Are the agencies starting to get it?

There has been a notable increase recently in the interest shown in shopper marketing by Madison Avenue types. They are apparently becoming aware that all that grubby in-store stuff actually produces sales, and also that it represents far more money than the more glamorous TV advertising they've long been addicted to.

Adweek has an article this week about shopper marketing that points out that American Idol reached 35 million people for its season finale last year, while 150 million shop at Walmart each week. After acknowledging that the stores are today's true mass medium, the article focuses mostly on the number of ad agencies that are creating shopper marketing divisions and on the creation of in-store advertising networks.

I'm still not convinced that the agency world really understands trade promo and in-store (and they probably won't get fully on-board until we start holding our annual meetings in Cannes), but they are slowly groping their way toward understanding.