Case 1: A major area retailer wants to assess the effectiveness of its advertising spends.

Problem: A retailer with stores throughout New York State has been spending on various broadcast media and wants to see if it has been worth it. The CEO wonders if the stores are appropriately positioned and which of the various spends benefit the stores and to what extent.

Process: Avant began by assessing their current advertising spends and the demographics of the audience the client was targeting through each medium. Following this, we examined their stores, spending time talking to their actual customers, their employees, and others in the marketing team. We next conducted a series of research studies at various stores as various venues in the region where their target customers were likely to shop. We also conducted an online panel study of their potential market in the region.

Outcome: We classified their stores based on inventory and location and identified three strata of consumers. We compared the psychographics of each stratum with macro-level data and came up with a narrowcasting advertising strategy that had different ad-copies on different media to target the fast growing strata from among the three. Within one year, the client not only saved advertising dollars but also channeled the money towards acquiring new stores in a market area heavily represented by consumers who fit that segment.