Airports as One of the Fastest Developing Brand Touchpoints

The airport retail is a fast-growing, nuanced and insightful sector, where creativity, communication, emotional intelligence, cultural differences & subtleties, and market distinctions play a huge role for brands and their sales and marketing excellence.

Airport sales are not only growing faster than traditional retail but also allowing omnichannel brand-engaging opportunities. Besides, they are certainly breathing new life into the most traditional media in marketing: out-of-home advertising. Branding with its ability to tell stories about a place and its people has immense role in your brand stand-out potential.

To make the long story short – you can tell a branding is good if you could single it out at an airport.

Certain categories are well-associated with airport retail:

• Confectionery & fine food

• Fashion & accessories

• Perfumes and cosmetics

• Alcohol

• Tobacco products

We shall zoom into the confectionery one specially for the readers of biscuit people.

You have two main opportunities to engage consumers with your brands: online and offline. All over the world, brands are experimenting with technologies to have more meaningful exchanges with mobile and connected target audience, which is constantly on the go.

One of the most premium of all outdoor locations is the airport, the gateway to nations and cultures. With more and more travelers logging into airports’ Wi-Fi, brands can use technologies to target consumers by location or push deals and offers as they pass by.

Other possibilities are allowing customers to book services via an app prior to arrival or order food to a gate.

Ultimately, the airport retail experience is about far more than just the products. The branding focus for airport retail includes several components. As a brand owner, you should keep in mind several concrete areas within the airport store to enhance your communication:

· Captivating and head-turning visual merchandising are all about embracing a concept and design into a momentum behind the retail proposition.

· Eye-catching store windows should be inviting and opening a new world of experience.

· Limited editions or special offers merchandising are especially lucrative.

· The cash desks should serve as another POS opportunity.

Regardless whether your target audience might be frantically too early for fear of security queues, wait for a delayed flight, or simply have a 10-minute window to browse through duty-free, time is limited. To create a positive interaction with your brand, make that time enjoyable.

Create an oasis away from noise, clutter, and rush. Confectionery products are keen to indulgence. Create an experience that lets people indulge, enjoy the moment, treat themselves to something sweet, tasty and mouth-watering.

The mighty differentiating point is to create an experience that disrupts, not interrupts, the passengers. An experience that is worth a photo even if they’re just running past on the way to the gate. You need to be impactful to the point that travellers will slow down to have a look, and preferably take a photo of your activation. Trigger their senses! Not only this, but it needs to be impressive enough that they share it on social media. A truly creative brand engagement that adds something different to the retail surroundings will stand out here.

Consider scanning through airport data with precision as it could allow you unprecedented direct access to your desired consumers, targeting by season, by terminal or airline.

An airport is a unique place, an island of no land or borders, a gate to the world or the way home. A consumer on holiday is totally different than the same consumer at home. They are open to new experiences and open to the brands that facilitate them. A business traveller has another mindset too. Take this as an opportunity to introduce limited editions, to test new products, to offer something memorable and unique.

To conclude, take the airport as a testing ground for your wildest brand ambitions. An airport might serve as a gate to the world for your brand as well. A time travel too. With so many opportunities at hand, all you need to do is prepare well.

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