Magazine: Moscow: a place where we can learn a lot

The shops of all the top international brands can be found in Moscow, and there are many stylish Russian food, fashion and other types of stores. As regards FMCG retail, the biggest hyper- and supermarket chains are in Russian ownership.

At the Russian POPAI Awards there were 450 in-store displays, installations and digital solutions from 60 POP manufacturers competing – this is a new world record among POPAI member countries. The most spectacular solutions were made for chocolate and alcoholic drink brands. Huggies organised a concept competition for POP manufacturers.

Our hosts organised a retail tour for the POPAI delegation: we visited two shopping malls where we saw spectacular and often futuristic in-store advertising solutions. In cooperation with Coca-Cola, one of the supermarkets belonging to the Perekrestok chain was transformed into a ‘future store’: traditional secondary placements were replaced with digital displays, various images are displayed on digital shelf edges, etc.

Many interactive displays were also installed, for instance by using the one from Fanta customers can take a funny photo of themselves, and post it on Facebook or send it to themselves via email. Thanks to the conversion of the shop, sales of various Coca-Cola brands grew by minimum 60 percent but some saw their sales surge by more than 200 percent.

We also visited a shop of cosmetics chain Zalatoje Jabloko, where facial recognition technology is used in several places to reach shoppers with personalised commercials that suit their age.

DIY chain Petrovich set up a digital installation which features a touchscreen; shoppers can use this to select the colour, size, etc. of tiles they want in their bathroom, what type of door they intend to build in, etc. When selected, the design of the bathroom appears on the wall and floor ahead of us at the push of a button, what is more, we can even enter the 1m² room to make it easier to imagine what our bathroom will be like.