Procter & Gamble seems to be moving incremental advertising dollars into magazines. P&G is still the nation’s biggest advertiser, but it’s dialing back those marketing dollars (see box below) and shifting some of its focus from television to magazines, Dan Monk, a reporter from the Business Courier in Cincinnati, where P&G’s headquarters are, reports. As Portada reported yesterday, 4 of the 10 major Hispanic magazine ad campaigns during the January –February 2012 quarter were by P&G brands.
Top 10 Advertisers in 2011
| Rank | Company | Year 2011 (US $ millions) | Year 2010 (US $ millions) | % Change |
| 1 | Procter & Gamble Co | $2,949.1 | $3,116.9 | -5.4 |
| 2 | AT&T | $1,924.6 | $2,180.0 | -11.7 |
| 3 | General Motors Corp | $1,784.1 | $2,127.0 | -16.1 |
| 4 | Verizon Communications | $1,636.9 | $1,856.8 | -11. |
| 5 | Comcast Corp | $1,577.2 | $1,416.6 | 11.3 |
| 6 | L’Oreal SA | $1,343.5 | $1,137.8 | 18.1 |
| 7 | Time Warner Inc | $1,279.4 | $1,137.8 | 5.8 |
| 8 | Pfizer Inc | $1,203.5 | $1,209.8 | -2.2 |
| 9 | Chrysler Group | $1,193.0 | $875.7 | 36.2 |
| 10 | News Corp | $1,170.5 | $1,362.2 | -14.1 |
Source: Kantar Media
According to Kantar Media P&G spent $2.95 billion in 2011, down 5.4 percent from the prior year. P&G remained the nation’s largest TV advertiser despite a 6.8 percent spending dip to $1.7 billion. P&G ranked second in Hispanic Media spending, at $210 million, down 9.6 percent from 2010. A March 12 news release from Kantar Media says it’s the 9th straight year that P&G has ranked as the top advertiser in the U.S.
“While TV is still the foundation of its advertising media buys, P&G’s 2011 budget allocation saw share gains for magazines at the expense of TV,” the release stated. “Those numbers reflect a more targeted approach to media buying by P&G” Michael Mc Carthy, a marketing professor at Miami University, told the Business Courier in Cincinnati. “They’ll be using TV as the foundation for the foreseeable future,” McCarthy said. “But I think what they’re finding is those incremental dollars don’t get you more return, compared to putting those dollars into more targeted media.”
McCarthy said magazines might be getting an increased share of P&G’s advertising dollars because the industry has reliable metrics that can be used to target specific audiences. Digital measuring, including click-through counts and products that measure social-media mentions, “are not nearly as well established as the traditional media,” McCarthy concluded.
