WASHINGTON DC, Nov 8, 2006 / --- Shoppers thought that the best holiday television advertisements last year came from Target, Wal-Mart and Sears, according to a survey conducted for the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association (RAMA) by BIGresearch. Companies rounding out last year’s top ten favorite holiday TV ads included Budweiser, Kohl’s, Coca-Cola, Best Buy, JCPenney, Kmart and Toys "R" Us.

According to the survey, 14.2 percent of consumers said that their favorite holiday advertisement encouraged them to buy from that store. An additional 33.0 percent of consumers said they already planned to shop there.

“With such a large percentage of sales occurring during the holiday season, retailers are in overdrive putting the finishing touches on their advertising campaigns,” said Mike Gatti, Executive Director of RAMA. “Holiday advertising will be as sensational as possible to attract shoppers to stores and websites.”

Though holiday television advertising was memorable last year, consumers said that other advertisements were more influential in determining where they purchased holiday items.

More than one-third of shoppers said that coupons (38.3%) and newspaper inserts (35.2%) influenced their decision about where to shop. Consumers also said they are persuaded by word of mouth (31.7%), advertising on national networks like ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC (25.8%), and direct mail (20.1%).

Though some categories are constant among groups, media influence can vary substantially by demographic. According to the survey, women are much more influenced by coupons than men (41.6% vs. 34.7%) while men say they pay more attention to radio ads than women do (15.6% vs. 11.7%).

Not surprisingly, consumers’ age was also a big factor in which media influenced them. The number one media preference for consumers aged 18-44 was coupons while consumers 45 and over preferred newspaper inserts.

Additionally, one-quarter (25.9%) of young adults 18-24 said they were influenced by direct mail while only 17.6 percent of adults over the age of 64 thought so.

“Retailers who want to target a specific group this year should be encouraged that different generations have explicit preferences,” said Phil Rist, Vice President of Strategy at BIGresearch. “Companies can maximize their return on investment by determining which customer they want to attract and going straight to the source with creative, focused advertising.”

RAMA will release the findings from this year’s holiday advertising survey in mid-December.