Successful POS is based on the knowledge of the client/submitter and the brand. Followed by setting a goal, creating a POS solution strategy, controlling the purchasing process, finding functional elements for sales, finding benefits, differences, etc. The preparation of these studies will take more time than the production of the POS itself.

The coronavirus pandemic hit the whole retail industry hard. What will the year 2021 look like from the point of view of a POS supplier?
The year 2021 will be different. Most of our clients sit at home and work only on the most necessary projects. They don’t come up with news and don’t have time to be inspired. Instead, they repeat previous years and sometimes cut investments in underline advertising (an advertisement that is one of the few that significantly helps sales in these difficult times) as part of savings.
POS materials made of cardboard are being widely used. This material is cheap and it does not matter that its lifetime is short. On the other hand, it can be creatively reshaped. Plastic material fundamentally dominates. We replace what used to be made of solid wood or laminate with plastic (ideally as ecological as possible). Plastic has a long lifetime period, costs half, and installation costs decline.
Some brands invest! Currently, we are fundamentally preparing campaigns for brands that are trying to make the most of the market situation. They are not afraid. They know that customers go to stores and that other brands do not invest. This helps them to negotiate better conditions, longer times for exposing displays, and better support. This year we will see a large number of these visually beautiful realizations.

At Dago, you also used the crisis last year as a preparation for the further development of the company. What was the aim of the restructuring?
The aim of restructuring our company was to prepare for the next decade so that we could be faster in production, have a modern technological background, ensure greater belonging to all departments, create new business and production advantages over the competition, ensure faster project management and deploy supporting software processes, highlight mainly technological departments, etc.
This way I could go on indefinitely. We decided to fundamentally restructure Dago to be ready for new challenges within POS materials in the coming years. Recently, Dago has been setting trends in POS, and our innovations have won various awards thanks to their creativity and the entire design focused on details. This means that the processes in the company, individual departments, and people must be perfectly coordinated with a sense of detail, speed, and an absolute focus on innovations.

Dago regularly receives awards. In 2020, it won five gold positions at the POPAI Awards. What is the reason for such a success?
Winning competitions reflects the great work of the entire Dago team. Currently, we have eight departments, in which we actively work on over 2,000 realizations per year. With each new order, we move forward technologically, creatively, and in terms of time. The togetherness of individual departments, and especially the coordinators of individual projects, plays a crucial role. It is not just about technologies, innovations, new types of POSs, materials that have not been used yet, it is, above all, a matter of belonging to all departments so that they exceed their possibilities for each order and thus achieve an unprecedented technological solution.
How should manufacturers and retailers approach POS so that they also mean such success for them in the form of growth in sales of presented products?
In the Czech Republic, a manufacturer is understood as a supplier and a production company. Abroad, it is a partner. Your partner knows you, knows your product portfolio, and is familiar with it so that it proactively tries to offer POS materials that are not only technologically advanced but will also fundamentally support sales. Everything is based on the knowledge of the client and the brand. This knowledge is followed by a study of each POS: setting goals, creating a POS solution strategy, controlling the purchasing process, finding functional elements for sales, finding benefits, differences, etc. The preparation of these studies takes more time than the production of the POS itself. There are only a few companies in the Czech Republic that can deal with these studies, and, also at the end verify the functionality and success of the entire campaign or individual POS.

Where do companies make the biggest mistakes in using POS resources?
They do not differentiate! We often receive a brief in which a realization of competing brands is given as a reference (also in many cases it is an older implementation of our company). According to the brief, they want this. But in reality, they express that they only want to catch up with the competition and do not want to be better. Dago tries not to respect such briefs and comes up with a new, unique solution that will help the brand. Unfortunately, this means that clients communicate little with agencies and forget about underline advertising to the extent that the brand deserves.

And how are the assortments that companies support through POS changing?
I can confirm that segments such as alcohol, soft drinks, beer, confectionery, and electronics have long dominated the Czech Republic. Other segments have not been so active for at least two decades, although they are investing certain funds in support.
In stores, we can often see POSs that are half empty or filled with damaged goods. What about the care of POS in the sales area?
Here we fundamentally distinguish whether the POS is of short-term or long-term nature. If we are talking about POS of a long-term nature, then most of our clients take care of POS. We have realizations that have been in stores for even ten or more years. Unfortunately, short-term POS does not last and the contracting authorities are aware of this. Usually, these POSs are intended for short-term exposure, action, or period. The fact that it will remain in the store after the action is more of a miracle.

The theme of the time is sustainability and digitization. Which trends are gaining ground in POS in this regard?
Digitization is generally very positively understood, although only a few companies can afford it in the Czech conditions. The reason is still the high purchase price. As part of digitization, we deal with remote management, holographs, PCs with printers, applications that guide you on what product to buy, automatic sales, etc. The advantage is service and remote management. If we connect the LCD to remote management, it is not necessary to go to the premises so often and we can easily, from the comfort of the company, change the content of the POS media, within the framework of various campaigns.

What materials and processing are the most wanted ones?
Due to the market situation, less permanent materials are more often used, such as special cardboard with a longer lifetime. It is currently being processed very creatively. We have been seeing this trend for several years and we can see it mainly in America. As for other materials, plastic dominates in the permanent displays. It has been in decline for about the last ten years. Today, however, it is recovering. There are new types of materials with the possibility of ecological printing (e.g. water-based latex printing). FSC-certified cardboard-based materials are also widespread and, in combination with latex printing, represent the eco-version of cardboard displays. Recently, we can see many realizations. Laminate and permanent projects are fundamentally in decline. Also, concerning the purchase price, they do not allow the realization of higher costs or faster campaigns.
Many multinational brands use the same marketing communications in several countries, with only a modified language version. Does this apply to POSs?
We can say this, for example, about electronics. We can see it in stores where brands like Apple, Samsung, LG dominate. Although there are slight adjustments for the Czech market, the basis is the same everywhere in the world. In contrast, the segments of alcohol or beer use the same only 2D graphics, but often, for example, the type of POS in stores or the type of competition itself is different.

Annual research themed “Czechs and Advertising” shows that the store is the only place where customers would welcome more advertising. Does it reflect in your client’s orders?
I think that many clients understand this very well and the underline advertising is a supportive medium of the sale itself for them. Brands that do not have much experience cannot confirm this. They rely on overline advertising, possibly online. Anyway, they use underline advertising little. Nevertheless, I must say that we have new clients and new brands that are trying to be completely revolutionary and their exposure in stores will be wholly unique and extremely significant.

The last year further strengthened the e-commerce growth. Is it possible to connect – and how – POS communication of online and offline sales channels?
In our case, there is no interconnection. Managers of clients who are switching from trade marketing to the online environment have forgotten about trade marketing. They feel that coherence is not possible and that the online environment means a different approach. An example of a great connection is Alza, which uses showrooms with product presentations. Customers still have the opportunity to think at the last minute about what to buy, or may be influenced by the seller of a particular brand and make their decision on the spot. Subsequently, they make their order and take it home.

Author: Eva Klánová
Retail News 3/2021