatives so stock is limited for the ACP display initiative we have been asked to do this week. The best time to promote a popular title like Burke’s Backyard is from the day of on-sale. A week later has challenges.
These displays we do on the back of the ACP basket builder stand continue to work well for us. We use them to drive impulse purchases – with success.
I asked the creative team at my software company, Tower Systems, to create a poster to promote crossword titles as a New Year gift for newsagents. I was looking for something to connect with crosswords as a holiday activity, something with which I could promote the category in the front of my own newsagencies. The version we have gone with is the second option they developed.
Click here to download a PDF for local printing. Use it anywhere you feel it will help you sell crosswords.
I am happy to continue to leverage the resources I have at Tower to create marketing collateral for newsagents to use. It’s another way of putting something practical back into the channel.