In-store activities consistently rank highest in ROI study

Ad Age is trying to make the best of the bad economic situation here by taking a look at which marketing activities seem to deliver the best results and bang-for-your-buck. Not surprisingly, shopper marketing and in-store activities were ranked first by both product manufacturers and retailers, indicating that, much like my own recent guess about the value of digital signage, etc. versus other media:

A recent survey by Deloitte Consulting and the Grocery Manufacturers Association, in fact, gives shopper marketing higher marks for return on investment than most conventional media. It also found that big package-goods marketers are jumping on the shopper-marketing bandwagon fast, and players who had lingered on the sidelines are ramping up quickly. But retailers are ramping up their own shopper-marketing departments even faster, the survey found -- creating a crush for the same relatively small pool of experienced talent.

Unfortunately, while everybody agrees that shopper marketing is useful and efficient, few agree on what  shopper marketing actually means. Consequently, packaging, merchandising, trade promotion and a whole bunch of other related things sometimes get lumped into that category, and sometimes don't.  Further, it's not totally clear what role retail media networks play in today's typical shopper marketing solutions (again, sometimes they're included -- particularly if they already exist already -- and sometimes they aren't).

Tags: digital signage, retail media, shopper marketing