Damocles’ sword and in-store marketing

Efficiency of in-store promotional tools had been considered to be immeasurable for a long time. This is changing however, as a result of trade marketing methods becoming more widely used. The time has come for product placement and promotional tools to get the attention they deserve and the methods for measuring their effectiveness are available now. According to a recent survey by ACNielsen, TV and press advertisements have a higher than average effect on Hungarian consumers. Whereas methods for measuring the effectiveness of ATL advertising have long been used, this was not the case for BTL tools in stores. „Modern marketing needs comprehensive communicational solutions. Communication that is adequate for both the target group and the brand promise” – says Ulrike Hefter, a senior consultant of ACNielsen in a study. “The risk of distributing marketing budget inappropriately is threatening all marketing departments like Damocles’ sword.”
A new service offered by ACNielsen in Hungary is Instore Audit, which can evaluate shelf placements and in-store promotion tools. Insotre Audit can provide answers to questions like: “Are product placements, promotions and prices working the way I intended them to work?” or “If we can see where we are compared to our competitors in terms of sales, why cannot we compare in-store activities ?” Instore Audit offers many services for product categories and the service called “modelling and analysis” can also be based on it.