An article in the Wall Street Journal today (sub required) covers Proctor & Gamble "scaling back" its TV spend - by as much as 25% on cable channels and 5% on major channels. The article quotes research showing the overall P&G spend for Q1 this year is down 8%.
The article concedes that this may be a negotiating tactic - in the US advertisers are expected to make major commitments in the annual "upfront" and there is a view that O&G may well buy late in the hope of getting lower prices.
As we know P&G - and Jim Stengel (their Chief Marketing Officer) in particular - have sounded alarm bells about an over reliance on TV before. As the WSJ discusses, much of the money saved by may well end back on TV through product placement and show-mercials - 3 minute films that fill an ad break; P&G ran one last year showing women being made over by a Glam Squad - using P&G brands including Clairol, Crest and Olay.
This is all part of a trend we applaud - experimentation! As the McKinsey paper released a couple of weeks ago stated - advertisers should be spending 20% of their budget on "well structured experiments".
TV should be one of the key areas for this experimentation - with interactive TV, advertiser funded programmes and the fabulous potential of the PVR.
As so often in the past, marketers may well be looking to P&G for a lead again.
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