How effective is your advertising?

The development of market segmentation over the past few years means that most retail companies now have a much shrewder idea of the customers they want to reach than they used to have. Unfortunately the media in which the retailers advertise are rarely so clearly targeted. So how effective is retail advertising? In a recent Management Horizons survey, a third of the retailers questioned thought that more than half of their advertising budgets were wasted; some top retailers admitted that their only test of advertising effectiveness was “gut feel”. Retailers have been big spenders on advertising for quite a few years; total retail advertising budgets are now running at around £510m. This could mean an awful lot of wasted money. With this in mind, Management Horizons recently put on a conference on the subject as part of its RIS Seminar programme. Speakers came from Benetton, J. Walter Thompson, Rich's, and Granada.