Beacon branding is singularly one of the most important elements of effective merchandising. Look at the following packshots and see if you can identify the brands.

These pack shots are some of the most recognised brands in pharmacy and can be used to assist the customer in identifying product categories. Large pharmaceutical companies spend a lot of money on television and other consumer advertising to ensure their brands are very well recognised. These brands often have packaging which is widely recognised even if the consumer doesn't know the name of the specific product, meaning these 'beacon brands' help customers identify not only the specific product but the category for which that product represents. As demonstrated by the above exercise, all of the wording could be removed from a product's packaging and yet a customer could quickly and easily identify the brands.

Most customers subconsciously use colours and patterns termed as 'visual triggers' to navigate around the pharmacy and locate their desired product. Brand leaders may not always be their purchase intention but the beacon brands help them quickly and effectively locate the category they wish to browse.

Subconsciously, shoppers can see everything but automatically deselect irrelevant imagery. This was demonstrated by an experiment conducted by a leading supermarket. They wanted to sell more of their own brand baked beans so they moved them to eye level and moved the leading brand to the bottom of the shelving. The experiment resulted in the sales of baked beans going down rather than increasing the sales of the own brand. This is because consumers used the brand leader as a beacon so they could locate the baked beans section.