First of all, ad spending on hair care products is expected top $1 billion this year, according to Advertising Age. That’s a lot of advertising.

U.S. Shampoo sales were up 0.7% to $620.3 million for the 52 weeks ending Sept. 10, according to Information Resources Inc., Chicago. Meanwhile, sales of conditioner were up 3.5% in supermarkets to $360.3 million for the same period.

My favorite quote from the research “Hair care was flat for a while” okay, I thought it was funny.

One more piece of info:

According to IRI, hairspray sales in the US were about $367 million last year and US gel and mousse sales were $581 million.

Add them all together? It’s almost $2 billion a year. And this doesn’t include hair color. That’s $2 billion on its own.

(And AdAge estimates the ENTIRE hair market at $8 billion, but that includes unmeasured channels, which always makes me go hmmmm….)

A reader asks: For a strategy meeting, I want to find the top retail chains. I think I have a great idea how to market my client’s product, but need to compile a list of partners to consider. What criteria should I use and how can I make a list?

The National Retail Federation compiles an annual list of the hottest retailers. You can check it out here. It show where the headquarters are, 2 years of revenue (and the change), 2 years of earnings (and the change) and 2 years of units (and the change). Looks like a great start!

Good luck.

John Zhang has a message for Cingular Wireless and Verizon Wireless or, for that matter, any company that uses its ads to attack a competitor. Instead of luring away your competitor’s customers, you may just be hurting yourself. Zhang, a Wharton marketing professor, has found that combative ads — the sort of comparative spots that beer makers, particularly Anheuser-Busch and Miller, are famed for — may backfire. Instead of pulling consumers to an advertiser, they may just make people indifferent to all offerings in a product category. “Combative advertising, a characteristic of mature markets, is defined as advertising that shifts consumer preferences toward the advertising firm but does not expand the category demand,” Zhang says in his research paper titled, “A Theory of Combative Advertising.”

I find this fascinating. The foundation run by Chris Farley’s family gave permission for his photo to be used for this new addiciton treatment protocol’s ads. His brother is even the voice-over.