-----Original Message----Subject: Marketing Spend info required for audit purposes
Dear all,
BBC is being audited by the NAO and as part of the information we have to provide I need to make a
statement about the size of BBC Marketing Spend compared to other organisation's.
We know from a few individuals' experience that the BBC overall annual marketing spend (about £50M)
is significantly lower than in the private sector but ideally we would like to document this therefore I
wanted to seek your help and check if any of you has ever come across an official report showing
average marketing spend by industry sector for example?
Alternatively, would you be prepared to share with me the figure for your organisation?
Thanks in advance for your help,
Marie-Anne Chaudron
Senior Category Manager - Marketing Services
BBC Procurement
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hello Marie-Ann
There isn't anything published that looks at average marketing spend by industry or sector; however
there is information on advertising to sales ratio by sector. This might serve as an alternative in the
absence of average marketing spend?
I'm in the process of trying to dig out a source reference for you; I'll send it through once I've found it.
The only other thing I can think of is looking at media spend by sector (and brand) - annual, quarterly
and monthly spends are available from Nielsen Data (used to be known as Register MEAL in my day).
Hope this helps!
Best wishes
Kerry
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Marie-Anne,
I'd suggest contacting ISBA who might have the industry figures you're looking for.
Birds Eye, part of Unilever, which was my last company, spent around £25M on a turnover of c. £440M.
Unilever at a total global level spends 13% of its E40 billion turnover on A&P; the rough figure in the UK
would be about £200 million.
Best wishes,
Jerry
Marie-Anne,
I’ve heard figures around 2% of turnover as a rough benchmark in the private sector. In the Home Office
we spend around £86M p.a. out of which £16M is spent on advertising. It may be worth you talking to
COI (Ian Hamilton) as they do most of the media buying for the public sector.
Hope this helps
Gerry
Marie-Anne,
Unfortunately, I do not know of a report. However, without divulging specific figures for Vodafone, the
UK budget is certainly higher than the £50m you have outlined.
If you would like to discuss please do not hesitate to contact me.
Best regards,
Fiona
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hello again Marie-Anne
The source I was thinking of was the Advertising Association Yearbook. The latest published edition
has figures for 2005 (so it's quite out of date) and it doesn't have a category for Broadcasting as far as I
know. Don't know how much use it will be to you but it was all could think of!
Hope it helps and best wishes
Kerry
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hi Marie-Anne,
It's very difficult to get a fix on the "normal" ratio of marketing spend to turnover. As you said, every
sector is different.
As a broad rule of thumb, Gerry Marlow's 2% is the accepted norm for FMCG and retailers with high
volume, repeat purchases; whereas manufacturers with occasional, but higher value purchases such as
cars and washing machines tend to fall within the 10-15% range.
If you're a member of ISBA, Debbie Morrison there might be a useful source of info in this area. If you're
not, give me a call and I'll ask her to dig out some numbers for us.
Hope that helps.
Any news on how you want to follow up our discussion last week, Marie-Anne?
Have a great weekend.
Best wishes.
Ian Hamilton from COI
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------HI Marie
Thanks for your note – as you may know we are a membership organisation so only really work for
members so would not be able to help you. But as it happens I’m afraid I have no information ref your
query anyway – why not try the advertising association library or WARC website – they may be able to
help.
Kind regards
Debbie
Debbie Morrison from ISBA