ABSTRACT
Advertising is expensive, its impact is difficult to judge and it usually takes a while before it has any influence on your customers. In fact, Philip Kotler (perhaps today’s most quoted marketing expert), goes so far as to say that ‘only the very brave or the very ignorant . . . can say exactly what advertising does in the marketplace’.1 As a result (coupled with the increasing fragmentation of the media and the audience), many companies think that they should cut back expenditure on advertising and redirect it into sales promotions, direct mail, sponsorship, public relations and other forms of marketing communications. Indeed, advertising’s share of the communications mix declined in many sectors towards the end of the twentieth century – particularly during the recessions of the early 1980s and 1990s when companies sought to save money on promotional activities.
