More than meets the eye: on the importance of retail cigarette merchandising.

Point-of-sale activity is important enough to get the attention of the senior management of transnational firms and to be the subject of sophisticated research aimed to realise "intrusive visibility" better through creative design, command attention and convey brand imagery. The result of this is the promotional "positioning" of products, and the creation of both friendly familiarity and perceived popularity. The intended results include increased sales of cigarettes as a product or "category growth".