• Ad Age, Thursday, September 27, 2007 11:15 AM

A new study by Deloitte Consulting says that retailers and package-goods marketers have doubled their expenditures in "shopper marketing" during the past three years alone, making its compound annual growth even faster than Internet advertising.

Despite the growth, shopper marketing still lacks any generally accepted definition, a draft report notes. Views vary on whether trade promotion, private-label marketing by retailers or advertising that occurs outside the store but directed at a retailer's shoppers should be included. Officially, the report opts for the broadest possible definition: "All marketing stimuli designed to engage the shopper, build brand equity and lead him/her to make a purchase while he/she is in 'shopper mode.'"

The study finds that shopper marketing 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. Only 30% put primary responsibility for shopper marketing in their brand or marketing groups, 45% put it in sales, 15% put it within a market research or analytics group and the remaining 10% divided it between groups or had a separate unit for it.

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