What a moment can do…

… Namely the moment when we make up our minds to buy Ariel or Pepsi washing powder, or to buy that nice little shirt for our kid who already has 15 nice little shirts like that… According to a survey by POPAI Benelux, 70 per cent of purchase decisions are made on the spot in supermarkets, while this percentage is 74 for drugstores, 75 for do it yourself stores and 65 for stores selling electric appliances. As a result, development is focused on the points of sale, using tools like digital displays. Though only 25,000 displays are in use at the moment in Western Europe, they seem to have a strong impact already and have been received well by customers. Retailers also welcome digital media as a new source of income. Brands seem to be loosing faith in classic media, while digital media is known to be effective at the points of sale. The use of electronic price tags is the present trend in France, the European leader in this field. For example, the Swedish ICA chain can change the prices of 500-2,000 items in 5-10 minutes. minutes. Another enormous advantage of the electronic system is that as soon as a new price appears on the shelf display, it will also appear in the cash register. The third major advantage of electronic price tags is that paper and labour can both be saved. Investment is returned in less than two years. According to a report I have seen recently, Western European brands spend 48 per cent of their marketing budgets on mass media, 12 per cent on printed materials, 10 on the Internet, another 10 on outdoor media and the remaining 20 per cent is allocated to POP communication. I wonder, how these proportions would look in Hungary. Regarding the 20 per cent spent on POP communication, promotional displays account for the biggest part with 38 per cent, while other functions get between 2-15 per cent. Terms like ATL and BTL, or thinking along lines defined by these is certainly regarded as outdated in Western Europe. It is time for us to start thinking about a single, unified marketing mix as well.