Database of the Month: Ad$pender

Ad$pender from Kantar Media is a web based tool that you can use to track spending on advertising by industry, company, brand or product. Ad$pender provides the current five years of national spending on internet, television, magazines, newspaper, radio and outdoor (billboard) channels. Data is accessed through customizable reports which are available to download as a spreadsheet or view in .pdf format. Questions you can answer using this resource include:

• How much does a specific company spend on advertising?
• Which media channels do companies use to market their products?
• When do companies spend money on advertising?
• What industries spend the most money advertising on the Internet?
• And many more…

How to create a Custom Report Steps to retrieve data:

1. Select Media/Market (i.e. Internet Advertising / Boston Market)
2. Select Time Period (i.e. Month, Year to Date, 2012, etc.). You can select multiple time periods.
3. Select Product or Show All (i.e. a category might be Baby Products/ a product might be Nike)
4. Report Format (choose the rows you want to show and the order for sorting).
5. Report Options(.csv, .pdf, etc.)
6. Report Summary (give your report a name and review the specific criteria that you've chosen).

After you have created and run a report, your screen will appear as below: 

As this tool is web based, you need to keep using the “Refresh Listing” button [Red #1 on above screen capture] to find out if the report has finished running. The final report will appear under view [Red #2 in the above screen capture] when the report is completed. The check mark [Red #3 in the above screen capture] is for the specifications or spec of the report. The Spec report is a useful way of keeping track of what you asked for. You can use the Spec report as a way of rerunning or tweaking your report criteria to find the data you want.

Of note: The time it takes to run the report depends on the size of the data set requested. The more specific you can be with your request, the smaller the file size and the faster the report will run.

More Information and Help

Help is available at the Ad$pender site including a “Brand Central” document that is particularly useful for understanding the hierarchy of Ad$pender's category and product levels.  The Goizueta Business Library also provides this excellent handout for using this resource.  Please contact the Reference Desk if you'd like more help using Ad$pender. Ad$pender can be accessed via the Databases A-Z page and the Marketing Databases page.

Database of the Month provides a very brief introduction to an important research database, highlighting key features of the database that you should know about. If you would like more information about this database (or any of the library’s databases) please Ask a Librarian. If you would like a demonstration of this database for a class, please contact Adam Williams, Research Instruction Coordinator at awilliams@bentley.edu.