The Children's Place Earns Top Honors for Jeans Display

Minneapolis — The Path to Purchase Institute awarded top honors in its annual Design of the Times contest to specialty retailer The Children’s Place for its back-to-school jeans display. Created to sit above product shelves in-store with actual product on display, it lured shoppers to the jeans section and communicated all the cuts and styles the Caldwell, New Jersey-based retailer offers.“Our goal was to create a denim focal point throughout the store that displayed the actual merchandise to clearly communicate the key benefits and features of fit and style,” said Greg Navalance, marketing and store operations executive at The Children’s Place. The retailer chose Meyers Retail Marketing Solutions, Minneapolis, to execute its objective because of the supplier’s cost-effective solution that efficiently conveyed “what we needed to give the consumer while ensuring a seamless execution for our store associates,” Navalance added.For Meyers’ part, Chris Bixler, vice president of sales and new business development, said the team was tasked with creating a temporary unit that could be viewed from anywhere in the store, display the jeans in a manner that they could be sold later, and would be easy to ship and install. A changeable graphic header was also needed.“We were tasked with clearly emphasizing the fit of each jean,” added Stacy Schubert, account executive at Meyers. “And with the potential for another promotion on the back side of the display boxes.” The piece was litho-label on corrugate with corrugate inserts to hold the jeans in place. It was shipped to 1,100 stores with numerous versions in different languages. Originally scheduled to be in place for six weeks, due to its success the display remained in stores for 12 weeks. “That tells us all that it was a successful project,” said Schubert. “Getting our design team involved up front allowed for the budget to be captured and to maximize their spend on the very best solution for what they were looking for – based on the information we exchanged about how their customers behave in the stores and other factors about their stores.”Bixler noted the relative simplicity of this display. “It’s not always about the cost of materials,” he said. “In this case it was the strategy and thinking that went into it.”Peter Hoyt, P2PI’s executive director, agreed: “This year’s Best of the Times winner came as a surprise to us. The piece is so simple compared to other units that incorporate far more pizzazz,” he said. “It’s the simplicity itself – the purity of messaging that emanates from this display – that carried the day. The judges looked past the engineering and chose instead to salute the power of the medium. They look at how each entry commands, connects, conveys and closes, and the insight behind it. In that light, the best display won.”Navalance said customers were able to make purchasing decisions much faster because they could easily spot their fit without having to sift through folded merchandise. “The display and supporting copy made it easier for mom to shop, and that was a big win.”

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