Archive for 2018

We are delighted to announced that The Delta Group picked up five awards at last night’s prestigious POPAI Awards! At the black-tie gala dinner held at London’s Lancaster Hotel, our Weetabix “Win A Van” display won Silver in the Wholesale category, as did Delta Ireland’s impressive “Lavazza Vespa” display for Applegreen (Short Run – Temporary), with Asda’s Halloween display scoring a Bronze in the Seasonal & Signage category.

Superior Creative Services had a great night too, winning Gold for their NIVEA Christmas Train Suite (Seasonal & Signage) and Bronze in the Cosmetics, Beauty, Hair & Fragrance category for the NIVEA Body Senses FSDU.

We would like to thank Lick Creative for their designs and concepts, which were brought to life by the Delta Structural team and Delta Production staff!

Here is what the judges had to say about our winning entries:

Nivea “Christmas Train Suite” – Gold (Seasonal & Signage)
“This display created unprecedented standout for a health and beauty product in a supermarket environment at Christmas. The modular design maximised placement opportunities, whilst the colours and graphics delivered strong brand messaging.”

Weetabix “Win A Van” – Silver (Wholesale)
“This impactful display creates high levels of disruption which, combined with simple and clear messaging, generated impressive results.”

Applegreen “Lavazza Vespa” – Silver (Short Run – Temporary Display)
“Wow! This display was completely on brand with the Italian heritage of Lavazza and achieved ideal placement in the forecourt environment. Stores with the display saw a sustained sales uplift.”

Asda “Halloween 2017” – Bronze (Seasonal & Signage)
“The suite of display materials delivered an eye-catching and uniform Halloween theme across Asda stores using innovative imagery and strong colours.”

Nivea “Body Senses Box FSDU” – Bronze (Cosmetics, Beauty, Hair & Fragrance – Temporary Display)
“The colourful display brings excitement and disruption to the category. Cube design creates more impact than traditional FSDUs and clear brand communication from all angles.”

The importance of mobile devices in the consumer retail experience is already well-known, with 78% of Brits using their mobile phone for online shopping when they are out and about. However what retailers are failing to exploit is the potential to embrace consumers and drive shopper engagement through messaging apps.

Despite the fact that social media is embedded increasingly in consumers’ daily lives, messaging services such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are being overlooked by retailers as effective platforms to engage with mobile consumers and utilise them as purchasing channels.

According to TechCrunch there are now over 1.5billion daily WhatsApp users, so shoppers are already using the app…however to communicate with friends and family rather than to shop. The next stage for retailers therefore is to tap into consumers’ familiarity with the platform – offering a close, conversational style, personalised dialogue between them and their customers – and driving shopper spend via in-app purchasing.

Some retailers have already experimented with messaging apps – Burberry for example increased their advertising push on WeChat, a popular social media app from China, in 2016 while Net-a-Porter more recently collaborated with WhatsApp to develop a function that allows shoppers to purchase directly through the messaging app.

Threads, a UK-based luxury retail has capitalised on the shift towards mobile, recently raising $20m, (£15.6m) in funding to drive growth and extend its global reach. The retailer provides a chat commerce platform that allows shoppers to purchase clothing and accessories through social media and WhatsApp. Other retailers, particularly those targeting younger shoppers, must seize the opportunity that messaging services present using messenger-specific promotions, sending stock alerts for in-demand items and providing newsletters and new-in information via messenger to generate sales, while also providing a means of purchasing in-app.

We are delighted to announce that Delta and Lick Creative are up for a prestigious Drum DADI Award for our awesome work with Penguin Books on the Legacy of Spies book launch. Full details on the project below:

Description
Penguin Books tasked Lick Creative to create a promotional campaign for the new John le Carré novel “Legacy of Spies”. Pengiun purchased high profile digital media sites at major train stations and airports in London. Using only assets from the book’s front cover, Lick had to create a suspenseful campaign that communicated the book’s cover, tagline and stand-out newspaper reviews in a distinctive way that was eye-catching to commuters.

About the Awards
The DADIs (The Drum Awards for the Digital Industries) are open internationally to agencies and brands who are producing great digital work. From apps to consumer products, use of search to social media, paid media and VR, the DADIs have been recognising excellence for over 10 years.

Bringing together individuals and companies at the forefront of digital, these awards provide the perfect opportunity for those entering to prove how good they are.

Having your customers be your no.1 fans – your own cheerleaders who make the case for your brand – is surely the goal every B2C marketer strives for. Customers are not only “selling” for your company, but they communicate in a far more powerful way than any content your brand can create. What could be better than to have the people buying your products effectively promoting your products for you!?

Paris Brosnan-Green, Head of Events for the Delta Group, discusses what brands should be doing in order to create a network of fans with The Drum!

Click here to read the full article, as featured in this month’s The Drum Network magazine.

In 2018, foodie culture is at an all-time high. The is thanks largely to the popularisation of healthy and “responsible” eating driving consumer decision-making as people are more happy than ever to buy premium ingredients (including “organic”,”fair-trade” or “ethically sourced” foods). However social media also has a hand in this – with everyone being able to snap their perfectly styled meal and post it for the world to see the chosen ingredients need to be exciting and on-trend!

So what are 2018’s trendiest foods?

According to a recent Kantar Worldpanel report pineapple sales are growing incredibly quickly. Pineapples are seeing 6.8% growth in the year to Feb 2018 (spend levels were at £43,935,000 for the year) with Tesco reporting a 15% increase in sales of the tropical fruit last year.

The “Death of the High Street” is a term frequently used when referring to the current state of the retail landscape, thanks largely to the apparent abandonment of traditional shopping methods by the digitally-savvy millennial shopper.

However according to latest data from Adoreboard, who in a landmark study analysed the emotional responses of 10,000 18-34 year olds, 49% of shoppers still prefer to shop for clothes in physical stores!

The largest ever study on millennial shopping habits, reported recently in Retail Gazette, further helped dispel the myth that the high street is no longer the preferred place for the age group to shop by proving only 39% shop online, with 11% purchasing goods through mobile apps.

Read the full story here.

According to latest IGD research spending in the retail sector is on the rise, with the month of May seeing the largest increase in spending in 2018. And with the weather continuing to improve into July, consumer spending on food and grocery, as well as clothing and footwear, will continue to rise.

The proportion of disposable income expenditure rose 1.1% to 30.7% in May – the highest percentage so far this year. Furthermore, spend allocation on holidays, travel, essentials and services were all up on the previous month.

Effective visual merchandising is one of the most important elements to creating a retail environment which is both enticing and memorable for the consumer. When we talk about “visual merchandising” this is everything from the window display a prospective customer first sees that draws them to the store, to the signage and POS displays that guide them through their in-store journey and eventually encourages their purchasing decisions. As David Ballard, Creative Director at Lick Creative, highlighted recently: it’s all about standing out from the competition by using a strategic approach to catch their eye, ultimately influencing them to purchase something by giving them what they want!

Our friends over at IGD looked into the true impact of merchandising in larger format stores:

1. Two-thirds of shoppers are influenced by merchandising when visiting a large store

According to IGD’s research over 60% of shoppers are influenced by merchandising. However with so much communication in-store it can be hard to stand out. To maximise the chances of shoppers picking up a product that they had not planned to, merchandising in larger stores needs to be eye-catching, simple, engaging and relevant.

Successful merchandising should reflect the needs and behaviour of shoppers in that area of store and the time of year.

2. Gondola ends and in-store signage play an important role in highlighting special offers for shoppers, and therefore influencing their purchasing decisions

Out of aisle displays play a crucial role in increasing category conversion and unplanned purchasing, especially in categories that are less frequently purchased. Shoppers may not go down every aisle on every trip, especially if they are on a specific shopping mission. Displays help to increase awareness and therefore consideration of certain categories and products.

Consider where the most relevant part of the shopper journey is for you to influence shoppers with your brand. Where are you likely to have the greatest impact in-store?

Gondola ends are essential if you are looking to maximise promotional sales.

3. Gondola ends are associated with promotions

Promotional strategies should result in a change in shopper behaviour. It is therefore vital that brands and retailers understand the shopper behaviour that is being targeted – for example, deep price reductions are more likely to encourage impulse category purchasing and can be effective at driving trial of new products whereas “multi-buys” are more likely to drive basket size.

Shoppers often struggle to determine if special offers are good value and so providing both the promoted price and the savings made may increase appeal.

4. Dual sightings are important to drive trial of new products

In larger stores raising awareness of new products is more of a challenge, as there are more products and multiple messages being communicated at the shelf. An effective approach to tackling this is to maximise sales at launch by locating the product on a display outside of the aisle.

In-store communication of new products needs to clearly highlight the key product features and benefits and give shoppers a reason to try – for example if a food product provides additional health benefits (particular during seasonal periods where diets are being reconsidered, like after Christmas or in the run-up to Summer).

5. Certain merchandising has less impact

It is important that you are clear on the role of different types of merchandising and that you continually monitor the return on investment of any in-store activity.

The following questions should be considered before determining the most effective type of merchandising for the brand:

• What shopper behaviour are you trying to drive?
• Which types of shoppers are you targeting?
• Which type of shopping mission or occasion does your product appeal to?
• What is the main message that you want to communicate to shoppers?

Location in-store, time of year, store location and store layout will all impact the effectiveness of different types of in-store merchandising.

We are delighted to announce that The Delta Group has been listed in The Sunday Times HSBC International Track 200!

The International Track 200 ranks Britain’s mid-market private companies with the fastest-growing international sales, measured over their latest two years. Compiled by Fast Track and published in The Sunday Times, The Delta Group have been featured for the first time in the 2018 list (published on 10th June), coming in at no.58!

Our CEO, Jason Hammond, states:

“We are absolutely thrilled to be featured in The Sunday Times HSBC International Track 200, recognising our strong international sales growth. Our performance is reflected in an excellent rate of customer retention and significant new business wins. The whole team have worked relentlessly to achieve our objectives and reach the level of success we are enjoying today.”

Every year at London’s Retail Design Expo some of the retail world’s leading tech companies showcase their latest and greatest innovations, giving the 20,000+ visitors a taste of what the future holds.

In my latest blog post I’ve rounded up my favourite innovations – and the one’s I feel will have the biggest impact on the retail space in year’s to come – to emerge from the two-day event.

Tokinomo (with Aculom Limited)
Winner of the Innovation Award

Tokinomo’s approach to traditional POS is simple yet highly effective. By incorporating technology behind the product, they have enabled sensory interactions with shoppers through bespoke motion, sound and light. It’s simple: as the shopper approaches the product on the shelf (fitted with the Tokinomo kit) a motion sensor detects them…prompting it to literally come alive with movement, light and sound!

A number of multi-national brands have already deployed the Tokinomo in their POS to great effect. Heineken saw a 130% sales increase experience by using Tokinomo for 10 days, while Danone say a 125% increase compared to the previous two weeks.

Mystor-E

“It’s not just about the amount of traffic in your stores, but it’s what you do with the traffic that matters most.” A compelling argument proposed by Mystor-E, a software company that enables retailers to increase sales by shifting the online advertising model to brick and mortar stores. By using algorithms and apps on digital screens in the physical store space, the brand works to grab data and use it to convert customers.

June 20

June20 lets customers explore, compare and configure products in-aisle by using videos, reviews, expanded content and product offerings beyond what’s available in-store. Customers are then able to transfer information to their mobile device to make an immediate purchase in-aisle or take home for further consideration.

Volumental

With an aim to introduce a more personalised fitting experience to the footwear industry, Volumental combines 3D scanning technology with AI to give consumers highly personalised footwear recommendations. As well as the personalisation angle this has tremendous health benefits too by enabling customers to actually understand their health, and empower them to select something that fits them.

Inspector Cloud

After realising that brands and retailers are losing billions of dollars in lost sales due to the inability to monitor shelf space, Inspector Cloud detects what goods are on shelves and generates actionable reports within 10-15 seconds. The advanced image recognition system provides accurate and relevant information about products on the shelves and helps brands and retail to improve on-shelf availability, while cutting down on shortages and product wastage.