RESEARCH: Shelf Impact

Insights for Measuring and Improving Shelf Visibility

By Scott Young

In virtually every marketing strategy or design brief, you'll see the objective of "improving shelf pop." This emphasis is well-placed, as research shows that shoppers typically never even see a third of the brands on shelves. Research also shows that being seen first, or preempting the competition, correlates highly with purchase.

The challenges of "breaking through shelf clutter" are only growing, but there is a lack of clarity and consistency in how marketers measure shelf impact. In this article, you'll learn the challenges of gauging shelf pop and discover several insights for enhancing in-store visibility of any product.

Challenge of measuring pop

In order to make better marketing decisions, we need to be able to predict which packaging and merchandising systems will generate consideration at retail. Unfortunately, many common approaches to pretesting the impact of point-of-sale concepts have significant limitations.

Specifically, the easiest and most intuitive approach — simply asking shoppers whether a brand, packaging or merchandising system is eye-catching — is not reliable at all. What shoppers may describe as eye-catching in isolation does not correlate with its documented ability to break through shelf clutter and generate consideration. What's more surprising is that even when test shoppers view full product categories on shelves, they still do not accurately predict which brands actually generate the most consistent visual consideration. Instead, they tend to "play back" more familiar brands, rather than those that literally draw the eye.

Gauging shelf visibility through recognition or recall questioning can be equally misleading. Recall is an advertising measure for marketers to gauge how an implanted message might be remembered and acted upon later, but it does little to determine shelf impact. On another level, recall is greatly biased by brand familiarity. If you quickly show a shopper the soft drink category, he or she will almost inevitably recall that Coke and Pepsi were on the shelf, regardless of how these brands were packaged or presented. As importantly, he or she will be very unlikely to recall a new product. This makes it difficult to discern if one packaging or merchandising system is more visually impactful than another. Recall questioning quickly becomes a guessing game with findings that correlate closely to brand awareness rather than retail presentation. When translated to web research, recall becomes even less productive, due to the distortions caused by reducing a six- to eight-foot product category to fit a 17-inch monitor.

There is ultimately no substitute for actually documenting shoppers' behavior as they approach the shelf. However, even documenting pick-up and purchase fails to uncover an important dynamic: How many people saw the brand, but weren't interested enough to go any further? Without this insight, we can't know the true source of a sales problem nor how to address it: If pick-ups from the shelf are low, is it because our brand is consistently seen and rejected, or is our brand never even seen and considered?

To dig deeper and accurately measure and understand shelf visibility, the most actionable research results come from combining eye-tracking (of how shoppers view the shelf) with observed shopping (of what they pick up and purchase). By documenting which products each shopper sees and misses as he or she first encounters a real or test product category, marketers and package designers can isolate the impact of different retail presentations on a brand's shelf pop.

The importance of visual contrast

There are several generalized insights that can be drawn from over 30 years of years of observing shoppers' viewing patterns and decision-making processes at retail.

First, it is important to remember that what people see and miss in their few seconds at the shelf is primarily physiological (what draws their eye) rather than psychological (a conscious decision of what to look at). In other words, if a shopper comes to the shelf looking for Tide, he or she will most likely find it — but this may not happen until other brands have broken through shelf clutter and generated consideration. These brands will have created a sales opportunity, while less visually prominent brands will not.

Because shelf visibility is primarily physiological rather than rational or considered, it is driven by visual contrast with surrounding products. Most often this contrast takes the form of color contrast, which speaks to the value of owning a color and creating a consistent brand block on shelf. However, while research has found that color blocking consistently enhances visibility, there is no single color that will always break through the clutter. A bright red package may stand out in a sea of black or white, yet also become recessive when surrounded by other brightly colored packages.

Across studies, research has shown consistently that a unique packaging shape can have a significant impact on a brand's visibility and consideration at retail. For example, in the midst of dozens or even hundreds of orange juice cartons, there's no better way to stand out than through a plastic carafe. In addition, a dramatically new structure can quickly convey uniqueness and desired perceptions (elegance, sophistication, or enhanced functionality) from three feet away, which is critical to generating pick-up and purchase.

While a dominant logo or graphic can certainly be visually impactful, an increasing trend has been the use of negative space. In a world of packages vying for attention through color, copy points, and visuals, packages also stand out and draw consideration with simplicity and clarity. In other words, when shoppers are visually overwhelmed, they will gravitate towards the most accessible and readable packaging on the shelf.

Finally, we have consistently seen that POP displays and supporting materials can work to increase visibility on three levels:

1. End-caps and stand-alone displays can drive brand consideration and purchase by preempting competition prior to the shelf.
2. A sub-section of a category can serve as a "signpost" that leads shoppers to stop and shop (for instance, the four-foot Colgate section within a 20-foot oral care aisle).
3. Devices such as shelf talkers and creating contrast and visual involvement with a brand can break up the monotony of a category display.

The power of shelf placement

If visual contrast is the first key to shelf visibility, the second driving factor is shelf placement. Specifically, it is important to take into account several principles of shopping behavior outlined here.

Shoppers tend to "ground themselves" centrally. When walking down the aisle, shoppers rarely begin to actively consider products as the product category first comes into view. Instead, they tend to look for a somewhat central location in a category or subsection, and then consider products from a four- to six-foot wide field of vision. In large categories of 10 to 20 feet or more, this dynamic makes it critical to create a signpost through POS signage or a packaging brand block that drives shoppers to shop from your brand's four- to six-foot subsection. In all categories, it tends to benefit brands that are shelved centrally in the category, as opposed to those on the far left or far right.

Viewing patterns are driven by reading patterns. Once grounded at a category, shoppers begin viewing at or slightly below eye level, with the brand or product that creates the greatest visual contrast. From their starting point, they tend to scan or drift in the manner that they read — to the right and downward in Western countries. These category viewing patterns result in relatively low levels of consideration for products that are placed at the far left of a category or above eye level — and for POS materials that are positioned above eye-level. In fact, we've consistently found that products on shelves above eye-level are consistently seen about 30% less than those at arm-level.

Because the left-to-right reading dynamic is dominant, the primary viewing and shopping pattern is horizontal. That is, shoppers are more likely to compare products positioned next to each other on the same shelf. For this reason, it is advisable to shelve your brand horizontally rather than vertically in order to encourage comparisons within your brand's line, rather than against competition. By the same token, it is best to position your brand immediately to the right of the visually dominant brand in the category, and to place priority items (such as new products, trade-ups, etc.) immediately to the right of the most popular products.

Pulling It All Together

Taken collectively, these findings suggest that there are basic principles of shelf placement that can be used to help increase shelf pop and ensure that key products are consistently seen and considered. However, perhaps the most important implication is that packaging and point-of-sale decisions can't be made in isolation, such as when marketers, designers, or consumers are viewing packaging on a conference room table or on a computer monitor. To make informed decisions, new concepts simply have to be viewed and tested within a shelf context in order to document the visual contrast and engagement that they create at retail.

While there's no single formula for shelf visibility, the consistent message is that it is necessary to break the mold and explore design approaches that differ dramatically from competition and from category visual norms. In addition, it is necessary to think more holistically, and it is recommended that packaging decisions be part of a broader, integrated point-of-sale strategy involving shelving and merchandising support aimed at ensuring consideration. Given the enormous number of purchase decisions that are influenced at the shelf — and the direct connection between visibility and purchase — investments in packaging innovation, in point-of-sale support, and in the effective measurement of shelf pop are very likely to be well-rewarded.

Scott Young is the president of Perception Research Services (PRS), a company that conducts over 500 studies each year to help companies guide, assess, and improve their performance at retail. Scott can be reached at syoung@prsresearch.com or 201-346-1600.