ACCORDING TO RESEARCH, A SIMPLE FACADE SIGN INCREASES SALES BY 3%, AND A FREE—STANDING STRUCTURE – BY ALL 15%

According to the International Sign—Makers Association (ISA), 49% of customers who come to the store “fall for” an attractive sign. At the same time, 17% of them did not plan shopping at all on this day.

A multi-part study of the effect of signage on the financial performance of retail retail chains “Signage Performance Study”, conducted from 1995 to 1997 at the University of San Diego, proved that signage has a statistically significant and financially significant impact on the income of a retail outlet (CESA 1997, 20).

IN PARTICULAR, ON AVERAGE, ONE ADDITIONAL ADVERTISING ELEMENT INSTALLED ON THE FACADE OF THE STORE LEADS TO AN INCREASE IN ANNUAL:

sales — by 4.75%, which is $23,750 per year for one additional item in a typical store with an annual income of $ 500,000;

transactions — by 3.93%, this is more than 3,900 additional transactions for the store, on average, 100,000 transactions per year;

the average check is in the range of $ 0.06 per transaction in places where an additional advertising and information element of 3 square meters was placed on the wall of a commercial enterprise, and up to $ 0.78 per transaction, where a sign of 14 square meters was added.

THE RESULTS OF THIS STUDY ALSO CONFIRMED A STRONG CORRELATION BETWEEN CHANGING SIGNAGE AND INCREASING SALES.

changes in signage on the building (for example, the addition or replacement of advertising elements on the facade) led to an increase in weekly store sales on average from 1 to 5 percent compared to the previous year, an increase in sales at 21 outlets where there were changes in signage on the facade of buildings ranged from 0.3% to 23.7%.

About what the “right sign” is and how it can increase sales

Consumers generally cease to distinguish between the product and its packaging, packaging becomes part of the product. At the same time, the time that is given to the packaging on the supermarket shelf is so small that you can count mainly only on the unconscious reaction of the buyer. Packaging developers use special techniques that act on the consumer at a subconscious level.

The signs, performing the functions of the “packaging” of the store itself, are in the same environment overloaded with visual communications as the goods on the shelves of the store, they also get only a cursory glance of a potential customer. The similarity of the functions and working conditions of signage and packaging of goods allows you to use the same methods of analyzing the shape, color, and materials in the design of signage as in the development of product packaging, acting on a subconscious level.
A huge number of experiments continue to confirm today that 80% of buyers transfer their subconscious, emotional perception of the packaging to the product itself.

And if we think that knowing about the tricks of advertising, our consciousness will protect us from buying, we should not delude ourselves.

As the father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud proved, rational barriers are easily overcome by the subconscious. Our consciousness cannot control everything at all and constantly for the same reason that we usually do not spend the night at work, but switch to other things.

The more accurately we understand the specifics of the preferences of the target audience, the more useful the signage outside the store will be for sales inside.

The color solutions of packages have an even greater impact on consumers than the shape. The existing theory and practice of the emotional impact of color are firmly connected with the name of Max Lusher, who proved the objectivity and universality of the emotional perception of color by a person.

For example, numerous tests have proven that the red color has an exciting, stimulating effect on a person, causing unconscious activity that reduces control by consciousness. For this reason, red-orange colors are so characteristic of mass products and services — most large grocery discounters use red-orange colors in the design of their stores. The same can be said about the queuing areas of banks, as an addition to the main colors — calm harmonious blue or almost neutral green.

Of course, the laws of the influence of color on consumers are widely used in the design of signage using the “right” color combinations.

Packaging color solutions for signage are an even more complex issue than for packaging goods. The sign is used not only in the daytime, but also in the dark.

Another important feature of the color solutions for “signage packages” is that the facade of the building on which the sign is located is automatically included in the “packaging design”. To reduce this influence, which is usually harmful, signage developers use special technological techniques that have become especially relevant due to the expanding restrictions on background substrates and light boxes. For example, it may seem that placing dark letters on a light facade (a typical combination) will provide good contrast and long reading distances. You can often see beautiful images of such a situation in a “picture” that has little to do with reality. The problem is that the signs on the signboard of individual letters have a thickness and are attached to the facade with the help of additional structures with a technological offset from the facade. This leads to the fact that dark shadows from letters appear on the light facade, creating a dark background for dark letters.

An additional problem of large networks is that even a competent development of exterior design does not guarantee that the real signage of the entire network will be done correctly if there is no centralization of their production and proper control.

Of course, considering the situation on the market, it is hardly possible to say that the possibilities of signage as “packaging” of stores and sales offices are now being fully used. One thing is obvious — undeservedly little professional attention is being paid to this tool of increasing sales. Signage and other design elements deserve a chance to prove themselves in projects where the effect of developing the “right signage packaging” can be measured and appreciated. Who knows, it is possible that the further development and standardization of network services, increased competition will lead in the future to the same rapid development of design and designs for the design of points of sale, which happened with the packaging of goods.