Proposal for:

Insignia Total Store Marketing

Insignia Systems, Inc.

Prepared by:

Daryl J. Orris, Ph.D.

Marketing Consultant

September 1, 2008

©2008 Viking Creative Concepts Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Creating lasting impressions in the food and beverage industry since 1960.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

SECTION PAGE
Overview ………………………………………………………………………… 3

When manufacturers promote or feature a

PGM brand they are likely to look at ………………………. 5

Types of Trade Discounts …………………………………………… 5

Strategy ………………………………………………………………………… 8

Implementation ………………………………………………………………. 9

Insignia Total Store Marketing …………………………………. 13

Insignia Total Store Marketing Elements ……………………….. 18

The Insignia Format for Success …………………………………. 23

Insignia Total Store Marketing

Promotional Elements …………………………………………………….. 28

The Insignia Promotional Management Program………………. 31

Insignia Total Store Marketing and CRM ………………………… 32

Insignia Systems Total Store Promotional Management

Summary …………………………………………………………………………. 36

APPENDIX A
Insignia Interactive Marketing …………………………………. 46

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Overview

Insignia Systems, Inc., currently markets and promotes in-store

advertising and promotional products, programs and services designed
to provide retailers and consumer goods manufacturers with highly
effective in-store programs and point-of-purchase display materials. It
is the leader in the science of In-Store Advertising for influencing and
controlling consumer behavior to enhance retailer-merchandising and
marketing opportunities for packaged goods manufacturer (PGM). The
Insignia Total Store Marketing program manages promotional
marketing for retailers to increase trade promotion from PGMs to
reverse the thinking of short-term sale inducements of discounts to
that of branding and franchise building for both retailer and PGM.

This proposal is concerned with expanding Insignia’s in-store

advertising and promotional products, programs and services to
provide retailers and PGMs with a breakthrough concept of highly
effective storewide added-value promotions instead of the current
discount only promotions. ‘In-store advertising programs with total
store marketing programs,’ to add more expansive merchandising and
brand promotion for both the retailer and for the PGM. In order to
maximize customer sales on each store visit through ‘Insignia Total
Store Marketing’ a total store experience for customers is created. The
value of impulse sales to retailers is of immense importance, and over
the years retailers have learned how to leverage impulse sales and to
attract consumers into the stores with loss leaders – no matter what
store format, be it everyday-low-pricing, or deep discounts on loss
leaders to attract traffic, the Insignia Total Store Marketing program
can compliment it by encouraging the customers to shop the entire
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store following an integrated promotional event that builds the retail
brand while developing a franchise for PGMs. The Insignia Total Store
Marketing program uses tried and true impulse methods and
techniques on a store-wide basis, making the shopper’s experience a
coordinated total store event to maximize impulse sales to increase
rings on each customer’s order; thus enhancing in-store marketing of
available store traffic. The Insignia Total Store Marketing program
assists retailers in increasing PGM promotional involvement by
leveraging total-store merchandising opportunities for increased sales,
volume and profits.

Given all retailer variables, three remain most important: a.) Store
Traffic, b.) Volume – how much on average each shopper buys on that
order, and, c.) Profit Margin, how much money on average that the
retailer makes on what is sold. Increasingly, incremental profits have
become important because many times promoting products within a
category merely has customers exchanging one category item for
another, and often at a discounted price that reduces the retailer’s
gross margin. It is like taking one dollar out of your left pocket and
placing it in your right – a nothing-gained outcome. Retailers are
increasingly looking for promotions that yield incremental sales,
volume and profits, not promotions that net equal exchanges.

When retailers promote or feature a PGM brand they are likely to look
at:
1.) Will the item bring more traffic into the store?
2.) What will the promotion do to category sales?
3.) Warehousing considerations for stocking extra inventory to
avoid out-of-stocks, which anger customers.
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 4.) How much should I discount this product, or should the
manufacturer allowance suffice?
5.) What brands build my retail store brand?

When manufacturers promote or feature a PGM brand they are likely

to look at:
1.) Short-term volume increases to improve their profits over last
year/quarter or to meet sales expectations for the period.
2.) To increase viability of the brand over the long term – to
remain competitive within the category.
3.) For immediate volume boosts to improve or augment
strategic category rankings or data.
4.) To keep allotted shelf space of SKUs and assortment. Perhaps
a brand variety or flavor is slow selling – in order to keep the
allotted SKUs they use promotions to maintain volume.
5.) As a marketing method used in integrated brand promotion.
6.) Fight brand fragmentation – to fight off private label pirating.
Brand imitations hurt PGMs by cheapening their brand.

Types of Trade Discounts:

1.) Buying allowances – general case discounts applied to invoice
for buying a brand at a certain time, and/or with specific
quantities, merchandising, or promotional functions, to satisfy
the case allowance, or deal terms of the PGM.
2.) Off-Invoice Allowances – generally good for a period of time
without case requirements or limits.
3.) Free Goods – free goods are offered on a minimum quantity
purchase, such as a baker’s dozen: 13 for the price of twelve,
or BOGO, buy ten cases, get one free, or large pack deals.
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4.) Dating – goods purchased at a point-in-time and billed over
an extended period of time in installments. Cannot be used
with beverage alcohol products where net 30 rules apply.
5.) Cash Rebate – PGM gives a rebate when retailer satisfies a
mutually agreed upon task. Can be volume inducements,
stocking programs, display activities, etc.
6.) Advertising or Display Allowances – or both. The retailer is
required to show invoices to cover display product and proof
of display and timing. Generally a contractual agreement that
is not paid until proof of performance is submitted. Both are
based upon size of advance order and size of display.
7.) Scan Downs / Scan Backs – where retailers receive an
allowance only on during a particular time and on scanned
items. Meaning that timed scanner movement is used to
calculate the rebate, check or billback. Popular with PGMs
because promotional discounts are only paid on items sold.
8.) Spiffs – PGMs pay for total brand sales over a promotional
period that exceeds projections. It is an added incentive
bonus to gain total store involvement to exceed previous
sales periods and to motivate employees.
9.) Slotting Allowances and Failure Fees – retailers incur
administrative and labor costs for adding, changing, or
reserving a slot in the retailer’s warehouse and on individual
store shelves. With constant new product introductions and
scanner data – retailers have enacted shelf-management and
category management software that tells them when to add
or drop products within a given category. It is also a way that
retailers’ account for indirect costs associated with a product
SKU, category, section, department, and store. Typically per
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 SKU, slotting allowances cost between $15. - $100. Failure
fees are allotted when a PGMs product fails sales objectives
and these fees are higher than slotting allowances causing
double-jeopardy for PGMs should their product fail – now they
pay to have it placed as well as for having it removed.
Increasingly retailers are demanding both slotting and failure
fee contractual agreements before buying new products. It is
said that this encourages PGMs not to use retailer shelf space
for new product R&D and discovery.
10.) Trade Coupons – distributed by retailers they are account
specific and good only at the store offering the coupons
during the stated time period. In-ads are PGMs coupons
placed within the retailer’s flyer or advertising vehicle.

Limitations on trade deals: it is illegal for manufacturers to require that

retailers pass on any part of trade allowances to consumers. PGMs
must also offer the same trade deals – or proportionately equal offers,
to other retailers within a given region. Volume discounts are legal.

Trade Deals are advantageous for PGMs because retailers can

implement them quickly and easily. They encourage trial, cause brand-
change in hopes to make the customer brand-loyal, develop sales and
volume changes, and are predictable for PGM marketers. The
disadvantage for retailers is that customers begin to expect discounted
prices and adjust purchases accordingly by stocking up and making
the same amount of purchases over a given period – eroding the
retailer’s brand. Large retailers have an advantage over smaller
retailers by gaining larger volume discount levels that smaller retailers
have to counter with service and local market selection. However,
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price-shoppers look only for price and are strategically important to
combat every-day-low-pricing large discount retailers.

Strategy

Retail food stores have lost sight of the fact that they sell delicious and
appetizing foods – many ingredients, and many prepared. Retailers
have long since been showing packaged goods instead of the appetite
appealing prepared foods found within the store. People eat prepared
foods, not packages. While many packages do have appetite appeal, a
larger, electronically LED lit dramatic food shot will sell more food.
PGMs have long since used appetite appeal food shots to sell their
products – but at the point-of-purchase where foods are sold, retailers
feature packages instead of the prepared foods themselves. Appetite
Appeal at the point of purchase will significantly increase sales, volume
and profits for retailers. Showing prepared food photos is akin to
department stores showing mannequins to assist it in merchandising
and as a way to create impulse purchases. So too will appetite
appealing food shots setting a mood for the store event and beautiful
food shots to create customer impulse to buy, and buy more. The
Insignia Systems In-Store Advertising Program is about making
customers hungry for more: sales, volume and resulting retailer and
PGM profits. The Insignia Systems In-Store Advertising Program
merchandises the foodstuffs found within the retail grocery store. All
Insignia Total Store Marketing Programs are about making the most of
available store traffic by creating an environment where customers
want to buy more and prepare the foods that they see. The Insignia
Systems In-Store Advertising Program is turning shelves of products
into a place where delicious meals and foodstuffs are purchased. This

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strategy competes directly with food service and fast-food restaurants.

Too often retail grocery stores look like warehouses with stacks and
stacks of packaged goods instead of touting and promoting the foods
that they sell.

The Insignia Systems In-Store Advertising Program changes graphic

items and food shots on a rotating basis and new merchandising cycles
to keep the shopping experience always fresh and interesting for their
customers. Each week or two, the customer encounters an entirely
new environment from their favorite retail store.

Simply put, Insignia is merchandising retail food stores with themed

appetite appealing food shots that encourage customer shopping and
increased purchases. Turning retail grocery stores into sales floors to
sell food products instead of warehouses with shelving.

Implementation

The current economic downturn caused by oil is an ideal time to begin

the Insignia Total Store Marketing program and the Insignia Total
Store management program, as retailers, PGMs, and consumers are all
directly feeling the price squeeze. Recessions are the best time to
initiate breakthrough and innovative promotion programs. Consumers
are more predictable during recessions and open to impulse purchases
and persuasion of In-Store Advertising. Oil was responsible for
inflation and the recession of the seventies, just as it is again today.
Arab producing nations put pressure on the U.S. to force Israel to
withdraw from the Middle East just as they are doing today to get U.S.
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solders out. Oil has affected all retail prices and is causing a worldwide
depression affecting the poorest nations the worst. Skyrocketing gas
prices are here to stay, as are higher food prices. The timing for this
program couldn’t be better. ‘Stock-Up: Save Fuel,’ touts popular fuel
savings and other ‘Green’ strategies to use less energy is timely and
effective when increasingly customers feel the sting of rising prices.

Obviously all consumers are more price-sensitive now, and leveraging

that concern is the best way to attract retailers, PGMs, and consumers.
1.) Energy-saving shopping trips, green marketing, and other concepts
to economize and save are popular with all consumer segments.
Recession strategies include: 2.) Total grocery bill Rebates: the more
you spend, the greater the savings: all intended to reduce expensive
shopping trips – buy more all at once at one retail location (especially
useful for grocery with pharmacy). By promoting these energy-savings
ideas for the consumer, retailers actually increase overall store traffic.
3.) Family Meal Deals – that calculate the cost-per-serving of featured
Meal Deals. Websites custom-built for individuals to stretch family
Food Budgets: Consumers indicate family size, allotted preparation
time, and weekly food budget, our retailer’s Home Economists
(supplied by Insignia) will build your recommended shopping list that
provides maximum saving and nutrition for a minimal cost. The menu-
plan comes complete with weekly shopping list and recipes for
nutritionally balanced menus for the week – ongoing for each week,
month, quarter, and year all delivered each week on the consumer’s
preferred shopping day – not only are these menus budget-stretchers,
they include savings on featured products. Savings can be scanned in
with the weekly menu on a shopping list and if it is adhered to for all
recommended purchases, consumers receive all of the posted ‘Family-
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Meal-Deal’ savings. This is a value-added promotion that assists
customers who are struggling and those who are concerned about
maximizing individual and family nutrition in a cost-effective way. The
Value and Nutrition Menu Planning is customized for the individual
consumer’s likes and dislikes, preferred shopping day, and total
shopping budget. 4.) Programs where local community contributions
are based upon sales in the local grocery store with a portion going
directly back into the community. Help us get a new Fire Engine,
Playground, Books for Schools or other School Related Materials,
Library contributions in new books, employee salaries, all geared at
rewarding the local community for local retail support. Cause-
marketing programs are popular especially when it goes to the local
community – where neighbors can see the contributions at work for
themselves. It helps to make the local retailer a bigger part of the
community. 5.) Tie-in Promotions with Airlines, Hotels, Vacations,
Sporting Events, Performing Art Events, Cultural Events, other
unrelated retailers, where frequent shopping receives points towards
discounts for big ticket or entertainment items. 6.) Tie-ins for
Recreational Gear, Products and locations, with store orders customers
receive points for free and discounted products. 7.) High priced
product offers for Free with shopping orders that reach a higher
threshold – done by retail store departments. For example: Two
Lobster Meal Deal – free lobster when you purchase XY & Z in each of
these store departments. The goal is to get the consumer to shop all of
the store departments. This promotion is especially good for
individuals and couples to increase their order size by getting to all
store sections and departments. 8.) Private Label Promotions touting
huge savings for consumers during recessionary times. Never do we
say ‘savings compared to national brands’ as it undercuts PGMs and
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upsets promotional relationships. But it is a fact that stores have
private label products in every category and several retailers such as
ALDI have developed a retail business model around private label
product savings. 8.) Brand Sales – large food manufacturers such as
General Mills, Kraft and ConAgra have products in many categories
throughout the store – having a Brand Sale featuring a single
manufacturer could be a good way to dovetail store promotion with
retailer’s corporate sales for added customer savings. 9.) Harvest
Sales with massive displays of seasonal bounty encouraging customers
to stock-up – sales such as Pantry-Builders, Pantry Stockers, Pantry
Sale, help to move large amounts of product from select categories.
10.) Annual Events where customers are treated to special loyalty
savings – especially during slower sales months and prior to peak
holiday sales periods. It is a way to begin peak seasonal sales periods
even earlier: Get Ready for the Holidays – Stock-Up Sale. Extra
Savings on Holiday Favorites. Save Now on Family Favorites for the
Holiday Season. 11.) Commodities Marketing Boards – The American
Dairy Association, The California Almond Growers, Avocado Board –
boards for fruits, tree nuts, wine, beer, vegetables, and melons are all
ideal tie-in promotion opportunities. 12.) Thematic Promotions such as
Sports Tie-In Promotions – NFL, MLB, NHL, Golf, Tennis and other
sports especially with local teams and events are ideal opportunities
for merchandising promotions to bring sports into the store.

Be they for a meal opportunity (Minute-Meals, Easy-Meals, Fast-Foods,

Health-Foods) a seasonal event such as Halloween, Thematic
Promotions can be successfully used to bring a multitude of dislocated
and unrelated products together for a single, total store promotional
event.
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These twelve promotional concepts are only a small example of the
account-specific, value-added, promotions that can be used for the
Insignia Total Store Marketing Program. How this marketing program
is managed is the method by which Insignia can develop a symbiotic
relationship with retailers and PGMs to gain their trust and to take
command of their In-Store Advertising and Promotional Marketing
Programs. The Insignia Total Store Marketing program manages
promotional marketing for retailers to increase trade promotion from
PGMs to reverse the thinking of short-term sale inducements of
discounts to that of branding and franchise building for both retailer
and PGM. Breakthrough, value-added promotional programs are
welcomed by retailers, PGMs, and consumers during recessions.

Consumers are looking for value and service, and want and expect
more during difficult economic times. Shopping becomes more
important and takes on a new meaning during tough times, for all.

Insignia Total Store Marketing

We have seen promotional spending continually growing while media

advertising is in a downward spiral. The Insignia Total Store Marketing
program is uniquely positioned for total store unified marketing
management – a unified, coordinated system of messaging and
interventions that are all coordinated to exploit customer needs and a
precise sales orchestration for shopping the entire store; and, for
every store category/department—and deployed through a centralized
retailer command-and-control merchandising program designed to
encourage PGMs participation through total store merchandising
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events. The most important store marketing is to reinforce the retail
store’s unique brand and to enhance the customer’s shopping
experience: The store logo and message strategy should be reinforced
on all marketing efforts. All designed to differentiate the store brand
and image; with this retail-marketing program designed to maximize
the retailer’s sales from available store traffic and for total store
shopping. To accomplish this an interactive store entrance Kiosk that
shows in-store featured items along with items featured in-ad is the
first of several interventions. This Electronic kiosk is large with a
stand-alone touch pad device that features featured products, store
sections, all showcased using the current merchandising theme.

Seasonal, holidays, themed, and other opportunities are applied to the

store branding: Christmas – Hanukah, New Years – Martin Luther
King’s Birthday, National Diet Month, National Frozen Food Month,
Walk America March of Dimes, Superbowl, Valentine’s Day, President’s
Day, Lent, American Heart Month, Canned Foods Month, St. Patrick’s
Day, Easter, National Frozen Foods Month, National Nutrition Month,
Walk America March of Dimes, Mother’s Day, Cinco de Mayo, Memorial
Day, FMI Show, National Osteoporosis Prevention Month, Asthma and
Allergy Awareness Month, Flag Day, Father’s Day, National Dairy
Month, Children’s Miracle Network, Independence Day, National Ice
Cream Month, National Picnic Month, Back to School, Labor Day, Jerry
Lewis Telethon, National Cholesterol Education Month, Cold and Flu
Campaign, National Eat Dinner Together Week, Columbus Day, World
Series, Halloween, Frozen Food Festival, American Heart Walk, Family
and Child Health Month, Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving, National
Diabetes Month, etc. – are all Total Store Merchandising opportunities
for retailers to offer multiple category and complete store events. Also,
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local market cause-marketing events, or local events can be developed
for the account. Insignia is marketing the retailer and all of its brands.

Besides the preceding timed sales opportunities, strategic marketing

opportunities of especially themed sales events for food retailers help
retailers to strategically complete against key competitors: Other
retailers, food-service, fast-food, C-Stores, and the like; Marketing
‘Green’ products throughout the store, that touts the retail brand’s
concern with environmental issues; Complete Meal Deals (multiple
category sales designed to take away foodservice sales), Ready to
Serve (multiple category of prepared foods and snacks that are ready
to serve to compete against fast-food outlets); Warehouse Sale,
Penny-Pinchers, (where retailer features lower prices for warehouse or
spring cleaning days – you clean up, when we do); Health Foods Sales,
a mix of ‘healthy foods’ are featured throughout the store with the
produce department as the featured department as it is a virtual
health foods store; Dieting Ideas that feature low-calorie dietary foods
– complete with menu ideas, fast-meals, and supporting shopping
lists; Meal-Ideas Recipes, where recipes using featured products
developed sales from featured and non-featured products and featured
on the shopping list print-out. Recipes can be developed or solicited
from participating PGMs. Strategic promotions can assist in building
the brand, customer loyalty and in building sales, volume and profits.
30 and 60 minute meal preparation is a popular way to attract traffic
touting the savings over fast foods or formal sit-down restaurants –
giving the customer a complete package, easy to prepare with huge
savings. No one ever wants to eat alone; Meals-for-One is a great way
to attract singles. Picking a Singles-Shopping-Night can build traffic.

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Then there is an entirely new marketing area of gourmet cooking for
pleasure. Cooking as a hobby. Featuring gourmet items, ingredients,
menus, recipes, and complete meal ideas, as a hobby to experiment
with new ethnic foods from around the world – for entertaining and for
creating excitement at meal time. Themes such as: Turn your Kitchen
into a Five-Star Restaurant; Easy-Entertaining with (retailer’s name);
Gourmet Recipes for the Home Kitchen; Explore the World’s Finest
Foods; Your Gourmet Cooking Center; (Retailer Name) World Foods;
Family Menu Adventures. Shopping and menu ideas that tout the
selection and wide variety of foods for gourmet or regular daily
cooking are going to become more important in coming years as meal
preparation becomes viewed as a hobby as well as a necessity.

In-Store Advertising is a lower cost tactical strategy when compared to

media advertising methods – using themed promotional format
changes to manage and shape customer’s visits to effectively make
the most of available store traffic for total store shopping, is a better
return on investment compared to costly media advertising and other
forms of marketing. With promotional dollars increasing – and with its
effectiveness decreasing because of the image of discounters and price
reductions, Insignia manages promotional marketing for reversing the
thinking of short-term sale inducements of discounts to that of
branding and franchise building for both retailer and PGM.

Retailers have long since used flyers that tout feature prices, and price
shelf signs to promote their stores and their store image or unique
brand to bring in customers and to maximize rings. Utilizing Customer
Relationship Management (CRM) to make the most of available store
traffic is the leading change in current retail grocery store marketing.

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The Insignia program dovetails into existing CRM programs by
increasing the customer’s in-store experience and can develop data to
support existing CRM programs and provides continuity programs to
bring customers back, utilizing and generating CRM information.
Increasing the customer’s service expectations to increase brand trust
and loyalty, realizing full-purchasing demand, and increasing rings –
all are strategic differences that can be managed down to the store
level, involving all employees, to create overall corporate branding
strategies to differentiate retail store brands. All of this is to reverse
the thinking of short-term sale inducements of discounts, to that of
branding and franchise building for both retailer and PGM. All
programs follow the rules and regulations established by the FTC’s
promotional guidelines as stated in CFR 16: chapter 1, part 502.100 –
cents-off representations by PGMs or retail labelers. Many retail price
inducements follow local and state laws. What is most important is
that a real brand is created for the retailer that customers relate can
to. Customers will always look for value and service, but the overall
shopping experience cannot be overlooked. Insignia Systems develop
a comprehensive promotional marketing experience that creates a
more enjoyable experience for consumers for realizing the most of
available store traffic, increasing rings, and providing for real growth
from promotional marketing and In-Store Advertising.

Customer visits should be approached with a marketing mind-set, with

a focus on lower-budget tactical methods designed to build the
retailer’s brand image, and image of quality, to market each category
and department with the ‘Insignia Total Store Marketing’ program.

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Insignia Total Store Marketing Elements:

1.) Merchandising campaign that begins on the outside façade to

draw customers in. Light post banners, light wraps, building
signs, door window graphics, and other exterior materials, all
contribute to attracting new customers into the store.

2.) Better understand customer’s needs: CRM. Using the Insignia

Total Store Merchandising System, loyalty programs, retailers
can develop buying intelligence to apply to marketing.

3.) Components of a customer visit: Viewing the store outside as

entering the building; Entering and taking a cart or basket
(usually outside of the main store entrance); store entrance;
store aisles beginning with produce and ending with frozens
and bakery; checkout area between store end-caps and aisles
and cash registers; exit between checkout and store exit; exit
area; parking lot and lot exit – will now all be thematically
bound together for total store marketing.

4.) For each of the above components retailers should have

marketing objectives to maximize the income generating
potential for each: Viewing the store outside as entering the
building – lot themed signage and store façade and window
graphics, to attract more traffic; Entering and taking a cart or
basket (usually outside of the main store entrance) themed
banners, ceiling hangers, shopping cart graphics, basket
holder graphics, entrance door signs; Store entrance – ceiling
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 hangers wall mounted graphics, electronic interactive kiosks;
Themed store aisles/department graphics beginning with
produce and ending with frozens and bakery; Department’s
electronic kiosk (Dairy, Meat, Produce, Bakery); Themed
checkout area between store end-caps and aisles and cash
registers; Themed exit area between checkout and store exit;
exit area; parking lot and lot exit – all to encourage
customers to come in, building more traffic, encouraging total
store shopping, continuity programs to ensure repeat visits
touting next week’s theme and features.

5.) Segmenting customers: ‘Insignia Total Store Marketing’ can

assist in segmenting and understanding customer needs by
developing customer information through store loyalty
programs that offer spiffs or discounts on select items –
where customers provide profile data, enter concerns – likes
and dislikes, and other desirable data. Customers apply for
themed scanner cards that give them added bonuses and
special privileges. And New Media websites can also address
special niche consumers’ needs and wants.

6.) Exploiting sales opportunities to maximize rings. ‘Insignia

Total Store Marketing’ is designed to maximize sales from
available store traffic while giving inducements to encourage
repeat visits through the ‘Themed Events’ that create
shopping excitement.

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7.) Maximizing sales to each customer. ‘Insignia Total Store
Marketing’ encourages shopping the entire store for more
sales from each, to make the most of available store traffic.

8.) Analytical and merchandising: ‘Insignia Total Store Marketing’

customer marketing programs and merchandising events
develops strategic customer buying data CRM, unique to that
store and customer base – of interest to PGM marketers.

9.) On-line Video - The Insignia Total Store Marketing program

offers an interactive promotional overlay to bring customers
to retail stores. Insignia Interactive Marketing is an
Interactive website that touts product features by retailers
designed to compliment and grow the current business of in-
store point of purchase by adding an Interactive promotional
overlay to expand sales, volume and profits. The Insignia
website presence attracts consumers who want to save, as an
overlay to the in-store program to make the Insignia
Marketing program Interactive. By featuring the Insignia
retailers, and then the manufacturer’s featured items,
consumers can shop for savings interactively giving them
total store savings items, on-line added spiffs such as account
specific manufacturer/retailer supported savings-coupons on
select items; and all of this with an easy Interactive Shopping
List, and the extra savings offered only on-line. The Retailer
Shopping List has featured items at the top of the list for each
category, and for easy shopping in each store category the
list follows the store flow to ensure complete store shopping
of each category. Shopping lists can be later analyzed and
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 quantified to customer profiles for CRM and promotional
methods and analysis of customer buying habits.

The interactive website is promoted on the Insignia In-Store

Advertising signs to bring customers to the site to shop for
added savings. Once there, on-line video creates an account-
specific commercial customized with the retail store image
and featured products in a video format with a follow-up
shopping list for total store shopping. Links to and from
retailer websites can also be established for increased traffic.
(Video theme is consistent with In-Store Advertising theme.)

10.) The Insignia Total Store Marketing - Management Program:

This is a comprehensive management tool that allows
retailers to take control of total store marketing to reverse
the thinking of short-term sale inducements of promotional
discounts to that of branding and franchise building for both
retailer and PGM by increasing a.) Store Traffic, b.) Volume –
how much on average each shopper buys on that order, and,
c.) Profit Margin, how much money on average that the
retailer makes on each item.

11.) Electronic Components – Kiosk with LCD display and touchpad

for interacting with it. Kiosk re-enforces featured items, and is
themed like the In-Store Advertising materials throughout the
store. Kiosk runs an appetite appeal montage of foods
featured for that themed event – almost like a TVC (television
commercial. It has featured items, meal ideas, and other
specialized items found on the website and throughout the
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 store on a touchpad that allows the customer to interact with
it. Customers interact with the touchpad. Smaller interactive
kiosks can be placed in each department or section of the
store and do the same, only being department specific.

12.) Menu/Recipe Board – Display of recipes found within the store

near major ingredients. A recipe service touting featured
items, easy meals, economy meals, and the like are found
throughout the store. Female consumers are attracted to
recipes and will purchase the ingredients needed for them.
The recipe service can be recipes that tout retailer
departments: produce, dairy, meat and bakery. And, recipes
that tout PGMs products. Recipes can be tied to themed
events: seasonal/holidays, or to Meal Deal promotions.

13.) Electronic Displays: Aisle ads/transparencies – adverts from

PGMs that show appetite appeal and product serving
suggestions, prepared food photos and creative packaged
goods displays that create an environment conducive to want
to buy more foodstuffs. To literally make the customer
hungry. Standing on the top center of each aisle is a translux
lit photo-board of appetite appealing food shots related to the
product’s found in that aisle. Each aisle side would have an
electronic oversized lit aisle sign with appetite appeal food
shots, advert reprints, and serving suggestions. For example:
the ethnic foods section could have Mexican Fiesta meal
scenes with an assortment of foods found within the section.
Perhaps aisle signs can have a center food shot of many
prepared items with a PGM advert on each end.
22
The Insignia Format for Success:

Retail food stores have lost sight of the fact that they sell delicious and
appetizing foods. Restaurants have used menu boards and appetite
appealing shots to create a mood and to motivate their customers to
buy certain menu items. Retailers have long since been showing
packaged goods instead of the appetite appealing prepared foods
within the store. Insignia Systems uses food photographs to motivate
customers to shop each section, to buy more, and to shop the entire
store. PGMs have long since used appetite appeal food shots to sell
their products – but at the point-of-purchase where foods are sold,
retailers feature packages instead of the prepared foods themselves.
Appetite Appeal at the point of purchase and throughout the store will
significantly increase sales, volume and profits for retailers. Showing
prepared food photos is akin to department stores showing
mannequins to assist it in merchandising and as a way to create
impulse purchases. So too will appetite appealing food shots setting a
mood for the store event and beautiful food shots to create customer
impulse to buy, and buy more. When these shots are not static,
changing on a regular schedule, customers find new excitement every
time they are engaged by a new themed event, touting the multitude
of foods found throughout the store. The Insignia Systems In-Store
Advertising Program is about making customers hungry for more:
sales, volume and resulting retailer and PGM profits. The Insignia
Systems In-Store Advertising Program merchandises the variety of
foods found within the retail grocery store. All Insignia Total Store
Marketing Programs are about making the most of available store
traffic by creating an environment where customers want to buy more
23
and want to prepare the foods that they see. The Insignia Systems In-
Store Advertising Program is turning shelves of products into a place
where delicious meals and foodstuffs are easily, and conveniently
purchased. This strategy competes directly with food service and fast-
food restaurants to win back sales lost to them. Customers can
prepare delicious foods at home for less, that are fast and easy to
prepare.

Too often retail grocery stores look like warehouses with stacks and
stacks of packaged goods instead of touting and promoting the foods
that they sell. Featuring prepared foods within the store creates more
excitement and opportunity for sampling that re-enforces the theme.

The Insignia Systems In-Store Advertising Program changes graphic

items and food shots on a rotating basis and new merchandising cycles
to keep the shopping experience always fresh, interesting and exciting
for customers. Each week or two, the customer encounters an entirely
new environment from their favorite retail store, a food adventure
instead of a task. By bringing excitement back into the stores, retailers
bring profits back as well – and yet another reason why PGMs should
use In-Store Advertising to promote their products at the point-of-
purchase, through Insignia System’s In-Store Advertising Program.

• The Insignia program is able to consistently achieve quantifiable

objectives using tested and reliable methods and techniques to
increase sales, volume and profits. All product data, customer data can
be compared this year versus last year by product, category, and total
store sales and with customer count, continually demonstrates the
return on investment. Insignia assists retailers and PGMs in leveling
24
out sales peaks and valleys for more even sales, volume and profits by
using In-Store Advertising and off-season promotional methods.

• The Insignia strategic programming for strategic-branding, increases

branding effectiveness by re-enforcing message strategies and giving
another impression of an advert message at the point of purchase to
complete the cycle. The Insignia management program is not just a
price promotion, but instead a promotional event that is coordinated,
controlled and promoted by Insignia’s Integrated Promotions that
combine all In-Store Advertising and promotional efforts in a way that
builds synergy, to create brand image for a real strategic difference:
not just sell PGMs products at a discounted price, but instead total
store shopping fun, excitement and surprise. Almost like a hunt for
treasures, with values to be found in every aisle and throughout the
store. Themed with the retailer’s branding strategy and Insignia’s total
store marketing, maximizing sales, volume, and profits, from each
order. Who doesn’t like food? And when promoted properly who can
resist?

• Insignia Systems Targets precise customers: a regional, local market

comprised of a wide variety of grocery shoppers. As PGM products are
becoming increasingly niche marketing, Insignia programs are tailored
to specific accounts and their unique customers’ likes and dislikes.
Promotions within a promotion, can target niche-consumers with
products that appeal to just them. For example, singles versus family
sales – these niche-marketing targets are identified calling-out
products unique to them, their unique needs, and holistic methods that
appeal to all. For Local Markets, where the customer base is skewed
toward an ethnic demographic, or a certain age segment, these can be
25
accommodated by the ‘Insignia Systems In—Store Advertising
Program,’ account specific programs designed for these situations.

• The Insignia System allows retailers to co-op promotional efforts

with PGMs to increase the overall promotions’ effectiveness and cost,
and to even co-op costs for Insignia Systems In-Store Advertising
using promotional partners. Buying into events special to their brands.

• Insignia Promotions are designed to be meaningful to customers by

using tried and true creative devices to gain customer attention,
desire, interest and action. Insignia impactful promotions get
customers actively involved in shopping the entire store. (Store
section, department, themes can also be developed. Such as Quick
Trip Specials – located at the storefront. Or Brand Name Deli
merchandising and in-store promotion.)

• Insignia creates promotions designed to sell image, the retail brand,

and to create account-specific promotions that don’t just rely on
borrowed interest ideas such as holidays or seasons – but instead,
promotions that tout the retailer’s unique brand image as applied to
the promotional opportunities of prepared food dramatic images
themed to promotional events. Promotions with the retailer’s image
and message strategy included, associates the retailer’s image to food.

• With more and more PGMs demanding sales, volume and profit
results for their promotional dollars, the Insignia promotional
management program consistently delivers quantifiable results to build
not only the retailer brand, but the PGM brand as well – encouraging
ongoing promotional schedules to establish or maintain a consumer
26
franchise by selling image and unique product benefits. With Insignia’s
strategy, PGMs are able to build their brand and category franchise.

• Insignia Promotional Management can assist retailers in combining

PGM sponsorships with in-store promotions and advertising. Allowing
event-related premiums, mail-in or bounce-back discounts, admission
discounts with proofs, or category involvement events such as
drawings, sweepstakes and contest. As well as sampling events with
coupons or bounce-back purchase incentives, can all be coordinated
and maximized for the added synergy for both retailers and PGMs
using the Insignia Promotional Management. It is the perfect conduit
for developing category partner programs and promotional synergy.

Consumers are bombarded with messages and media clutter. And in-
store each package fights the other. The Insignia Total Store
Marketing program reduces clutter by containing packages within the
section or department and giving each product a broader overall
context to the promotional theme. By engaging shoppers with a single
unified and coordinated promotional image and effort, it makes
shopping more enjoyable and exciting. The program involves all
employees down to the store level, making their experience more
rewarding as well. Their individual contribution and effectiveness to
assisting in the event can be seen by them as a positive contribution
to increase their overall job satisfaction.

‘Insignia Total Store Marketing’ provides the perfect segue for

developing proprietary retailer customer relationship management
data, unique to that retailer’s store and customers. Using CRM data
collection about customer behavior and product movement, and the
27
holistic approach for improving services provided for and directed at
customer retention and loyalty, this information is used for targeted
marketing and sales purposes. Each Insignia Total Store Event
generates data on customer buying habits and targeted data from
customer loyalty programs giving proprietary information on individual
customers that shop at that store, what they purchased, along with
personal information from their unique customer profile they provide
from continuity programs such as rebates or best-customer programs.
This information assists retailers and PGMs in developing strategies to
better serve their unique customers for that unique store location.

‘Insignia Total Store Marketing’ Program Promotional Elements

Outdoor promotional materials: Lot materials and storefront –

banners, wraps, sign, window signs, etc., that promote the retail brand
and themed promotional event from the outside to attract consumers
into the store itself – beginning the total shopping experience.

Electronic Interactive Kiosk: Over-sized for store entrance, with floor-

standing touchpad for customers to interact with the display. Smaller
interactive electronic kiosks are found in store departments – produce,
dairy, meat, bakery, deli, etc. Each able to dispense recipes, menu
suggestions, added coupon savings, and other customer promotions
that encourage the customer to shop each store section for increased
sales, volume and profits from available store traffic.

28
Interior Wall Signs/Banners: Large electronic wall/aisle/section signs
carrying promotional event themes to promote the event, store
sections and departments – to sell and market foods.

End-Aisle Vertical Sign Entrance Markers: (Tall themed signs that are
attached to each aisle entrance with slots to slide in the very same
signs that appear at the shelf location – butted up against end-caps
displays, these serve as aisle entrance merchandisers of the featured
shelf products.) End-Aisle section signs reinforce shelf locations and
encourage shoppers to shop the aisle for values and to shop each
featured product found in the aisle.

End-Cap Displays: Header, stack signs, base-wrap, etc., all themed for
the current promotional event and to promote the featured product(s).

Shelf Signs: Insignia In-Store shelf signs to encourage impulse, and

have stopping power to engage the customer so they shop the entire
section.

Refrigerated Signs: Designed for refrigerated equipment – door

coolers/freezers, coffins, reach-ins, etc., all to increase whole-case
shopping to increase impulse and multiple section purchases. Signage
designed for the refrigerated equipment – i.e., right angle signs
mounted atop door freezers.

Aisle Hangers: (Wire hanging signs and ceiling danglers/mobiles)

signage carrying the promotional event theme.

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Employee costume: caps/paper hats, buttons, aprons, jackets,
matching colors, costumes to themed promotional event.

Themed Event Graphics - DVDs: Promotional Event Graphics that can

be customized by retailers for their promotional marketing materials –
media advertising, flyers, etc. DVD – video of event theme for use in
developing TV commercials with account-specific information and
featured products, created by Insignia. Themed video runs in-store on
LCDs and on-line at the Insignia Interactive retailer’s site.

On-line Video – on the Insignia website - The Insignia Total Store

Marketing program offers an interactive promotional overlay to bring
customers into retail stores. Insignia Interactive Marketing is an
Interactive Website that promotes product features by retailers
designed to compliment and grow the current business of in-store
point of purchase by adding an Interactive Promotional overlay to
expand sales, volume and profits. The Insignia website presence
attracts consumers who want to save, as an overlay to the in-store
program, making Insignia Marketing program Interactive. By featuring
the Insignia retailers, and then the manufacturer’s featured items,
consumers can shop for savings interactively from home or work. This
site provides consumers with total store savings, but on-line added
spiffs such as account specific manufacturer supported double or
added-savings-coupons on select items; and all of this with an easy
interactive shopping list for the selected retailer where the featured
items are at the top of the list for easy shopping in each store category
that customers can print out and use for shopping. The on-line Video
touts the event and the featured products acting like a TVC (television
commercial) for the event and store, and the featured product.
30
 The interactive website is promoted on the Insignia In-Store
Advertising signs to bring customers to the site to shop for
added savings. Once there, on-line video creates an account-
specific commercial customized with your retail store image
and featured products in a video format with a follow-up
shopping list for total store shopping. It is in fact a
commercial that is run prior to entering the site.

(NOTE: www.1&1.com provides economical website hosting of $4.99

per month for 2 domains that could easily be used for account-specific
websites that the retailers promotes besides the
www.whateverwecallit-addedsavings.com. Website we could offer
account specific sites. Costs could be incorporated into the program
and co-opted with PGMs.)

The Insignia Promotional Management Program

The Insignia Total Store Marketing - Management Program: This is a

comprehensive management tool that allows retailers to coordinate
promotional events and to take control of total store marketing to
reverse the thinking of short-term sale inducements of promotional
discounts to that of branding and franchise building for both retailer
and PGM. The retailer merely informs Insignia Systems of the
participating products and pricepoint, and select or confirm the theme,
and the Insignia program does everything else.

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Insignia Total Store Marketing and CRM

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is the process a retailer

uses to relate to their customers. It is a comprehensive process to
develop data from customers and to involve all store employees.
Insignia Software extracts information about the themed promotions
and develops data used for CRM – or utilizes retailers CRM data for in-
store advertising development. Employees contribute data and use
data about Insignia Total Store Merchandising to make decisions to
increase sales, volume and profits. From each employee’s vantage
based upon customer behavior from Insignia in-store marketing
programs so they can improve the customers’ shopping experience.
This is as simple as going to a CRM software developer and asking for
a retail grocery specific program under the Insignia brand.

Insignia Total Store Marketing develops data from promotional

activities and from customer loyalty programs and incentives to
provide retailers with current intelligence on promotional events,
category data, product movement, and, customer behavior and
feedback – that can be shared with PGMs if warranted.

Insignia Total Store Merchandising Software is designed to extract

promotional facts to improve the retailer’s in-store advertising
effectiveness. Details on customer contacts are stored in the system to
be used to select product mix for future promotions and used by
category buyers to increase their promotional effectiveness.

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Insignia Total Store Marketing is a holistic approach to CRM that
involves all aspects of the retail grocery store – from product offerings,
promotion, environment, and a means to involve all personal through
the implementation of timed promotional events. All to increase sales,
volume and profits from available store traffic, leverage customer
seasonal buying habits, to implement strategic retail branding, and to
develop better customer loyalty and trust – as well as creating a
customer shopping experience filled with wonder, excitement and
surprise.

The Insignia Total Store Marketing is a holistic approach to CRM that is

a combination of coordinated guidelines, processes, and strategies
implemented by a retailer that unite in its interaction with its
customers while providing an in-store marketing program that yields a
mechanism for tracking customer information as a result of that point-
in-time, in-store advertising marketing effort.

The Insignia Total Store Merchandising assists retailers with: Featured

product mix and buying decisions, administration and operations;
Logistics, warehouse/distribution decisions, and store design; Business
relationships with PGMs, distributors and brokers – through The
Insignia Total Store Merchandising program, it offers qualitative and
quantitative evidence to increase promotional activities for mutual
business rewards between retailers and PGMs. All of this is
accomplished by retailer and Insignia feedback. By sharing information
and improving the system each unique store and retailer improves.

33
Most importantly is that Insignia System’s strategy of creating a food
friendly environment in retail grocery stores that celebrate food and
the foods around the world. Grocery Stores have an unlimited bounty
of the world’s finest and best foods, with unlimited preparation
possibilities. Aside from whole foods and ingredients, a wide variety of
prepared foods and ready-to-eat foods exit in grocery stores, these are
highly competitive to food service operations. Grocery stores offer
thousands of prepared foods compared to limited menu offerings from
food service operations.

Insignia’s opportunity is to promote this bounty, and thereby create an

environment for customers that enhances their shopping experience,
causing them to shop each section, category, and shop the entire store
for increased rings for retailers and increased product sales for
packaged goods manufacturers.

Transforming retail grocery stores from warehouses for food stuffs into
dynamic and engaging shopping environments by touting the foods
found within the stores creates a stark contrast between neat and
orderly rolls and stacks of packaged goods and large appetite appeal lit
photographs of food. Large oversized appetite appealing shots of food
contrasts well against the orderly displays of packaged goods. These
food photographs are then applied to seasonal opportunities: Fall
Harvest Bounty, Christmas treats and main courses, popular foods
such as pizza, hamburgers, chicken – all prepared showing appetite
appeal in oversized splendor and as a contrast to the neatly stocked
packaged goods. The bounty of foods found in grocery stores is what
Insignia is promoting to customers with its themed In-Store
Advertising materials all to encourage the shopper to shop the entire
store, and to create more impulse shopping for higher sales, volume

34
and profits for grocers and PGMs.

Insignia has been promoting PMGs packaged goods. Now Insignia has
the opportunity to promote these packaged goods in the broader
context of prepared foods and meal ideas. Its in-store advertising
materials opens up new opportunities for PGMs to show their products
in a prepared way, showing serving suggestions in large appetite
appeal photographs that are backlit to make them more appealing and
causing more impulse purchases.

35
Summary

Technology at store level has opened more promotional doors for

retailers. Electronic continuity programs, competitive Couponing, and
data collection through scanners have all improved the retailer’s
marketing effectiveness. However, while all of this is true, retailers
have put it all together in a way that has created more clutter and
confusion in-store. Other than using its well-established flow of traffic,
improved shelving systems and refrigerated equipment and product
offerings – retailers have not effectively implemented new electronic
merchandising technologies into their stores. If they have it, it is not
cohesive and unified throughout the store, being more hit and miss.
Many companies have tried unsuccessfully to capitalize on store traffic
and the opportunity to market food products to them in-store. Grocers
had in the past, peaking in the sixties, used PGMs supplied
promotional materials to increase sales, volume, and profits. While
these displays did contribute to increased activity, they created store
clutter and diminished the retail store brand while promoting the PGMs
brand. Typically point of purchase materials consisted of displays: end-
cap, huge stack displays, coffin freezer end-caps, that used point-of-
purchase materials: display header, stack signs, base wraps and price
signs. When combined with price features carried in the retailer’s flyer
or ad, these efforts of display and feature yielded sales increases of up
to 550%. Display and feature became the mantra of the sixties
through to the eighties. Retailers typically leveraged PGMs for added
trade promotion dollars until retailers uniformly began to use their own
point-of-purchase materials to promote in-store.

36
Retailers became aware of branding. Increasingly PGMs used branding
techniques to promote their unique brand in-store using the displays
to tout their brand. Retailers claimed this PGM brand competition
caused in-store clutter. Retailers took charge of the in-store display
activity and created a unified in-store image that reflected the store
brand image. So during the eighties PGMs used more and more
‘branding’ techniques to merchandise their brands, and shifted from
appetite appeal display materials that showed prepared food in serving
suggestions for appetite appeal – to in-store promotional materials
that touted their brand image. Retailers realized what was happening
claiming it caused in-store clutter, adopting instead to promote its own
store brand. And that mistake was adopting its corporate image and
bringing it to store level to create sterile looking neat shelves framed
by the corporate image. It is when this shift from appetite appeal and
prepared food displays left retail grocery stores. Retailers nationwide
adopted sterile looking corporate image and the loss of the images of
prepared foods separated them from the rest of the food industry.
They became warehouses where fresh foods and packaged foods were
purchased. This coincided with the boom in fast-food restaurants and
mid-scale restaurants, causing food retailers to increasingly lose a
greater share of the food dollar. This trend continues to today.

At the same time retailers increasingly face a competitive

environment among themselves, where everyday low prices compete
against retailer’s marketing efforts diminishing their own brand and
the PGMs brands. Insignia Total Store Marketing seeks to engage
consumers on more than price alone bringing the merchandising of
prepared food (eatable food, not food packages) back into grocery
stores, while still maintaining the retailer’s corporate image. While
37
store location remains important to customers, many are making more
frequent trips to large discounters and club stores to the chagrin of
grocery retailers. When Walmart entered the retail grocery business,
within its first year it became the world’s largest food retailer, creating
even more competition for the retail food industry and leaving them
looking for effective methods to compete. Walmart and others within
that category have an overall corporate image that transcends each
department including grocery. Grocery stores need to compete against
this fact: they specialize only in food, not everything under the sun like
the huge discounters. By merchandising their primary product, food,
retailers can distinguish themselves from mass merchandisers and
create an entirely new holistic and cohesive look that promotes the
bounty of the foods it sells. It can compete directly against food
operators for a greater share of the food dollar, and the large
merchandisers to win back lost customers, using the Insignia System
Total Store Marketing Program. Simply put, Insignia promotes food
first, the retailer’s image next, and finally the PGMs, and all of the
foods found within the retail grocery store showing food in its prepared
state for appetite appeal, and its bounty, throughout the store, to
make the most of store traffic, making the shopping experience
exciting for customers. For example: instead of looking at pimply
skinned white chickens, imagine the bounty of chicken – fried, roasted,
ethic recipes like Yakitori, Chicken Tacos, a bucket of fried chicken,
etc., then carrying the store branding, and then a Foster’s Farm® or a
Golden Plump® logo on the same display. Instead of cases filled with
stacks of vegetables, colorful photos of prepared salads, cooked
vegetables, snacks, etc., all with the retailer’s image and then
suppliers logos: Dole®, Del Monte®, Green Giant®, etc.

38
Getting retailers back into the business of promoting food is what the
Insignia Systems Total Store Marketing Program is all about: Bringing
appetite appealing food photographs back into the store, and shown in
seasonal and special holiday context throughout the store for total
store merchandising, yet maintaining the retail store image, and
promoting the PGMs’ brands. Insignia is helping grocery retailers get
back into the ‘Food’ business, assisting it in learning how to motivate
its customers to buy more and shop the entire store, to spend more of
their food dollars with them.

The Insignia Total Store Marketing program is a holistic approach to

CRM (Customer Relationship Management), and utilizes tried and true
promotional and merchandising methods and techniques to increase
incremental sales, volume, and profits from available store traffic while
creating marketing themes for retailer’s media advertising to increase
strategic store branding for a holistic retailer marketing program. The
Insignia Total Store Marketing program offers PGMs qualitative and
quantitative evidence to increase their promotional activities for
mutual business rewards. Insignia increases the effectiveness of the
retailer’s CRM efforts by involving all personnel in a cohesive and
impactful marketing program designed to boost sales, volume, and
profits from available store traffic while developing a continuity
program of multiple promotional events throughout the year building
customer loyalty and strategic brand image by merchandising the
entire grocery store; touting the foods and brands it offers to its
customers.

39
Clutter continues to be an issue with customers and PGMs – that
customers become resistant to promotion and PGMs believe that their
brand is lost in the clutter. The Insignia Total Store Marketing program
combats clutter by use of creative themed promotional materials that
merchandise the entire store with a strategic retailer brand image and
message, an overall merchandising theme for continuous flow and
shopping throughout the store – from lot to exit, the customer is
engrossed and absorbed in a complete food experience. Expanding and
growing that customer experience is Insignia’s business, and in doing
so it grows the retailers and PGMs business.

This proposal is concerned with expanding Insignia’s in-store

advertising and promotional products, programs and services to
provide retailers and PGMs with a breakthrough concept of highly
effective storewide added-value promotions that tout ‘Food” instead of
the current discount only promotions showing packages instead of
prepared foods. ‘In-store advertising programs with total store
marketing programs,’ are managed to add more expansive
merchandising and brand promotion for both the retailer and for the
PGM to build sales, volume and profits. In order to maximize customer
sales on each store visit through ‘Insignia Total Store Marketing’ a
total store experience for customers is created to market foods that
the retailers offer and the PGMs produce. Unlike hit and miss trendy
promotions, Insignia’s program manages all promotional activities in a
single coordinated effort to create a strategic brand-building synergy
otherwise not available. Simply put, coordinating all promotional
efforts yields more and better results than when used separately.

40
Insignia uses tried and true creative point-of-sale methods and
techniques that are not copy-heavy to promote increased impulse
purchases. It instead relies on appetite appeal food photographs to
make customers hungry to buy. Because Insignia Systems is about In-
Store Advertising, it does not seek retailer or PGM media advertising,
but does offer an Interactive website for video commercials that are
account specific to provide for increasing customer traffic and for
continuity sales. Insignia does provide themed promotional creative for
retailer or PGMs media advertising on DVDs and for use on Insignia
account-specific websites.

Sound promotional marketing knowledge goes into the Insignia Total

Store Marketing Program, to provide Insignia Systems with an added-
value business model for increasing its current business by
augmenting it with this program. The entire venture is dependent upon
integrating Insignia with the retailer and positioning Insignia as the
preeminent promotional In-Store Advertising service in the world. The
profit center for Insignia remains the same – printing. Small fees for
developing customized promotions beyond account specific, using
retailer or PGM ideas or themes, can be created, but the profit comes
from producing and placing them. This proposal offers Insignia
Systems with a unique-selling-proposition that can deliver promotional
synergy to its clients, both retailers and PGMs. Insignia will compete
with knowledge of its customers, strong customized proposals,
creativity, quality execution, and flawless service.

Once the program is in place, a strong self-promotion campaign of

direct mail and trade journals’ articles and ads will grow the program,
41
but ongoing innovation and success will sustain it. Insignia’s sole
relationship with its clients is to add value to their business by
producing quantifiable and qualitative results, for Insignia to develop
the same loyalty it instills in its clients’ customers to build their unique
brand. So too with Insignia, it must be constantly improving its
products and services to improve theirs.

Many scholars and futurists are calling Advertising a sunset industry

that grew because of broadcast media. But now with media
fragmentation and the advent of New Media, it has lost its hold on
retailers and PGMs. The In-Store Advertising business has fluctuated
with retailers maintaining the steady ground using tried and true
promotional methods for attracting traffic and using impulse sale
methods to increase product sales. Using industry knowledge coupled
with innovative new approaches, Insignia’s total marketing approach
uses the best of all promotions in a unified and coordinated manner.
The Insignia Total Store Marketing program manages promotional
marketing for retailers to increase trade promotion from PGMs to
reverse the thinking of short-term sale inducements of discounts to
that of branding and franchise building for both retailer and PGM.

This proposal is concerned with expanding Insignia’s in-store

advertising and promotional products, programs and services to
provide retailers and PGMs with a breakthrough concept of highly
effective storewide added-value promotions instead of the current
discount only promotions. ‘In-store advertising programs with total
store marketing programs,’ managed to add more expansive
merchandising and brand promotion for both the retailer and for the

42
PGM – and for a better shopping experience for consumers. That shift
from short-term sale inducements of discounts to that of branding and
franchise building for both retailer and PGM is Insignia System’s
strategic point-of-difference, and is the foundation of the total store
marketing concept – the management of this promotional marketing
effort for retailers to increase PGMs involvement and promotional
dollars and for Insignia to take charge of the holistic In-Store
Advertising marketing function.

The very best in strategic, creative, and promotional thinking is

required in the 21st Century to achieve the potential of this proposed
business model. But based upon Insignia Systems’ previous success, it
is all achievable by building upon the current business and employing
The Insignia Promotional Management Program to expand the
influence over PGMs and retailers’ promotional budgets. Price/value
relationships that rely only upon continued fire-sales diminish the
brand value of both retailers and PGMs. The Insignia program
promotes the retailers brand through its values, service and the
shopping excitement it generates. In ever-changing retail store
environments Insignia brings an image to the retail brand and value to
PGMs brands without constant discounting schemes, but by promoting
and creating appropriate merchandising and promotional events to
engage consumers in a way to build retailers and PGMs brands while
providing a promotional management program to increase sales,
volume and profits for each.

The marketing war today is in the retail stores. There is a constant

battle between retailers, who are no longer satisfied with local market
43
dominance, now wanting increased business to compete with the
nation’s largest distributor-retailers.

Insignia System’s In-Store Advertising ‘Total Store’ program can help

to increase store traffic with innovative promotions, increase rings by
encouraging total store shopping and complete category shopping,
assist in developing quantitative product movement data during
promotional events to allow for warehousing considerations for
stocking extra inventory to avoid out-of-stocks, providing information
on how much to discount products and determining when the
manufacturer allowance will suffice – all to determine what branding
and promotions strategically build the retail store brand.

Insignia’s In-Store Advertising answers all of these questions with its

total store marketing programs. Ultimately retailers compete on
service, customer convenience, ambiance, comparative value, and
their ability to create loyalty with its customers. PGMs are looking for
dependable In-Store Advertising programs that produce quantifiable
results. Insignia Systems, In-Store Advertising makes the most of
available store traffic by developing customer interest, builds interest
in shopping the entire store, and creates loyalty while building the
retailer’s brand, extending branding with Insignia In-Store Advertising.

There are no texts, lessons, or information on persuasion in

Advertising or for In-Store Advertising specific. No literature exists on
persuasion that is tied specifically to advertising. Literature exists
about functional areas such as construction of campaigns, media
buying, budgeting, management, testing and measurement, analysis
of famous campaigns and the ideas of preeminent practitioners. As
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such there are no specific books on consumer persuasion only
examples of what worked for someone else concluding that persuasion
was an element in the success equation. The good news is that
practitioners with experience in promotional marketing have deduced
point-of-sale methods and techniques that persuade consumers to buy
with statistically consistent results. The science of In-Store Advertising
involves persuasion through creative devices that encourage impulse
purchases and increased purchases.

Insignia Systems Total Store Marketing uses tested promotional

methods and relies on ‘unified and changing thematic appetite
appeal food photographs throughout the store,’ to make
customers hungry to buy. ‘Insignia makes customers hungry to buy,’ is
a good message strategy, because that it what this program is all
about. Showing food that retail grocery customers will want to buy and
creating a shopping experience that makes customers spend more of
their food dollars in grocery stores – turning the stayed warehouse
image to one of sales floor, where food is marketed to a captive
audience. There are multiple opportunities for Insignia to offer
Packaged Goods Manufacturers In-Store Ad Space beyond its current
offering of shelf-signs only. By taking charge of merchandising the
entire store, Insignia takes the lead in cutting-edge In-Store
Advertising. It is a breakthrough concept in total store merchandising.

By: Daryl J. Orris, Ph.D.

Marketing Consultant

©2008 Viking Creative Concepts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Creating lasting impressions in the food and beverage industry since 1960.

45
APPENDIX A

INSIGNIA INTERACTIVE MARKETING/PROMOTIONAL PROGRAM

What it is

Insignia Interactive Marketing is an Interactive website that features

product features by retailers designed to compliment and grow the
current business of in-store point of purchase by adding an Interactive
promotional overlay to expand sales, volume and profits.

"Embrace digital media 100%"; "invest in global diversification, "be

more integrated in all your marketing activities;" and, "execute
research and focus on compelling product benefits." This is the
recommendation coming from the world’s top advertising agencies.

The question is how is this done for in-store advertising and for
Insignia? I have a few ideas about integrating New Media interactive
into the Insignia In-Store Advertising programs that also expands and
grows Insignia’s current business while making it integrated with New
Media, and therefore making it state-of-the-art: the premier
Promotional Advertising Service for PGMs and retailers.

Because Insignia knows what signage it has in what stores, and what
products are featured, and what the pricepoints are: developing a
website presence to attract consumers who want to save would be the
logical way to make Insignia Interactive. By featuring the Insignia
retailers, and then the manufacturer’s featured items, consumers can
shop for savings interactively. Not only would this site provide
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consumers with total store savings, but on-line added spiffs such as
account specific manufacturer supported double or added-savings-
coupons on select items; and all of this with an easy interactive
shopping list for the selected retailer where the featured items are at
the top of the list for easy shopping in each store category. Also, the
interactive website allows the running of 30-60 second commercial
spots that tout food and the retailer’s brand image. The website is
promoted on the bottom of in-store shelf signs, and through the
grocer’s flyers or advertisements.

With this list, Insignia can increase its business by showing how the
program works to competitive category PGMs and to competitive
retailers, thus growing Insignias business presence and effectiveness.
And because Insignia knows that its in-store efforts work, they know
that the sign will work to promote the website as well –
For Double/Added-Savings: see www.whateverwecallit.com.
Or: For added values see www.whateverwecallit.com.

The Insignia website can also provide both retail and PGM customers
with actual “hits” data, and it also counts downloads, such as account
specific, coupons that offer deep discounts off of the already featured
price for ‘Double or Added Saving,’ and on-line printable shopping lists.
This verifiable data of hits and downloads re-enforces the effectiveness
of the Insignia promotional program by generating quantifiable data
that Insignia can report to program participants.

Tie-ins between retailers and PGMs can also be created, where Insignia
is the conduit for facilitating promotional activity between them: Both
with PMGs and Retailers by facilitating these promotions between
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Category Buyers/Promotional Retail Managers and PGM Brand/Sales
Managers. Later, Insignia can initiate category sales and promotions
that promote a retailer’s entire section; as well as develop new
promotional tools that retailers and PGM Marketers can use to promote
sales: themed “Meal Deals,” total store sales for complete meal deals
to compete with fast-food and foodservice competitors.

The website is first established and then sold-in to retailers and

manufacturers as support for the Insignia In-Store Advertising
Program. The program itself is promoted by the POP signage itself with
a statement on the bottom of each talker that says: For ‘Double-
Savings and Super-Buys,’ come to: www.whateverwecallit.com

The way this Interactive program is introduced to retailers and to

PGMs is by telling them that this will increase their reach and
promotional activity while increasing their Interactive Marketing with
the provided links in the www.whateverwecallit.com website once
quantifiable data is available.

How it works

Establish an Interactive website that promotes the featured products,

the PMGs and the Retailers. The Insignia in-store POP has a
promotional tagline at the bottom of every sign that says: For
Double/added-Savings and Super-Buys, come to:
www.whateverwecallit.com
The Insignia Interactive program expands Insignia’s current business
by integrating an Interactive media component into it, one that can
increase Insignia’s current business by increasing sales from existing
48
clients, but by also using the new promotional extension to attract new
sales from other PGMs in each category: Insignia Integrated In-Store
Advertising.

The program has to be staged, before it rolls out nationally to keep it

from being adopted by other PGMs and by retailers and to develop
sufficient data to present to them. A large enough presence needs to
be developed to have a defensible position to protect copyrights and
the business model. By working closely with key PGMs and retailers,
the program can expand to the point where it becomes exclusive,
proprietary and effective, to grow the business and take it to the next
level, as a fully integrated, In-Store and Interactive Promotional/
Marketing Service for PGMs and Retailers.

Website design would include a FLASH video introduction that features

prepared food video in an appetite-appealing manner, the retailer’s
brand image, and the logos-packages of participating brands. The
menu bar is yet to be determined but could include: Store Selector –
Featured Foods – Shopping List – Extra Bonus Values – Recipes –
Menu Plans – Food Preparation Ideas – New Products - Upcoming
Store Events – and the like.

Materials

1.) An Insignia Interactive website designed to engage female

consumers who want to save. Imagery touts prepared foods.

2.) Signs, POP prototypes. All photographed in a super market.

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 3.) Sales/marketing materials – PGM set, and a Retailer set.

4.) Store Front kiosk that touts the program and offers shopping
lists with featured products.

5.) New media advertising campaign.

6.) Trade journal advertising.

7.) Public Relations efforts to show the new concept in making

retail grocery stores more inviting and less like a warehouse.

8.) Articles written for Women Service Books touting the new
look in grocery stores and how the change affects shopping.

9.) Integrating the Interactive with the Insignia In-Store

Advertising Program.

10.) Evaluation of programs and staged modifications as needed.

What it does

Creates an Interactive product for Insignia to promote and increase its

presence in its current business; expands that business by increasing
the scope and presence of its POP and adding a promotional marketing
overlay that will attract category competitors from both the PGM and
retailer ranks. Above all, it makes Insignia state of the art in In-Store
Advertising by adding an Interactive component to its business.
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Why it will work

We are at time when both PGMs and retailers are threatened by large
discounters and private label products that are defeating the
promotional efforts of both. Retailers such as ALDI, COSTCO and Wal-
mart, among others, have become a threat to them because of price
discounters who in time cheapen their own brand. The immediate
threat is an opportunity for Insignia Systems.

With Insignia Interactive Marketing we have two dynamics working for

us:
1.) The consumer’s desire to save. Growing consumer use of
interactive media.

2.) The Integration of Interactive media to make the company

state-of-the-art In-Store Advertising and in promotional
marketing services for both retail and PGM customers.

© 2008, Viking Creative Concepts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Contact: Daryl Orris at 952-545-2915 or at daryl.orris@gmail.com

Creating lasting impressions in the food and beverage industry since 1960.

51