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2 Things ‘Gangnam Style’ Can Teach Us About Visual Merchandising

By Jyppe Alqui on September 14, 2012 — Updated on September 14, 2012

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

I presume that you have heard this 2012 K-pop single by the South Korean rapper PSY whose real name is Jae-Sang Park, but if you have not, have a time to watch its music video on YouTube.

As of this post, its official music video on YouTube has 165,228,552 views and 760,979 comments. 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 listeners from different countries, including me, do not understand the lyrics, but if you have heard the music on a good speaker, I am sure that you can’t resist to move your body and dance with the beat.

It was around 12 midnight when I watched the MV and I was already sleepy, but when the video started playing, I was like injected with adrenaline because of its rhythm and humor.

This is the kind of energy we need in visual 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. Inject them with ‘visual adrenaline’.

To awaken people’s senses means to provide a stimulus which will lead people to do a positive reaction. I said, positive reaction.

2. Create Something Memorable

Aside from humor and catchy rhythm, the unusual dance moves of Psy made Gangnam Style memorable. Even Britney Spears twitted that she is thinking that she should possibly learn the choreography of Gangnam Style. In fact, together Ellen DeGeneres and Psy, Britney Spears danced to the music of Gangnam Style on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

From left: Psy, Britney Spears and Ellen DeGeneres dancing to the music of Gangnam Style. Image and caption from Wikipedia.

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, one would create something that people can easily recall what was being presented or displayed.

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 appealing manner, customers will immediately pick and buy them, BUT when your product presentation have captured people’s 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 foot-traffic to your store. This means opportunity to have good sales.

So if you don’t know how to become effective in visual merchandising, just shout,

“Oppa Gangnam Style!”

Thank you for reading. Godspeed!

Images from Wikipedia.

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6 Comments

Ryan

September 15, 2012 at 8:36 pm

Gangnam Style is really a funny music video and I like it. I have also seen different versions of other countries of this MV. Good that you were able to connect some valuable lessons from this popular song.

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RonLeyba

September 20, 2012 at 3:02 am

And now PSY is taking the internet world/blogging world by storm haha. Great analogy Sir Jyppe.
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Margarita@Decoracion de vidrieras

September 23, 2012 at 6:26 am

Hahahaha nice post! I never thought I could learn anything from silly videos on Youtube, but apparently all subjects are connected to each other. Great way to share wisdom 😉

Cheers.
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Jerome Ibuyan

September 25, 2012 at 4:16 pm

like this post bro. Honestly, when i first heard this song I thought its an arabian song. After few days, after watching Showtime, this became a viral (as of today). I agree with those two points, touching people’s sense and memorability. Gangnam is a easy to memorize song , at the same time, when you hear it, it magnetizes you to dance. hehe
OPPA GANGNAM STYLE! see =)
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Jyppe A. Quidores

September 28, 2012 at 11:04 am

Hello everyone, thanks for the comments and compliments. PSY has really brought the world dancing to the music Gangnam Style. ^_^ The music video parodies are also mushrooming on YouTube and are getting funnier.
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Eugene Conteras

May 7, 2013 at 6:39 pm

Psy likened the Gangnam District to Beverly Hills, California, and said in an interview that he intended in a twisted sense of humour by claiming himself to be “Gangnam Style” when everything about the song, dance, looks, and the music video is far from being such a high class.^,

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