Know-How Exchange : Branding

The spending in the industry is all over the place. It depends on the company's objectives. If you're new and want to generate high consumer awareness quickly, you'll need to spend a lot more than if you're established and well-known already.

It also depends on where you are located and who your target audience is. If you're in Africa the spending will likely be somewhat less than if you're in Europe, the US, or Australia. If you're targeting all ages you'll probably need to spend more than if you're just targeting kids.

And what do you include in "branding?" If you mean everything a customer experiences when dealing with your company and its products, then you will need to include things in your "branding" budget that wouldn't normally be considered marketing. Things like customer service, billing terms, etc. And you'll need to include things like packaging too. That's part of branding.

Etc. Etc.

This is all my way of saying that the numbers you're looking for are not only going to be impossible to find, but useless if/when you find them. You need to be much more specific and focused if we're going to be able to help you.

I agree with everything above. any marketing person will be able to give you a percentage for what they spend on their business and marketing objectives in their industry, BUT they are all different.

marketing budgets should never be a "top down" plan, but work out what you need to do, work out the costs and present that budget.

I guess not the answer you wanted!

I suddenly got a pang of guilt .. there is a figure I used to use when I started out, and to be honest, it always stood me in good stead, so, although you shouldn't really use this figure ... you will be looking at a minimum of 1%.

Its a good rule of thumb for marketing spend if you need a figure in a hurry.

AndrewS is right: You should not use the figure he gave you.

Depending on the category, the company objectives, and the size of your target audience, the number could just as well have been 4% or 7% or 10%, or almost any other number.

AndrewS is also right that you shouldn't operate with a "top down" approach. Figure out what the objective is, develop a strategy and plan that will deliver the objective, then figure out what it will cost. If the final number is more than the expected profit, then you either did a poor job of planning your marketing strategy or your business plan wasn't realistic to begin with.

What the industry average is, or what other companies may have spent, is totally irrelevant ... especially considering that we don't even know what countries/segments you're in, or what the company's objectives are.