Great Northern Corporation Carries Home Nine Awards at Shopper Marketing Expo
Company Wins Top Honors in Two Categories
APPLETON, Wis., Oct 24, 2011 — Great Northern Corporation, a designer and manufacturer of consumer packaging and in-store displays, won nine Design of the Times awards during the Shopper Marketing Expo held Oct. 18-20, at Navy Pier in Chicago.
The annual competition recognizes the industry's most inspiring and creative in-store activation tactics and campaigns. Gold, silver and bronze awards are distributed throughout eight channels based upon the entry’s ability to command attention, connect with the shopper, convey information and close the sale. A platinum award for Best of the Times honors is given to the top scoring entry of all gold award recipients within each channel.
Earning gold honors that went on to win platinum awards in the Convenience Stores and Specialty Stores channels were Great Northern's displays for PepsiCo and 3M, respectively. The first award recognizes PepsiCo's Mountain Dew Cooler Door Oversize Bottle that serves as a visual beacon to locate products within convenience stores. The display is a large graphic replication of a bottle that utilized untapped real estate to draw attention to the brand with a component structure that allowed it to fit various sized cooler doors.
The second platinum was awarded to 3M's display shipper holding the new apple-shaped Post-It® note dispenser. With its attention-grabbing header and the waterfall layering shelves that allowed the product to be shopped easily, sales reflected that consumers connected with the display and the retailer committed to give the product regular aisle placement.
Great Northern won silver awards in the Consumer Electronics channel for the Best Buy end cap it designed for Lexmark International Inc., and in the Home/Hardware channel with the 3M Scotch® Blue Tape NASCAR QTR Pallet. The former teamed the number one Lexmark printer with the launch of a new printer in a color-coded end cap. Each color differentiated product selling points and the interactive header mirrored Lexmark's TV advertising. For 3M, Great Northern designed a quarter pallet display to raise awareness of the 3M/Sherwin Williams-sponsored car running during the 2010 Kansas NASCAR race and drive sales of three different 3M products.
Completing its collection of Design of the Times accolades were three bronze awards earned in the Consumer Electronics, Drug, and Specialty Stores channels:
- Consumer Electronics channel: An angled top and bottom floor display reinforced Verizon Wireless’ checkmark logo while the two-sided display configuration for the off-shelf location in the center of the Best Buy stores helped separate the products from the competition. Sales showed a double-digit increase compared to products sold from the shelf.
- Drug channel: Great Northern created a four-sided tower with a 15 x 15-inch footprint for Mattel® to fit inside grocery/drug channels. The floor stand unit featured space for graphics and minimal copy to emphasize the Cars 2 product and increase the appeal to children.
- Specialty Stores channel: Mattel's® offset-printed, die-cut floor display supported the release of the Disney-Pixar Cars 2 movie with vivid, animated graphics and use of the color red to reinforce the brand. The design resembled a stand typically found in theater lobbies to create visual impact and bring attention to the Cars 2 die-cast vehicles for sale.
The Design of the Times competition is open to any company—ranging from consumer product manufacturers, retailers, advertising agencies, point-of-purchase design firms, package design firms and path-to-purchase design firms. All entries were sent to Minneapolis for the first round of judging and finalists were invited to display their in-store activation tactics at the Shopper Marketing Expo.
A complete list of Design of the Times winners can be downloaded at http://www.shoppermarketexpo.com/dot/.
Great Northern’s winners this year included:
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Mountain Dew Cooler Door Oversize Bottle: As part of Mountain Dew's "Paint the Store Green" campaign designed to flood convenience store channels with multiple forms of point-of-purchase, this signage utilized untapped real estate for branding. The oversized bottle graphic created a wow factor to draw attention to the brand at the cooler door. Unlike most cooler door signage, which loses impact against the backdrop of colorful products that sit behind the glass, this large graphic replication of a bottle quickly identifies the brand and creates a visual beacon to locate Mountain Dew products. The component structure of the design enabled it to be positioned onto various sized cooler doors. |
3M Post-It® Apple Shipper: The off-shelf placement of the display shipper and its fun, simple header quickly drew attention to the new apple-shaped Post-It note dispenser. Waterfall layering of the shelves allowed the consumers to shop the product easily. Sales reflected that consumers connected with the display, which resulted in a commitment from the retailer to give the product regular placement in aisle. |
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3M Scotch® Blue Tape NASCAR® QTR Pallet: Designed for use in Sherwin Williams stores, this quarter pallet display needed to raise awareness of the 3M/Sherwin Williams-sponsored car running during the 2010 Kansas NASCAR event and drive sales of three different 3M products commonly used on painting projects by professional painters. The display featured a large replica of the Sherwin Williams NASCAR on top of the display with the distinctive checkered flag in the background and bold NASCAR images on the sides to draw consumers' attention. The header emphasized "Paint Solutions" to showcase the larger product mix, while the callouts on the shelves identified the individual products and bonus offerings. |
Best Buy Lexmark™ Pinnacle/Genesis End Cap: The display strategy teamed the number one Lexmark printer, Pinnacle, with the launch of the company’s new Genesis printer. Color-coded messaging differentiated each product’s unique selling point. The interactive header with dynamic graphics mirrored Lexmark’s TV advertising and communicated the benefits of the products. LED lights incorporated into the header illuminated the features listed on the back wall and back lit the products to create interest for consumers. |
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Mattel® Cars 2 Character Car Floor Stand: The simple lines of this display emphasized the Cars 2 product, provided maximum exposure and facilitated the shopping experience for the consumer. The four-sided tower had a 15-inch-by-15-inch footprint to fit into grocery/drug channels with limited floor space and was easy to execute. The unit featured significant space for graphics with four vertical graphic panels and a four-sided header, yet held 80 die-cast cars. With minimal copy, the main emphasis of the display was on the character and the free gift with purchase offer to increase the overall appeal to children. |
Verizon Wireless/Best Buy® Floor Display: The angled top and bottom of this floor display reinforced the Verizon checkmark logo and created excitement to overcome the clutter in the prepaid cellular phone category. Non-specific phone graphics allowed for the display of different phone models from the store inventory and extended the life of the display. The off-shelf location in the center aisle of the Best Buy stores, made possible by the two-sided display configuration, helped to separate the products from the competition. Sales showed a double-digit increase, compared to the products sold from the shelf. |
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Mattel Cars 2 Character Car Floor Stand (2): The offset-printed, die-cut floor display supported the highly anticipated release of the Disney•Pixar Cars 2 movie with vivid, animated graphics featuring the popular character imagery and use of the color red to reinforce the brand. The unit's design resembled a movie standee typically found in theater lobbies to create visual impact and bring attention to the Cars 2 die-cast vehicles for sale. The offer for a free Cars 2 backpack with purchase helped to close the sale. Early sales figures point to a successful program. |
About Great Northern Corporation
Great Northern Corporation designs, manufactures and distributes packaging solutions and point-of-sale display programs for industrial, commercial and retail products. Its operations include: Consumer Packaging & Display, temporary and permanent displays, point-of-sale packaging and fulfillment services; Commercial Packaging, corrugated and custom packaging; Laminations VBoard® edge protection; and Rollguard protective packaging systems for rolled and cylindrical products. Headquartered in Appleton, Wis., Great Northern has more than 1,000 employees and operations in seven states.