Battlefield report

I am not too worried about POS marketing which is good news for the profession and also for customers. Customers have been getting increasingly conscious for some years, but their shrinking purchasing power has now also become a major factor influencing sales. Demand is increasingly focused on cheaper food products, while DIY chains are reporting a substantial drop in small basket value purchases and an increase in large basket value purchases. Nevertheless, there is recession everywhere. Competition between brands is intensifying. The same is true for competition between brands and private labels. Stores are turning into battlefields. „Reaching customers in stores has become the number one priority” –says Petra Korda, head of customer marketing from Unilever. The market of POP marketing is expected to show some growth or to stagnate in the worst case. There is also pressure on users and manufacturers of POP tools to reduce costs. An example of cost reduction is the drop in the number of hostess promotions. According to Attila Kolonics, managing director of Art Match Hungária Kft., brands are looking for smaller and easier to use POS tools like shelf displays. Demand is shifting towards cheaper solutions. In the opinion of István Réti, creative director of Forma Display, the structure of demand has not changed. The question of whether clients will adopt a survival or development focused strategy in the future still remains to be answered. However, no drop in in-store activities has been detected yet. In the opinion of Enikő Pusztai, marketing director of POS Média, the secret of success is monitoring the entire process of shopping and using several tools simultaneously. According to The Economist, 2009 is going to be the year of Aldi, Lidl and similar discount chains in Europe, while hyper market giants like Tesco and Carrefour are going to suffer. 2009 is also going to be a good year for private labels, especially for the well known and reliable ones. Times are going to be hard for luxury brands and organic products, as a result of an increasingly „value for money” focused attitude by consumers. However, many brands have decided to respond to the recession with a proactive strategy and intensive promotional campaigns. The signs are, that stores will soon turn into real battlefields for the brands.