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©2007 by Dr. M. Mustoe

A PODCAST PRESENTATION OF THE PAPER: Point of Purchase Perceptions: Selling Products with Place Tap on the little controller for the podcast......... Examples Page Handout Supplied at the Meeting Rice a Roni Up on the Web 15 August 2007 8:08 pm 87 F. Partly Cloudy Haze and Smoke from forest fires. email: mmustoe@eou.edu

Thank you to Jim and Penny Moore, Island City, OR for their help in the construction of the poster board. Thanks to Courtney and Luke for helping me haul my stuff into the presentation and the great tour of SF, CA.

Abstract
Point of Sales or Point of Purchase (POS or POP) advertising has a long history of linking products with the advertising images on signs, wrappers and product labels. For many products using this form of advertising, a sense or notion of place plays an important role in identifying the product to the consumer. Although textual references can build powerful identities with products and places, i.e. Pendleton Shirts ...a shirt manufactured in Pendleton, Oregon... images are also used by advertisers to make direct and sometimes subliminal references to a product's place/landscape connections. Sometimes these may have little to do with the product's origin. This presentation will explore how the imagery of place is used to sell a product at the point of purchase level. Examples of labels will be shown. Taking the landscape categories from D.W. Meinig's, Beholding the Eye a simple analysis model will be presented that students can use in evaluating POP images in the context of places and landscapes. David Lowenthal suggests that "beyond that of any other discipline... the subject matter of geography approximates the world of general discourse; the palpable present, the everyday life of man on earth, is seldom far from our professional concerns." Thus, even a lowly candy bar wrapper may have something of geography etched upon it! Consider the "Idaho Spud", the "Mountain Bar" or the "Old Faithful"...confections, all covered up at the point of sale in wrappers steeped in images of place!

Rice A Roni Rendezvous

A1...the class, not the sauce....With a definite economic connection to the city of San Francisco, one wonders whether the images on a box of Rice A Roni are there for the product or the place. Both have become synonymous with one another and clearly the marketing of this product....Rice A Roni....the__(you fill it in)___treat, has taken advantage of the power of its place identity. The human story of how this product was brought into being exemplifies the cultural diversity of this urban setting. In some cases companies attempt to forge links between a product and imaginary places in an attempt to gain this kind of product notoriety through an identity with place. Is there really a"Valley of the Jolly Green Giant," a land of "Keebler Elves" where Ernie lives in a hollow tree and bakes cookies? Yes there is, perceptually. Furthermore these places exist for the same reason that the Napa valley is associated with wine and orange marmalade is stuck to Dundee, Scotland. Sometimes the association is hidden but none the less pragmatically there. Ranch dressing was first introduced in a place in California named the Hidden Valley Guest Ranch. Thus, the historic identity that Rice A Roni has with the place of San Francisco, is like the word chocolate identified with the country of Switzerland, Georgia with peaches, Washington with Apples. Place is powerful! Did you know that you can take a tour of San Francisco with your taste buds? Rice A Roni says there is a perceptual visit to the Bay Area with every bite.....Check out their excellent website and the history of Rice A Roni in the city by the bay.

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Point of Purchase Categorizations
To try and categorize labels into some form of organization and visual structure is somewhat reflective of the historical-geographic methods folklorists have taken in the past to attempt to identify folk tales presenting common themes and genres. As Lauri Honko suggests in a review of Christine Goldberg's analysis of "A Tale of Three Oranges" the historic-geographic method places the analyst in a"paradigmatically precarious situation". Although this structure is admitently drawn from, the hypothetical oikotypifcations surrounding these images, contemporary labels are much less variant in structure than the textual content of historic folklore. Additionally, most, if not all of what is assumed to be expressed in these images, by virtue of their contemporary and commercial nature, can be readily tested with simple questioning strategies directed, in many cases directly to the departments and individuals responsible for their stemma.

The stochastic nature of imagery and art is also found in advertising art and design. Thus, any attempt to delineate this art into broad categories, genres, or motifs, is bound to get complex by default. To try and eliminate the potential for unwieldiness, a naturalistic design was first incorporated to form a series of questions. These questions were derived from the observation of a large sample of label. Refined from these questions a general matrix of motif identifiers emerged that formulated the Point of Purchase Standard Landscape Image Classification (POPSLICL) The questions include:

Does the label's image reflect the product's origin?

Does the name of the product on the label reflect the origin of the product or cultural source or hearth?

Is there a subliminal relationship between the landscape presented on the label to the use of the product?

Does the landscape on the label attempt to emulate the cosmetic or physical character of the product?

Is the landscape image on the label rendered in a symbolic, abstracted or realistic style?

Is the image on the label rendered artistically or photographically?

Thus, a label may exhibit a variety of either Class A, B, C or D and characteristics of a design subcategory.

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Be sure to visit the Examples Page and get the Handout Supplied at the Meeting.

On Kneading Geography

The package above are only three examples of a wide array of (very visually appealing) package designs which Franz Bakery successfully uses in their point of purchase presentation of their Variety Breads selection. These place images are set in locations all around the Pacific Northwest. Some have direct connections to ingredient origins such as the "Oregon Bread Western Hazelnut" made with hazelnuts, a regional Western Oregonian term for Filberts, and traditional regional recipes such as the Poulsbo Original. Poulsbo is a place in Washington State....and a bread recipe has emerged from the heritage associated with its settlement. Other locations are linked to the bread simply as a source for baking inspiration, as described in the bread liner notes below.