Consumers make their final purchase decisions once they are at the store and are heavily influenced by the visual dimension. Up to 40% of them change their minds based on what they see, learn, or do while they shop. Consumers decide from 10,000 products available on display to the amount they finally purchase, at the stores. The situation is similar at trade fairs. On average, a trade fair visitor attends three events per year, and spends three hours at each show. Whilst there, they visit between 25 and 30 exhibitors, meaning that each company has between five and 15 minutes to make a truly lasting impression on them. This is a small amount of time for a visitor to find out about a business, so it is crucial to make sure that the exhibitor’s stand makes an impact.
Thus, merchandising has become a key medium for companies when deciding on their marketing strategy. Their main objective is to attract consumer attention to their own brand so it is selected and purchased over and above the other brands competing in the same place. Differentiation becomes incredibly important in current global markets in order to obtain a larger market share. Creating brand awareness at the point of sale means investment and high expenses. In 2015, world marketing expenses stood at €528 billion with an increase of 6% (€559 billion) over 2014 and this increase is expected to increase in the following years. Point-of-sale merchandising represents up to 20% of total marketing expenses (€100 billion/year), i.e. average of €262,550 per company a year.
The range of merchandising options is huge and includes electronic displays, leaflets, and advertising panels. Displays are the preferred solution for point-of-sale marketing with companies using 11,721 units per year on average, with more than 23 million stand displays being used in one year. Moreover, displays are also employed in other marketing environments such as trade fairs, as well as at points of sale. Based on our market research, trade fairs offer an additional and relevant market for displays since more than 2,619 events are run every year solely in Europe. Companies conclude that poor promotion can mean the costs of advertising outweigh any revenue companies may gain.
The main differences in current display solutions come in terms of materials and design. On one hand, only expensive options (plastic and methacrylate) offer good and high quality results that enable differentiation (high-quality image, bright colours, durability…) but have the drawbacks of price, assembly and environment. On the other hand, low cost solutions (corrugated board and corrugated plastic) offer sufficient quality, quick and easy assembly but poor end results in terms of product differentiation and printing results when compared to expensive solutions. Besides, they are not reusable, they have minimum resistance to moisture and are not durable.
There is a clear business opportunity for innovative displays that include the following requirements: low-cost high-quality printing, improved durability, reusability and environmental awareness. Our company, TECNOLOGÍAS Y APLICACIONES LÁSER S.L.U. (TAL), has been working for over four years on a unique display solution based on the use of Medium Density Fiber board (MDF). This solution, VISSUALLY, is able to meet the aforementioned requirements.
The main objective of the action is to develop a feasibility study on the potential introduction of the best product solutions in the MDF market for trade fair and point-of-sale display stands, including a technical feasibility study, stakeholder assessment, market study, and the elaboration of a business plan.
