Food Advertisers Wasted £50m On Poorly-Targeted Ads

According to the CIA Medianetwork FMCG Report, food advertisers wasted nearly £50 million on badly-targeted UK television advertising campaigns in 1994. Food advertisers tended to adopt too broad an approach to their advertising campaigns; by focusing on their core consumers and using media other than television, FMCG advertisers could save 10%, or around £50 million for 1994.

The report also found that there has been a drop in the amount of money spent on advertising by food manufacturers; total spend by food advertisers for 1994 was £483 million, down 4% year on year. Television dominated the spend, with 83% share of budgets.

The most prolific food advertising category is ready-to-eat cereals; this sector’s advertising spend was up by 23% year on year to £104 million at the end of 1994, primarily because of increased spends for established brands. Unilever was the biggest spender, £94 million, followed by Kellogg, with £69m. Quaker’s spend increased by 121% year on year to £6.7 million, mainly due to new product launches. In the margarine and low fat spread sector, Van der Bergh raised its spend by 40% to £17.4 million, largely to support Flora and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. St Ivel increased its spend by 37% to £3.9 million mainly to support Gold.

The ice-cream sector had one of the steadiest spends overall, with advertising expenditure in the whole sector up just 2% to £25 million. Among manufacturers the picture was more extreme; Walls lifted its spend by 19% to £15.8m, and Mars dropped its spend by 30% to £5 million.

The coffee sector spend fell by 7% to £32 million, and tea droppped 15% to £27 million. Among the crisps and snacks sector, Golden Wonder dropped its ad expenditure by 47% to £1.7 million. Walkers Smiths, raised its budget by 26% year on year to £11.2 million.

CIA Medianetwork is available from Mike Anderson at CIA for £50:

0171 633 9999