Indoor: POP Goes the Sales

What’s next for the POP market?

Kauls/Campbell: People are going back to substrates that we haven’t been using for a while, like a clear acrylic material. We’re seeing a lot more things come back from the 1970s that were effective. But now the equipment can do so much more with those substrates. And the printing quality in the last five years has just improved so much it’s phenomenal.

Kern: In the not too distant future we can definitely see the POP displays becoming more interactive with consumers. They are already integrating Bluetooth equipped displays with downloadable ads to stream on your phone. If you choose to allow this service to integrate on your phone let’s say, while you are in the supermarket and you walk by your favorite energy drink...you look on your phone...the Bluetooth POP display sent you a coupon for 50 cents off your next purchase. These are things already in development and out there, they are just waiting to breakthrough on mass-scale campaigns. Displays like this, combined with augmented reality, will give these brands new areas of advertising never before available. The cheaper the technology gets the more of this we will see.

Kimmerly/Gumbert: Customized print campaigns, along with the return of “green” requests. We also expect the continued decline of traditional screen-printing. The large-format digital presses get faster and faster and the digital inks become more affordable every year. We are confident that marketers will continue to realize the effectiveness of in-store POP especially with all the supporting data that shows as much as 60 percent of shoppers will make their buying decision while in the store, regardless of their shopping lists.

Mier: I’ve been hearing for the last eight years that dynamic digital signage is the next big wave, but I just don’t think that anybody is going to use $25,000 worth of TV equipment to advertise a $2 pound of cheese.

Moore: Retailers utilizing POP graphics are becoming more budget and time sensitive. It seems that our customers are waiting longer to start projects, which has reduced the amount of time that we have to produce them. I see a segment of this market continuing to move more toward flatbed printing instead of screen-printing for mid-size runs of POP graphics.