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Media Planning

Media planning is the process of selecting appropriate marketing mediums to effectively reach a target audience while considering factors like budget, timing, and message. It involves various components such as target audience, channels, and key performance indicators, and requires a systematic approach from market analysis to evaluation. Successful media planning can lead to increased brand awareness, improved customer relationships, and efficient budget allocation, although it faces challenges like budget constraints and changing trends.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
19 views14 pages

Media Planning

Media planning is the process of selecting appropriate marketing mediums to effectively reach a target audience while considering factors like budget, timing, and message. It involves various components such as target audience, channels, and key performance indicators, and requires a systematic approach from market analysis to evaluation. Successful media planning can lead to increased brand awareness, improved customer relationships, and efficient budget allocation, although it faces challenges like budget constraints and changing trends.

Uploaded by

anjalimanglaytan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Media Planning

Today, marketers are spoilt with choices when it comes to media. There are
the traditional touchpoints such as TV, radio, and print. Then there are the
digital options such as search, social, and display.
So, how do they decide where to allocate their precious marketing budget?
This is where media planning comes in.But media planning isn’t just about
selecting the right touchpoints. There are also many other considerations,
such as the target audience, their media habits, and the business’s objectives.

The word Media came from the Latin word "Middle". Media carry
message to or from a targeted audience and can add meaning to the
message.

Media Planning, in advertising, is a series of decisions involving the


delivery of message to the targeted audience. Media Plan, is the plan that
details the usage of media in an advertising campaign including costs,
running dates, markets, reach, frequency, rationales, and strategies.

So what exactly is media planning, and how does a marketer write a media
plan?
 Media planning is the process of identifying the appropriate marketing
mediums and channels to reach the target audience, targeting the right
messages, at the right time, in the right place.
 It involves understanding the target audience, defining the message, and
selecting the right channel to reach them.
 In simple terms, it includes planning what media to use, which channels to
use and how much to spend to boost a company’s ROI.

Who Is A Media Planner?


A media planner, also referred to as a brand planner or brand strategist, is a
professional working at an advertising agency, responsible for planning,
buying, and placement of advertising.
They work with advertisers, advertising agencies, and media outlets to
orchestrate their clients’ most effective marketing campaigns.

Importance of Media Planning


 Not every marketing medium will work for every offering, brand, and
industry. For example, TV might be a great way to reach an older
demographic and sell FMCG products, but it will not work for a tech
startup targeting Gen Z.
 This is where media planning comes in.
 It helps to match the right advertising medium with the right product. This,
in turn, helps to achieve the client’s objectives while also staying within
their budget.

Objectives of Media Planning


The main objective of media planning is to reach the target audience with the
right message at the right time and in the right place.
Besides this, it also aims for:
 Efficiency: Media planning aims to reduce costs by reaching the target
audience with the right message through the most efficient channels.
 Effectiveness: It also aims to increase efficacy by ensuring that the target
audience is reached with the right frequency and at the right time.
 Fulfilling Long-Term Goals: Media planning also looks at the bigger picture
and strives to achieve long-term goals such as brand awareness
and building relationships with customers.

The Components of Media Planning


A media plan has the following main components:
 Target Audience: The target audience refers to a defined group of
consumers or businesses that are potential customers for the business’s
offering.
 Message: The message is the key point the business wants to
communicate to the target audience.
 Channels: The channels refer to the specific touchpoints that will be used
to reach the target audience. These can include TV, radio, print, digital, etc.
 Timing: The timing refers to when the message will be delivered. This
includes frequency, reach, and exposure.
 Budget: The budget refers to the amount of money that will be allocated
to the media plan.
 KPI: The KPI or key performance indicators are the metrics that will be
used to measure the success of the media plan.

Steps in Development of Media Plan


1. Market Analysis: Every media plan begins with the market analysis or
environmental analysis. Complete review of internal and external factors is
required to be done. At this stage media planner tries to identify answers of
the following questions:
Who is the target audience?
What internal and external factors may influence the media plan?
Where and when to focus the advertising efforts?
The target audience can be classified in terms of age, sex, income,
occupation, and other variables. The classification of target audience helps
media planner to understand the media consumption habit, and accordingly
choose the most appropriate media or media mix.

2. Establishing Media Objective: Media objectives describes what you want


the media plan to accomplish. There are five key media objectives that a
advertiser or media planner has to consider - reach, frequency, continuity, cost,
and weight.
Reach - Reach refers to the number of people that will be exposed to to a
media vehicle at least once during a given period of time.
Frequency - Frequency refers to the average number of times an individual
within target audience is exposed to a media vehicle during a given period of
time.

Continuity - It refers to the pattern of advertisements in a media schedule.


Continuity alternatives are as follows:
Continuous: Strategy of running campaign evenly over a period of time.
Pulsing: Strategy of running campaign steadily over a period of time with
intermittent increase in advertising at certain intervals, as during festivals or
special occasions like Olympics or World-Cup.
Discontinuous: Strategy of advertising heavily only at certain intervals, and no
advertising in the interim period, as in case of seasonal products.
Cost - It refers to the cost of different media
Weight - Weight refers to total advertising required during a particular period.

3. Determining Media Strategies


Media strategy is determined considering the following:
Media Mix - From the wide variety of media vehicles, the advertiser can
employ one vehicle or mix suitable vehicles.
Target Market
Scheduling - It shows the number of advertisements, size of advertisements,
and time on which advertisements to appear.
Seasonal Pulse: Seasonal products like cold creams follow this scheduling.
Steady Pulse: According to this scheduling one ad is shown over a period of
time, say one ad per week or one ad per month.
Periodic Pulse: A regular pattern is followed in such scheduling, as in case of
consumer durable and non durable.
Erratic Pulse: No regular pattern is followed in such scheduling.
Start-up Pulse: Such scheduling is followed during a new campaign or a
launch of a new product.
Promotional Pulse: It is for short time, only for a promotional period.
Reach and frequency
Creative Aspects - Creativity in ad campaigns decides the success of the
product, but to implement this creativity firm must employ a media that
supports such a strategy.
Flexibility - An effective media strategy requires a degree of flexibility.
Budget Considerations - In determining media strategy cost must be
estimated and budget must be considered.
Media Selection - It covers two broad decisions - selection of media class, and
selection of media vehicle within media class.

4. Implementation of Media Plan


The implementation of media plan requires media buying. Media Buying refers
to buying time and space in the selected media. Following are the steps in
media buying:

Collection of information: Media buying requires sufficient information


regarding nature of target audience, nature of target market, etc.
Selection of Media/Media Mix: Considering the collected information and ad-
budget, media or media mix is selected which suits the requirements of both -
target audience and advertiser.
Negotiation: Price of media is negotiated to procure media at the lowest
possible price.
Issuing Ad - copy to media: Ad-copy is issued to the media for broadcast or
telecast
Monitoring performance of Media: Advertiser has to monitor whether the
telecast or broadcast of ad is done properly as decided.
Payment - Finally, it is the responsibility of advertiser to make payment of
media bills on time.

5. Evaluation and Follow-up


Evaluation is essential to assess the performance of any activity. Two factors
are important in evaluation of media plan:
How successful were the strategies in achieving media objectives?
Was the media plan successful in accomplishing advertising objective?
Successful strategies help build confidence and serve as reference for
developing media strategies in future, and failure is thoroughly analyzed to
avoid mistakes in future.

Benefits of Media Planning


Media planning isn’t just about laying out which channels to use and how
much budget to allocate. Many benefits come along with it, such as:
 Allocating budget efficiently: A good media plan will allocate the budget in
a way that is most efficient. This means that more people will be reached
with the same amount of money.
 Generating leads: An effective media campaign can generate leads which
can be converted into customers.
 Increasing brand awareness: Media planning can help increase brand
awareness by reaching a larger number of people.
 Improving brand image: A good media campaign can improve the brand
image by showing the target audience a positive image of the product or
service.
 Building relationships with customers: An effective media campaign can
help build relationships with customers by creating a connection with
them.
 Analyzing customer behavior: Media planning can help to analyse
customer behavior and understand what they want. This information can
be used to improve the product or service.
 Creating loyalty: A good media campaign can create loyalty among
customers by making them feel like they are part of a community.

Challenges of Media Planning


 It isn’t all smooth sailing, however. Various challenges come along with
media planning, such as:
 Budget constraints: Companies may not have the funds to allocate for an
effective campaign.
 Competing brands: Brands competing in the same market will be trying to
get their message across, which can make it difficult for a brand to stand
out.
 Changing trends: Trends in the media landscape are always changing,
which can make it difficult to keep up.
 Low attention span: People’s attention span is getting shorter, which
means that a brand has less time to make an impression.

Factors Affecting Media Planning


Several factors can affect media planning, including:
 Audience demographics: The target audience’s age, gender, income,
location, etc., affect the choice of media as different channels are better
suited for different demographics. For example, a younger audience is
more likely to be reached through social media.
 Audience behavior: The target audience’s browsing and buying habits
affect the choice of media. For example, someone who is always on the
go is more likely to see an ad on a mobile device than someone who is
always at home.
 Product type: The type of product being advertised also affects the media
choice as some products are better suited for certain channels than
others. For example, a luxury product would be better advertised on more
personalised channels like Google Ads, while a mass-market product
would be better advertised on more public channels like newspapers.
 Media availability: The availability of channels play a role in media
planning. For example, a renowned TV channel might not have ad spaces
during its prime time shows.
 Media costs: The cost of reaching a target audience affects media
planning. For example, an advertisement on television will be more
expensive than advertising on the radio because television reaches a
larger audience.
 Campaign objectives: Different objectives will affect the choice of media
as different channels help achieve different goals. For example, an
objective might be to reach a large audience quickly, which would mean
using more public channels like newspapers or radio.
 Competition: Other players in the market also influence the choice of
media and may force the business to use a similar strategy as theirs.

Determining an Advertising Budget


The following points highlight the top five methods of determining an
advertising budget listed by Joel Dean. The methods are:
1. The Percentage of Sales Approach
2. The All-You-Can Afford Approach
3. The Return on Investment Approach
4. The Objective and Task Approach
5. The Competitive Parity Approach.

Method # 1. The Percentage of Sales Approach:


In this method, the sales value of the preceding year is first taken and then the
expected sales during the year in question are arrived at. Thereafter, some
percentage of the expected sales is consid¬ered and this is known as the
percentage of sales approach.
This method was dominant in the past and even now it is widely used. It may
be a fixed percentage or a percentage that varies with conditions of sales.
The method is simple in calculation. In this method, a clear relationship exists
between sales and advertising expenses. By adopting this method
advertisement war can be avoided.
In spite of these advantages, this method has little to justify it. This method
does not provide a logical basis for choosing the specific percentage except
what has been done in the past or what competitors are doing. It discourages
experimenting with counter-cyclical promotion or aggressive spending.

The aim of advertising is to increase the demand for the product and
therefore it should be viewed as the cause, not the result of sales. But this
approach views advertising on the results of sales. It leads to a budget set by
the availability of funds rather than by market opportunities.

Method # 2. The All-You-Can Afford Approach:


Under this approach, a company spends as much on advertising as it can
afford. It can spend for advertising as much as the funds permit. From the
name itself, it is clear that the affordable amount set aside for advertising is
known as affordable method. This approach appears to be more realistic, for
all companies generally spend that much amount on advertisements which
they can afford, even though they may not say so.
As advertising outlays are growing out of all proportions in the modern
business, this method seems to provide a basis for many firms with regard to
advertising outlet. Generally, a firm has to take into account the financial
constraints while resorting to advertisement schemes.
As Joel Dean rightly says, “The limit of what a company can afford ought to
involve ultimately the availability of outside funds. In this sense firm’s
resources set a real limit on advertising outlay. However, this limit may be
above the limit set be marginal-return criterion.”

This approach to spending on advertising sometimes proves uneconomical.


The point upto which a firm can afford to spend is a limiting point. If the
increase in sales does not match the expenditure on advertising, it is evident
that this is not a wise or economical way of determining the budget.
This approach is helpful in the following ways in determining the advertising
budget:
(i) “It produces a fairly defensible cyclical timing of that part of advertising
outlay that has cumulative long-run efforts.”
(ii) This method is more suitable to the marginal firms.
(iii) This method sets a reasonable limit to the expenditure to be incurred on
advertising.
However, the method has got some inherent weaknesses and they are the
following:
(i) It is difficult to plan long-term marketing development.
(ii) The opportunities of advertising may be overlooked.

Method # 3. The Return on Investment Approach:


This approach treats advertisement as a capital investment rather than as a
more current expendi¬ture.
Advertising has a two-fold effect:
(i) It increases current sales.
(ii) It builds up future goodwill.
An increase in current sales involves such decisions as the selection of the
optimum rate of output in order to maximise short run profits. The building up
of goodwill for the future calls for a selection of the pattern of investment
which is expected to produce the best scale of production, leading to the
maximum long run profits.
This method emphasizes the relation between advertisement and sales. Sales
are measured with advertising and without advertising. The rate of return
provides a basis for advertising budgeting, as the available funds will have to
be distributed among various kinds of internal investment on the basis of
prospective rate of return.
The limitation to the return on investment approach is that one cannot
accurately judge the rate of return as advertising investment.
It involves the following problems and they are:
(i) Problem of measuring the effect of advertisement accumulation as long
run sales volume.
(ii) Problem of estimating the evaporation of the cumulative effects of
advertising, and
(iii) Problem of distinguishing of investment advertising from outlays for
immediate effect.

Method # 4. The Objective and Task Approach:


This method is also known as the research objective method. This method
became prominent during the war time. This method calls upon marketers to
develop their promotion budgets by defining their specific objectives,
determining the tasks that must be performed to achieve these objectives and
estimating the cost of performing these tasks. The sum of these costs in the
proposed budget.
This approach is an improvement over the percentage of sales approach. But
the fundamental relationship between the objectives and the advertising
media again depends upon the past experience of the firm. In reality, tasks to
be determined should be related to the objectives of the firm and to the past
records of the firm.

This method has the following advantages:


(i) It requires management to spell out its assumption about the relationship
between amount spent, exposure level, trial rates and regular usage.
(ii) This method can be extended to highly promising experimental and
marginal approaches.
(iii) With the help of this method a clear advertisement programme can be
drawn.
There are inherent defects in this approach. The important problem of the
method is to measure the value of such objectives and to determine whether
they are worth the cost of attaining them. This method is also highly irrational.

Method # 5. The Competitive Parity Approach:


This approach is nothing but a variant of the percentage of sales approach. A
firm sets its budget solely depending upon the basis of competitors
expenditure. The advertising cost is decided on the basis of spending for
advertising by the competitors in the same industry.
Two arguments are advanced for this method. One is that the competitors’
expenditures represent the collective wisdom of the industry. The other is that
it maintains a competitive parity which helps to prevent promotion wars.
Joel Dean claims that this method is widely used. The defensive logic of large
proportion of advertising outlay aims at checking the inroads that might be
made by competitors. The money which an individual firm spends does not
reveal how much it can afford to spend in order to equate its marginal
benefits with marginal costs. He finds that no correlation appears to exist
between the outlay and the size of the firm.
Further, Dean defends this approach on the ground that the advertising
percentages of competi¬tors represent the combined wisdom of the industry.
Another advantage of this method is that it safeguards against advertising
wars. The main advantages of the method are simplicity and security of its
use. For this a firm has to collect relevant data about competitors. If it is quite
easy for the firm then it is quite easy for it to follow its competitors.
The major problem in this method is that the firm has to identify itself with
others in the industry. Another problem is that it breeds complacency.

Advertising Effectiveness
Advertising effectiveness is a method used to determine if a brand’s
marketing efforts are hitting the mark with its target audience and whether it’s
getting the best returns.
It enables brands to measure the strengths, weaknesses, and ROI of specific
advertising campaigns, so the company can adjust accordingly.
It’s during a post-campaign analysis of performance that real, actionable
insights are revealed; insights with the power to supercharge future
advertising strategies.
Why should brands measure ad effectiveness?
Ad effectiveness is a vital strategy for brands looking to understand the
impact of their ads on the audiences they want to influence.
It’s what helps companies truly understand the reach of their campaigns so
they can focus on the elements that were successful and apply them to future
efforts.

How to measure advertising effectiveness?


1. Use survey data to identify the real reach of your marketing campaign
‘Reach’ refers to the number of people who actually saw a company’s
advertising.
It’s easier to measure the reach of some ad types over others.
For example, TV media planners have a strong idea of the number of people
who will be watching at a certain time, and can safely estimate how many will
see it.
Digital ad reach is harder to quantify. This is where survey data comes in. It
enables you to identify people who have seen the ad, ask them about their
experience, and most importantly, whether they remember the brand.

2. Find the frequency sweet spot


Advertising effectiveness data helps you find the ‘sweet point’ of exposure.
This is the perfect number of impressions before an ad has the desired effect,
and before over-exposure and fatigue kick in.
It takes passively-derived analytics and active survey data to get a true sense
of whether something is working.

3. Evaluate the true impact of your campaign against your goals


Knowing what advertising success looks like for your ad is crucial.
Whether your ad aims to build brand affinity, brand equity, push a promotion
or sell a specific product, collecting the right data is key. Survey data enables
you to ask precise questions of your audience that behavioral data could only
allude to, such as:
What brand was featured in the advertisement shown?
On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being ‘disliked very much’ and 5 being ‘liked very
much,’ how much did you like this advertisement?
To what extent do you agree the advertisement conveyed the following
message (with statements)?
After seeing the advertisement, how likely are you to recommend the brand to
others?
The overall benefit is being able to clearly see to what extent your campaign
had the desired impact on a large sample of your audience, from which you
can make broader assumptions.

4. Measure ROI with confidence


ROI and impact are heavily linked, but the two aren’t the same. The desired
impact will lead to a positive ROI.
If you don’t know why that campaign resonated with your audience, what’s the
point?
That’s why when it comes to measuring advertising effectiveness, data must
be collected separately for both.

5. Identify which campaign metrics need improvement


The key for any brand wanting to improve the quality of its digital campaigns
is to move beyond the use of behavioral analytics and vanity metrics alone
towards a more holistic and tell-all solution.
Our standard 10-minute survey template captures both brand and evaluation
metrics. The brand section seeks to understand the increase of KPIs, whereas
the content evaluation deep dives into the individual creatives and their
impact so you get a 360-degree view of campaigns performance.

6. Identify which media types are most valuable


Most campaigns have multiple creatives and media from social ads and
banner ads to video ads and more. Our tagging technology enables you to see
which specific media was most effective. Being able to differentiate media
types in this way helps you really zone in on what the strongest and weakest
elements are.
What are the best metrics to track your ad success?
Survey data enables you to get feedback on how your ads are performing,
directly from the consumers you’re targeting. A control (consumers who have
not seen the ad) versus exposed (consumers who have seen the ad)
methodology is used to measure differences in opinion and uncover hard
metrics on brand lift.

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