23rd January 2009
* No recession in Retail
* E-Retail Workshop - a complimentary invitation
* Over 60% of Adspend is wasted says new study

According to the statistics we are most
definitely in a recession as GDP has now
declined for two consecutive quarters and
unemployment is rising. But if you look at
the results from retail you'd be forgiven for
thinking that the recession is a media myth.
We take a look at what's going on.

We have a very special offer from IMRG &
VeriSign who are organising an E-retail
workshop on 28th January 2009 in London.
Attendance is free and the full details are
below.
Finally, a new study suggests
that over 60% of adspend is wasted globally -
but that business-to-business marketers are
doing a better job at limiting this wastage
than their business-to-consumer peers.

James Pearson - Editor

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No recession in Retail

The latest news from the High Street suggests
that consumers are still spending at or even
above the levels of the same time twelve
months ago. Sure, high ticket items that
require credit are suffering - most notably
cars and of course houses. But that apart,
retail seems to be in robust health. Here are
some of the figures:

Grocery sales are up 6% year on year, with
Sainsbury's and Waitrose outperforming the
market. And while everyone is talking about a
"flight to value" the sales of premium lines
in supermarkets continue to rise. This
suggests that consumers are not yet prepared,
on the whole to compromise on quality. They
more look for better deals, but at the moment
they are not looking for cheaper.
Maybe
this suggests that Marks & Spencer, which
isn't having the best time should go back to
its old strategy of promoting "lower prices,
quality maintained".

Meanwhile, away from food, John Lewis
reported an astonishing 27% jump in sales in
the first week of January. Sales of
Electronics and technology were up an amazing
38%. But the British Retail Consortium/KPMG
Retail survey saw sales volumes decline by
1.4% in December. But, wait a minute, VAT
dropped 2.5%. So doesn't that mean sales in
terms of the money the shops kept actually
went up? Sure some goods carry no VAT - food,
books and childrens clothing, but even so it
looks like consumers actually bought the
things they intended to buy.

So what is the prognosis going forward? We
believe that consumers will continue to
consume until such time as they actually lose
their jobs. The reductions in the cost of
fuel will start feeding through very quickly
into people's pockets. We expect to see
retail sales holding up very well in the
first quarter.

Doom and gloom can be overdone!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

E-Retail Workshop - a complimentary invitation

Wednesday 28th January 2009, London

Verisign and IMRG are joining forces in light
of the cancellation of the Retail Business
Show to ensure you start 2009 armed with the
very latest industry data, statistics, and
knowledge.

A number of the speakers from the IMRG
e-Conference Zone have agreed to speak at our
rearranged event. This revised event has been
scheduled at short notice. It will only go
ahead if there is sufficient interest from
attendees and space is limited so please sign
up early.

The program is aimed at promoting excellence
and innovation in e-Retail and will present
peer to peer in-depth case studies, thought
leadership sessions and presentations by
industry and retail experts including:

· Paul Frantz, Retail Industry Head, Google

· Patrick Wall, CEO, Metapack

· Martin Mackay, VP and GM, VeriSign EMEA

· John Hinchcliffe, Marketing Director, JD
Williams (TBC)

· Bob Ashley, Partnership Director, Royal
Mail (TBC)

· Justin Crandle, Managing Director,
Bazaarvoice

· Frank Lord, EMEA VP, ATG

The event takes place on Wednesday 28th
January at :
Hilton Olympia, 380 Kensington High Street,
London W14 8NL, If you would like to attend
please email paul@imrg.org, giving your name
and job title and company, to ensure numbers
for the event can be monitored, and any
changes communicated.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Over 60% of Adspend is wasted says new study

Up to 60% of all tracked advertising
expenditure worldwide during 2008 failed to
deliver the results expected by its marketers
and can therefore be considered wasted
according to marketing effectiveness tracking
specialist, the Fournaise Marketing Group.

The firm monitored the ability of companies
to generate both direct and indirect
engagement with their target audience via
ncreases in:

· Retail traffic;

· Sales;

· Leads/prospects captured;

They found that wastage in the
business-to-consumer industry was 65%, but
fell to 47% in the business-to-business
industry.

Fournaise CEO Jerome Fontaine said: "We
noticed that the majority of B2B marketers
are very focused on making their campaigns
deliver hard, tangible results, ie leads or
prospects that they can convert afterwards.

"On the other hand, the majority of B2C
marketers tend to rely heavily on the old and
traditional model of brand building: by
mainly going after awareness and recall
through expensive and impact-driven media
buys, they hope to deliver more sales and/or
instore traffic down the line - a fundamental
mistake nowadays given the high level of
advertising clutter, which leads to high
levels of wastage."

The three most effective media for the
campaigns tracked in 2008 (ie those with the
lowest Marketing Wastage Rate) were:

· Text emails and eDMs

· Direct mailers

· Newspapers

Conversely, the three least effective media
tracked were:

· Sponsorship

· Posters

· Banner/display ads

Many companies have already recognised that
sponsorship does not really deliver in many
cases are budgets here are being slashed.
Display advertising is still holding up
fairly well, but we expect this to weaken
over the next twelve months as companies
divert more budget to Direct Marketing.