2 Things 'Gangnam Style' Can Teach Us About Visual Merchandising

The first time my friend posted a link of the music video of Gangnam Style on my Facebook, I did't give significant attention on it because I thought that I was a spam – not until Rom Salvar asked me an information about the song.

I pressume that you have heard this 2012 K-pop single by the South Korean rapper PSY, but if you have not, have a time to watch its music video on YouTube.

As of this post, its official music videdo in YouTube has 159,710,785 views, 732,319 comments and 611,976 favourites. Even notable artists like Robbie Williams, Simon Pegg and Josh Groban have talked about Gangnam Style. So what it can teach us about visual merchandising?

1. Awaken People's Senses

It is a Korean song and most of its listners, including me, do not understand the lyrics, but if you have heard the music on good loud speaker, I am sure that you can’t resist to move your body and dance with the beat.

I was around 12 midnight when I watched the music video and I was already sleepy, but when the video started playing, I was like injected with adrinaline because of its rythm and humor.
This is the kind of energy we need in visula merchandising – something that awakens the senses of the shoppers wherein they cannot resist to move their hands, pick the items, bring them to the cashiers counter and pay.

To awaken people's semses means to provide a stimulus which will lead to make people do a positive reaction. I said, positive reaction.

2. Create Something Memorable

Aside from humor and catchy rhythm, the unsual dance moves of Psy, the singer, made Gangnam Style memorable. Even Britney Spears twitted that she is thinking that she should possibly learn the choreography of Gangnam Style.

On my post about the principles of an effective window display, I mentioned that in advertising, we associate the word 'memorable' to 'recall', which means to become memorable, people can easily recall what was being preneted or display.

In visual merchandising, you cannot expect that every effort you have exerted will have the same result. You cannot expect that when you present the product in visually appeling manner, customers will immediately pick and buy them, BUT when your product presentation have captured thier attention and they have spent some seconds connecting with the product, they will remember it when they need that kind of product on the next days or they may refer it to their friends. This means more foottraffic to you store.

So if you don’t know how to become effective in visual merchandising, just shout, “Oppa Gangnam Style!”

Thank you for reading. Godspeed!