Hey big spenders - explaining FMCG's rise to the top of the online adspend pile

The FMCG sector has become the joint biggest online ad spender according to figures from the IAB and PwC’s online ad expenditure study, released earlier this month.

FMCG spend has doubled in the last three years, reflecting changing attitudes to digital display as a branding tool in its own right.

Indeed only three years ago marketers generally saw online media as a lead generation tool, and kept their branding activity offline. Insight from Kantar Media’s TGI Clickstream survey can help explain their change of heart.

TGI Clickstream reveals that of those who source information about their grocery shopping online and agree that the internet allows them to better understand the advantages of a brand, three-fifths are women.

Members of this group are also 70% more likely than other UK adults to be a full time housewife and 40% more likely to have children under 15 years old.

Their mean family income is 11% higher than the national average and nearly three-quarters of them are the household’s main shopper - all in all a key group to target for many FMCG brands.

This internet-savvy group are a quarter more likely to agree that product reviews online influence their purchase decisions than the average internet user.

They are also 30% more likely to post reviews about household products making them a particularly significant group to track, influence and exploit from a word-of-mouth perspective.

Furthermore they are 30% more likely to agree that they always buy the brands their children prefer confirming the value of pester power in this sector: children are at the forefront of mum’s mind when she’s making her purchase decisions. 

Those who research their grocery shop online also use the internet to look for a bargain. TGI Clickstream insight shows that they are two-thirds more likely to visit coupon search sites than the average internet user.

They are nearly twice as likely to visit wowcher.co.uk, and over 60% more likely to visit vouchercodes.com or quidco.com in a month.

However when we look at average time per visit we see a different picture. Our target spends longest per visit on best-price.com, livingsocial.com and moneysupermarket.com. When planning a branding campaign, it is worth considering that time on site can be used as a proxy for exposure.

The longer a target spends on a site the more likely they are to see the ad, and to be engaged with the site’s content.

In light of the above, it would seem ludicrous that FMCG brands were not taking advantage of these conscientious shoppers.

Aside from the internet, other effective media for carrying a branding message to this group include cinema.

They are a third more likely than the average adult to be among the heaviest 20% of cinema goers and, drilling down deeper, are nearly 40% more likely to rate romantic comedy as their favourite film genre.

Ashley Underwood, strategy manager TGI & Custom, Kantar Media