Promotion 425
Through the line
A trend which may eventually banish this
promotional apartheid has been gaining
momentum in recent years.
Throughout the twentieth century, man-
agers responsible for the implementation of
promotional strategy either enlisted the ser-
vices of experts in the separate disciplines
individually or turned to an advertising agency
for a multidisciplinary solution, accepting that
the latter would impartially decide on a promo-
tional mix appropriate to the circumstances.
The agencies encouraged that belief by claim-
ing to be able to design and deliver (for
example) sales promotion or direct marketing
campaigns internally, but in practice often
subcontracted the job to independent experts
and delivered the outcome to the client at a
mark-up. They were advertising agencies,
staffed by advertising people, despite the
claimed ‘full-service’ capability. It would be
surprising if they did not exhibit a tendency,
putting it no more strongly, to approach promo-
tional strategy from the advertising standpoint
and treat the rest of the promotional mix as a
selection of possible back-up options. It is only
quite recently that specialist ‘below-the-line’
agencies have prospered in their own right, and
most of the largest are in fact quasi-autono-
mous companies within massive holding com-
panies built up by advertising agencies, such as
WPP, Interpublic or Omnicom.
In 1993, what was then the world’s largest
advertising agency, Saatchi & Saatchi, dropped
the word ‘advertising’ from its title and pro-
claimed itself a ‘through-the-line communica-
tions agency’. Five years earlier, the foundingTable 17.1 The promotional mix: shares of UK total annual
expenditure, 1997–2000
1997 1998 1999 2000
(%) (%) (%) (%)
Advertising 43.1 45.6 42.8 43.7
(of which, Internet) (0.03) (0.06) (0.14) (0.40)
Direct 26.7 26.0 28.0 25.7
Sales promotion 23.4 22.8 23.8 24.9^1
Exhibitions 3.2 2.7 2.5 2.6^1
Point-of-purchase 2.2 1.6 1.7^2 1.9
Sponsorship 1.4 1.3 1.2 1.2
(of which, sport) (1.19) (1.12) (1.04) (1.02)
(of which, arts) (0.22) (0.22) (0.17) (0.15)
Base total (£) 26 936 000 31 651 000 36 119 000 39 280 000
Year-on-year change (%) +17.5 +14.1 +8.9(^1) Estimated from 1999 on the basis of average increase for the other four.
(^2) Midpoint between 1998 and 2000 figures.
Dateline: May 2002.
Sources: Advertising Association; Interactive Advertising Bureau; Direct Marketing Association; Institute of Sales
Promotion; Association of Exhibition Organizers; Point-of-Purchase Advertising International; Ipsos UK
Sponsorship; Arts and Business.