Another Reason to Outsource Visual Merchandising

"I do not know whether VM works, but I have to spend my VM budget," remarked a retail marketing manager. The brutal honesty of the statement stopped me short of naming the person or indeed mentioning the brand. Suffice it to say that it is a well-known one. The question from Channelplay that inspired the response was, of course, 'what is your thesis of investing in visual merchandising?'?

Yet, VM works, you and I know. It has to be done right, though. Producing material and sending it out to the distribution network to deploy, and well, hoping that it gets deployed, is essentially a ‘Hail Mary’ pass. Not what you, dear reader and thinking marketing manager, should be doing.?

Over the years, brands have signed up for Channelplay VM for maintenance of retail stores, deployment of signage and such, but they have stuck with us for--apart from the absolutely awesome execution--the insights they get. Whether it’s data on benchmarking against competition, the longevity of an element or something more category-specific, our VM-tech and the experience of our teams mean that we often pick-up and highlight what might go missing in a pure sales view.??

Essentially, given the attention to detail needed in VM, the logistics of the elements, and indeed the rigour of it, it is best to outsource the function. And if you are outsourcing but not getting the benefit of insights then it is time to call the experts. (That means call Channelplay, just so we are clear!)