Advertising Age reports on a draft report prepared be Deloitte Consulting for the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), saying that “the fastest-growing medium isn't the internet, but shopper marketing, where retailers and package-goods marketers are shifting hundreds of millions of dollars -- doubling their expenditure in the past three years alone.”
In-store spending, according to the story, “has grown from 3% of the overall marketing budgets of the 19 package-goods manufacturers surveyed in 2004 to 6% this year. The manufacturers expect it to reach 8% of marketing budgets by 2010 … The growing importance of shopper marketing could tilt the industry's balance of power even more toward retailers, which, besides being the distribution channel, also ultimately own the fastest-growing advertising medium for their suppliers too.”
However, Ad Age notes that “the growth comes despite the fact that marketers have yet to figure out how to define, measure or administer their shopper-marketing efforts.”
In-store spending, according to the story, “has grown from 3% of the overall marketing budgets of the 19 package-goods manufacturers surveyed in 2004 to 6% this year. The manufacturers expect it to reach 8% of marketing budgets by 2010 … The growing importance of shopper marketing could tilt the industry's balance of power even more toward retailers, which, besides being the distribution channel, also ultimately own the fastest-growing advertising medium for their suppliers too.”
However, Ad Age notes that “the growth comes despite the fact that marketers have yet to figure out how to define, measure or administer their shopper-marketing efforts.”
- KC's View:
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In essence, Ad Age is observing that marketers are simply throwing money at a problem without having any idea if it is really working, or how to find out if it is really working. Isn’t that sort of the definition of desperation?
Sounds about right to me.
