Budgetary accountability is at an all-time high.
Today businesses and consumers are asking why each expenditure is necessary and what benefits it is intended to yield. This is especially true in advertising. As Rapp and Collins observe in The New Maxi-Marketing, “The proliferation of media choices and the escalation of media costs have increased the need for truly accountable advertising expenditure…All advertising, whether by image-building brand advertisers or by direct marketers, must be fully accountable.”
This accountability starts with having specific measurable objectives and ends with evaluating whether those objectives were achieved by the promotional methods used. As business becomes more sophisticated and accountability continues to increase, impulse purchases of promotional products will diminish. This will lead to more competition in the product sales arena.
The new bottom line. If there is one pervasive question that seems to run through every business relationship it is, “What have you done for me lately?”
The good news is that program selling can answer that question.
