Visual Merchandising

last issue of this eventful year. ‘Chandrayan’ project, ‘Financial Meltdown’, India’s performance at Olympics, politics, entertainment, sports—all have had their own share in making the year eventful. It has also been eventful for the readers of Advertising Express as they have a color magazine now.

In this issue, we have articles listed under five sections and a case study. The cover story of the issue is “Visual Merchandising”. Marketers adopt various promotional strategies for the purpose of increasing sales volume. Visual merchandising is to organize the retail store such that the visual impact thus created is capable of attracting customers and making their shopping experience a real pleasure. The article discusses some aspects of visual merchandising in the current competitive business scenario. The Retail section has one article, “Consumer Relation Management in Retail Sector”. This descriptive article investigates the relationship management issues and the policies formulated for the same, in the retail industry.

The Advertising section has three articles. “Outdoor Advertising” is a peep into the advertiser’s latest media vehicle which has the advantages of flexibility, high exposure rate, low-cost, and low competition. “Role of Negative Advertisement in Business” discusses the varied dimensions of those advertisements that portray the negative attributes of the competitors’ brand rather than the positive attributes of one’s own brand to achieve the objectives of acceptability, differentiation, market share, etc. The last piece in the section is “The Ethical Dimensions in Advertising” which is a presentation of the gap between reality and claims in advertising campaigns.

The section on Media has two articles. The conflict between content and quality is the central theme of the article “Media Being Commercialized: The Impact on Content Quality”. The emerging media vehicle and its marketing dimensions form the central content of the article “Bluetooth Marketing: Future of Mobile Marketing”.

“Celebrity Endorsements of Personalities: American Presidential Election 2008” is a presentation of this clichéd topic in the context of American presidential election. The article, “Product Design: The Indian Scenario” takes a look at the role of institutions, government and industry bodies in promoting the design culture. These two are the articles in the section Strategy section.

The section titled Perspective has two articles. “Engagement Marketing: A New Dimension in Marketing” focuses on the meaning of engagement marketing, different types of engagement, how they work and relevant strategies. The contemporary aspects of reality shows are captured in “Reality Shows Rocking Small Screens”.

The final part of this issue has a case study, “Advertising and Branding Strategies of Staples: The ‘Easy’ Campaign”.

Hope this compilation will make a good reading.

- Suresh Garimella