It's a pity there is so much misunderstanding about what this spend is.
Most people seem to have a reasonable understanding of the "sales" side of the advertising business, where you are trying to get someone to buy your products. That's not what this is. This is the marketing spend, where you are trying to get people to know about your product.
This isn't your typical search engine, facebook or retargetting spend. A very large amount of this is video and/or display advertising, and the intention isn't to drive click-though. Instead it is to drive "brand awareness".
The theory here in the FMCG (fast moving consumer goods - think toothpaste or shampoo) segment where P&G plays is that a consumer needs to be familiar with a brand before they make a choice to buy it - especially if it is more expensive.
So the sequence goes:
Make people aware of brand (brand advertising: TV ads, Video ads, Stunts etc)
Get people to try brand (special offers, discounts, co-selling)
Let retailers fight for the sales between themselves (display setups in shops, retailer discounts, recommendation engines in online shopping, maybe click-through advertising)
This "brand awareness" is something which is much harder to measure (I think survey panels is the state-of-the-art still). The digital advertising industry still hasn't solved multi-touch attribution in the sales side of the business, and this is way earlier in the buying cycle.
Most people seem to have a reasonable understanding of the "sales" side of the advertising business, where you are trying to get someone to buy your products. That's not what this is. This is the marketing spend, where you are trying to get people to know about your product.
This isn't your typical search engine, facebook or retargetting spend. A very large amount of this is video and/or display advertising, and the intention isn't to drive click-though. Instead it is to drive "brand awareness".
The theory here in the FMCG (fast moving consumer goods - think toothpaste or shampoo) segment where P&G plays is that a consumer needs to be familiar with a brand before they make a choice to buy it - especially if it is more expensive.
So the sequence goes:
Make people aware of brand (brand advertising: TV ads, Video ads, Stunts etc)
Get people to try brand (special offers, discounts, co-selling)
Let retailers fight for the sales between themselves (display setups in shops, retailer discounts, recommendation engines in online shopping, maybe click-through advertising)
This "brand awareness" is something which is much harder to measure (I think survey panels is the state-of-the-art still). The digital advertising industry still hasn't solved multi-touch attribution in the sales side of the business, and this is way earlier in the buying cycle.