Think Your RFP's Are Painful?

The price elasticity of advertising may be at an all time high when paper clips are being RFP'd. In August, Lowe's announced it would end its landmark $35M naming rights deal with Charlotte Motor Speedway, which began in 1999. On yesterday's Lowe's conference call we learned that CMS is accompanied by such things as coffee, paper and register tape when it comes to scrutinizing company expenses.

Lowe's CFO Robert Hull on the company's Q3 conference call:

If we look at advertising relative to last year, it was basically flat as a percent of sales so the same spend as a percent of sales last year -- on a more holistic level, we continue to challenge every nickel that goes out the door and have made really good progress across the company, scrutinizing ongoing services provided in our stores, RFP-ing basic things like coffee, paper, register tape, shopping bags, et cetera, continuing to make very good progress across the entire company.

source: seekingalpha.com