Rethinking Retail Activation: From Point of Sale to Point of Experience

Today’s Romanian shopper enters the store with two seemingly conflicting expectations. Consumers increasingly expect relevance, guidance and personalization throughout their shopping journey, while financial pressure is making every purchase decision more deliberate. Nearly half of Romanian households say they are barely making ends meet, and 7 in 10 plan to spend less on everyday goods.

In this context, visibility alone is no longer enough. The traditional Point of Sale needs to evolve into a Point of Experience – not by adding entertainment for its own sake, but by creating a meaningful reason to stop, interact, discover and, ultimately, choose.

At Fieldstar, we see this experience taking very different forms, because there is no one-size-fits-all solution in shopper marketing. The right experience starts with the category, the brand, the product and the shopper mission.

Sometimes, it means personalization: for Share a Coke, we turn a standard purchase into something uniquely personal, delivering more than 150,000 personalized cans nationwide.

Sometimes, it means gamification and technology. For Schweppes Purple, we translated one of the product’s defining attributes – the fizz – into an interactive digital challenge.

Sometimes, it means building a multi-sensory experience around the product. For the launch of Danone’s Activia Kefir, we developed an integrated in-store activation combining sensory POSMs – tactile textures, layered 2D elements and lighting, with sampling designed to take product trial one step further. Together with a mixologist, we created three dedicated smoothie recipes, one for each Activia Kefir variety: plain, strawberry and blueberry. Those were served in cocktail glasses across selected top retail locations. Custom sampling stands combining cut-outs and different materials, including wood textures, completed the experience, turning a traditional tasting moment into a more engaging way to discover the product, its versatility and new consumption occasions.

And sometimes, the strongest experience starts with the product itself.

Through live cooking shows and premium tasting formats, we have transformed traditional sampling into product discovery: shoppers can see the product prepared, understand different consumption occasions, taste it and make their purchase decision within the same journey. Our Maggi activation, for example, shifted sampling into a live culinary experience, while Rana combined authentic Italian preparation with immediate retail conversion.

But creating these experiences comes with very real constraints. Retail footprints are getting smaller, retailer requirements remain strict, budgets are under pressure and production costs continue to challenge ROI. The creative question therefore becomes more interesting: how much impact can we have within a limited space and investment?

For us, moving from POS to POE does not mean moving away from sales. Quite the opposite. It means making the point of sale work harder – turning every square meter into an opportunity for relevance, every interaction into a reason to choose, and every investment into measurable value for both shopper and brand.