Visual Communication of Festive Shop Window Displays with Customers

Abstract

The object of the authors’ research was the festive Christmas window displays of brick-and-mortar retail stores. The main objective of the research was to identify the dominant colours, symbols and signage of Christmas festive displays of retail brick-and-mortar stores across different product categories and countries around the world. A total of 229 retail Christmas window displays, from 14 countries around the world, across 11 assortment categories, ready for the Christmas season in 2020, 2021 and 2022, were examined. The theme of Christmas resonates in retail store windows from the beginning of November until 24 December. After this date, the issue of sales dominates the window displays. The main method of the research was the content analysis used to analyse the documents in order to determine the frequency of occurrence of the pre-given categories. Given that our interpretation of Christmas is based on its Christian foundation, it is not surprising that the main universal colours and symbols of interpretation identified are rooted in Christianity, while other, complementary ones (e.g. Santa Claus with a reindeer sleigh, a snowy landscape, or a gingerbread house) and the signage are the result of changes in popular culture over time.