The POPAI (Point of Purchase Advertising Institute) was established in 1936 and is an international trade association for marketing in retail industry.
It serves as the premiere source of education, learning and future-oriented research in retail marketing. For over 50 years, it recognizes the most effective and innovative in store and at retail displays with gold, silver and bronze Outstanding Marketing Achievement awards (OMA). The OMA was given in four forms, a silver statuette (best of category), antique bronze statuette (best of class), gold statuette (best of industry) and a Cartier Baccarat Crystal Obelisk atop an ebony base (display of the year). The statuette features a stylized version of the cigar store indian, one of America’s earliest forms of p.o.p. advertising.
Kenner’s Star Wars line was one of the most successful toy lines in history. The line defined the 3 3/4-inch scale toy and set the standard for movie merchandising moving forward. How the toys looked in the stores was at least as important as how they worked at home. To that end, Kenner’s Star Wars displays were eye catching as well as functional. As it turns out, from the very beginning, they were also award winning within the toy industry.
In 1978, Kenner received the POPAI Outstanding Marketing Achievement Silver Award for their “temporary floor display of action figures”. This is the statuette that Kenner’s representative received for this honor. Temporary, in this case, simply means the product could be removed and the display was not a permanent fixture.
Thanks to the POPAI for providing additional information about this award to us, as well as scans from the original 1978 Award Program. Additional thanks to the owner for giving us the opportunity to share this with everyone and to The Star Wars Collectors Archive for color images of the ‘Star Wars Action Figure Floor Display’ that won this award.
