Creating a media plan

Media Objectives, Strategies and Planning

Major Factors in Creating and

Building a Media Plan

Media Questions

Two basic processes:1. Planning media strategy,

including the specific types of consumers/audiences the messages will be directed to.

2. Selecting and Buying media vehicles.

• Media planning is both an art and a science. An essential part of the advertising business.

Media Questions

• Where should we advertise?• Which media vehicles?• When during the year?• Should we concentrate our advertising?• How often should it run?• What opportunities are there to

integrate our media planning with other Promotion or Communication tools?


• Planners direct the messages to the right people at the right time in the right environments.

• TV: Networks, syndication, local, cable, satellite.

• National, Regional and Local issues• Non traditional: In flights, parking

meters, blimps, shopping carts, milk cartons, litter cans, taxis, sponsorships.


• Increasing media choices and options

• Audience fragmentation• Costs and rate hikes• Multimedia, and interactive• Diverse audiences• And more

Commonly Available Media Vehicles 1966 vs. 2006

• Broadcast TV• Cable TV (Limited)• Movies/Cinema Adv.• AM/FM radio• Reel to Reel tape• Telephone• Postal Mail• Newspapers• Magazines (9K)• Books

• 1966: 24 hours a day• 2006: 24 hours a day

• Broadcast TV, Cable TV, Pay TV, VOD

• Satellite TV and Radio• Movies/Cinema Adv.• AM/FM radio• Telephone and Mobile

phone• Postal Mail• Newspapers, Magazines

(17K titles)• CD, cassette, MP3, VCR,

DVD, PVR• Internet and web,

including email, web browsing, PC gaming, Music downloading, P2P

• PDA’s, Pagers, Console and Game Devices


Major Factors:• 1. Target Market. Whom are you going

to sell to?– Demographic, geographic and

psychographics characteristics

• 2. Where is product or service distributed?– Local, regional, national or selected markets– Remember BDI and CDI’s


• 3. What is Budget?– Percentage of sales– Share of market and Share of Voice– Objective and Task– Unit of Sales and Case Rate– Competition– Test Market– Experimental– Computer modeling– Affordable and Available Funds


• 4. What is Competition Doing?– Budgets– Which Media?– Which Schedules?– And more


• 5. Nature of Message?– Electronic/Broadcast– Print– Color/B&W– Demonstration– Simple Statements


• 6. Reach vs.

Frequency vs.

Continuity (Continuous Schedule)



Reach (Cume)• The number of different or unduplicated

households or persons that are exposed to a television program or commercial at least once during the average week for a reported time period. During the course of the schedule illustrated, seven different households were exposed to the spot at least once. Since each home represents 10 % of the universe, this makes the reach or cume 70%.


Frequency• Average number of times a

household or a person viewed a given television program, station or commercial during a specific time period.


Continuity/Continuous Schedule • Advertising runs steadily and

varies little. Compare with:• Flighting and Pulsing with

scheduling


• Rating (RTG or %):• The estimate of the size of a

television audience relative to the total universe, expressed as a percentage. The estimated percent of all TV households or persons tuned to a specific station. In the example, three of the 10 homes in the universe are tuned to channel 2. That translates to a 30 rating.

Media Objectives, Strategies and Planning• RATING = households tuned in to a given program

all households with television

• SHARE = households tuned in to a given program all households tuned in to TV at that time (HUT)

(more simply: share measures the percentage of all TV sets in use watching a particular program)

Here's an example: Your show is aired in a market that has 1 million television househo2lds; 400,000 are tuned in to you. Therefore:

400,0001,000,000 = .40, or a rating of 40

At the time your show airs, however, there are only 800,000 households using television. Therefore, your share of the available audience is

Share = 400,000 800,000 = .50, or a rating of 50

If you can explain why a specific program's share is always higher than its rating, then you understand the difference between the two.


• 7. Media Mix– Combination of different media, and

size of ads– Which Media?– Which Schedules?– And more


• 8. Seasonality and Length of Schedule?– Hot tea vs. Cold tea? – Snow blowers, toothpaste, coffee.– Morning Drive and Evening Drive– Flighting– Pulsing


• 9. Tie-ins with Merchandising and Sales Force?

– Coupons, Contests, Trade Deals, Sales Calls, Displays, Budgets.

– Which Media?– Events

• Super Bowl• Academy Awards• Sports

– Which Schedules?– And more


Where? 56.9% of media exposure took

place in the home, but 21.1% took place at work, 8.3% in the car and 13.7% in other locations.

Media Objectives, Strategies and Planning10. Flexibility

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• 11. Cost Efficiencies– Which Media?– Which Schedules?– Which Vehicles?


• Advertising is an investment in future sales.

• It’s greatest powers are in short-term promotions and its cumulative long-range effects.

• And more

Marketing

Creating a media plan