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WHAT ARE THE FUNDAMENTALS OF MEDIA STRATEGY?
Media is often the largest single cost item in a marketing communication budget,
especially for consumer goods and services.
The Media Plan
The challenge that marketing communicators face is how to manage all of the
media opportunities and yet maximize the efficiency of budgets that are inevitably
too small to do everything the firm would like to do to reach every current and
potential customer. All of these decisions come together in a media plan, which
identifies the best media to use to deliver an advertising message efficiently to a
target audience.
Principle: The goal of media planning is to maximize impact while minimizing
cost.
The media plan is a subsection within a marcom plan and has its own objectives,
strategies, and tactics. It is also developed in tandem with message planning, the
topic of Chapter 8. Figure 11.3 illustrates these relationships.
Key Strategic Media Concepts
This section is about the language of media. Basic concepts in media strategy and
planning include:
Media Mix
In most cases a media plan will outline a set of media, and
therefore is a media mix. This media mix is the way various
types of media are strategically combined to create a certain
kind of impact. Because of the breadth of IMC plans, the
term multiplatform has become popular to describe
multichannel and multi-marketing communication areas.
In IMC plans you will find, in addition to traditional measured media advertising, a variety of
other tools being used, such as events, social media (such as Facebook and Twitter), branded
entertainment (such as films or video games in which the brand is the hero), product placement,
and guerilla marketing.
Targets and Audiences
One of the biggest challenges in developing a media plan is matching the
advertiser’s target audience with the audience of a particular medium. An
important principle to remember is: Media planners match the target audience
with the audience of a particular medium.
Media audiences are grouped into four useful categories by generation. Dramatic
differences are seen in the media experiences of these groups:
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Traditionalists grew up with newspapers, magazines, and radio, with little or
no television, no cell phones, computers, or Internet.
Baby Boomers, who are in their 50s and 60s, always had those three types of
media. They also grew up with television, but still no cell phones, computers,
or Internet.
GenXers, who are now in their 30s and 40s, grew up not only with the media
of the preceding generations, but also with tape recorders, portable radios,
video games, VCRs, and cable TV, but still no cell phones, computers or
Internet.
GenYers, who are 20-somethings, had all of the above media. In addition,
they grew up with the computer, as well as satellite TV, the Internet, CDs, and
cell phones.
Millennials, the most recent generation, have grown up with DVDs, TiVo,
satellite radio, iPods, smart phones, most recently, the introduction of
Facebook, and Twitter.
Diego Contreras in this chapter’s The Inside Story feature discusses his work as
art director on a YouTube video for the Converse brand. The media planners’
challenge is to know which media best reach which audiences, whatever their
ages.
The Basis of the Buy
Decisions about which media to use are based on the profile of the audience that
reads, views, listens, or visits a medium. Media planners use a variety of terms to
identify and measure audiences, some of which are explained below.
Exposure
Media effects all begin with exposure. We know from the discussion in Chapter 4 that the first
step in making an impact is perception. You have to be exposed to a message before any other
effect is possible. Exposure is similar to circulation for television in that it’s a rough estimate of
the number of households watching a program. However, just because the television is on doesn’t
mean you are paying any attention to the program, let alone the advertising that surrounds it.
Media exposure is related to the idea of corporate and consumer control of media. Companies
may control the media buy, but they do not control what their target sees. In this cluttered media
environment, consumers control what they read and watch, and media analysts recognize that with
the hundreds, maybe thousands, of media choices, control of media exposure now lies with the
consumer.
Exposure, in other words, doesn’t equate to readership or viewership. At the most basic level,
however, media planners estimate the number of exposures delivered by a media mix.
Principle: Exposure does not equate to readership or viewership; just because the
television is on does not mean anyone is paying attention to it.
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Circulation
Impressions are different from circulation, because impressions (at least in print)
estimate the readership or rather the opportunity to be exposed (delivery to the
household or a newsstand purchase), rather than just the circulation, which refers
to copies sold.
Impressions
An impression is one person’s opportunity to be exposed one time to an ad in a specific
vehicle. Impressions can be added up as a measure of the size of the audience either for
one medium or for a combination of vehicles in a media mix.
Gross Impressions
Circulation does not tell you much about the actual exposure of a print ad. For
example, a magazine may have a circulation of 1 million, but it might be read on
average by 2.5 people per issue. This means impressions for that issue would be
2.5 million. If the ad ran in three consecutive issues, then the estimate of total
impressions, called gross impressions, would be 7.5 million.
Similarly, the number of viewers watching a program might be greater than the
number of households reached since there may be more than one viewer
watching and the commercial may be repeated several times in a program. Media
planners add up all of those watching and multiply that times the numbers of
placements to estimate gross impressions for TV.
Ratings
Gross impression figures become very large and difficult to work with, which is
why television and radio industries use ratings (percentage of exposure), which
is an easier measurement to work with because it converts the raw figure to a
percentage of households. When you read about a television show having a
rating of 20.0 that means 20 percent, or one fifth of all of the households with
television were tuned in to that program. Planners describe this program as
having 20 rating points.
Share
A better estimate of impressions might be found in a program’s share of
audience, which refers to the percent of viewers based on the number of sets
turned on. The share figure is always larger than the rating, since the base is
smaller.
Reach and Frequency
The goal of most media plans is to reach as many people in the target audience as
often as the budget allows. Reach is the percentage of the media audience
exposed at least once to the advertiser’s message during a specific time frame.
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Equally as important as reach is frequency, which refers to the number of times a
person is exposed to the advertisement. There’s a rule of thumb that you have to
hear or see something three times before it makes an impact, which is why
frequency of repetition is so important in many advertising campaigns. Different
media have different patterns of frequency.
An important principle to remember is: The goal of most media plans is to reach
as many people in the target audience as often as the budget allows. Most media
plans state both reach and frequency objectives and the media mix is designed to
accomplish both of those goals.
Intrusiveness
Intrusiveness, the ability of a medium to grab attention by being disruptive or
unexpected, is the primary strategy for countering clutter. Because of the high
level of commercial message clutter, companies in the past have valued all the
help they can get in attracting attention to their messages.
Media, as well as messages, vary in their degree of intrusiveness. The most
intrusive medium is personal selling because the sales representative’s presence
demands attention. The least intrusive media are print because users choose when
and to what extent to use them. If a message is too disruptive or irritating, it may
not help build a positive brand relationship.
Principle: The more intrusive a medium, the more it can be personalized, but the
more costly it is to use.
There are ways to minimize intrusiveness. One is to choose media whose target
audience is intrinsically interested in the product category. To have visibility
without being intrusive is one of the reasons why product placements at events are
popular. Another way is by giving customers the option to opt-in or opt-out when
receiving brand information digitally.
CHANGING PATTERNS OF MEDIA USE
Marketing communication media are in an incredible state of flux, partially
because of the introduction of the computer and the Internet but also because of
the way people choose to spend their time.
Consumer Use of Media
Consumer use of media is changing as technology changes. It used to be that most
Americans were involved with three television networks, a newspaper, and one or
two magazines. The modern media landscape includes up to 200 television
channels in some markets, a huge number of special interest publications, millions
of websites, and new electronic media such as Kindles, iPads, and Twitter. Here
are some other trends:
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Consumer Control. Consumers are much more in control of their own media
and designing their own media landscapes, from video games to Twitter. The
people formerly known as “audiences” are creating their own content, a
practice referred to as consumer-generated content, such as homemade videos
and commercials seen on YouTube and personalized audio listening on their
iPods and other MP3 players. Entertainment is as much a driving force for
modern digital media as news was for traditional media.
Media Driven Lives. A major change in media use is the increase in
media-driven lives and media multi-tasking. In their youthful days, the lives
of traditionalists and baby boomers were dominated by work and family
activities. In contrast, more recent generations spend more time with media of
all kinds, and those channels are more intertwined with their family, work, and
leisure time.
Media Multitasking. People not only spend more time with media but also use
more than one medium at a time. David Rittenhouse, a member of this book’s
advisory board, explains the importance of multi-screen viewing in the A
Matter of Practice feature in this chapter.
Social Media. Traditionally most media involved a solitary experience –
reading a paper or listening to the radio, for example, but this has truly been
transformed by social media. The immediacy and intimacy of a phone
conversation has exploded into millions of interactions via Twitter. (Think
about this: If you send one million tweets, are you broadcasting? Since you
probably do not know those one million recipients, has Twitter become a form
of mass media?)
Probably the biggest change is found in the increase in interactive media. We’ve
always had interactivity in personal selling and direct marketing by telephone,
but technology changes have forced traditional media to change their forms.
Social media have opened up entirely new dimensions of interactivity that
challenge brand stewards to keep up with their possibilities.
Alternative Media Forms
We use the term nontraditional media to refer to media forms and forms of
contact other than traditional advertising media. The point is that there are other
ways to present promotional messages besides traditional marketing
communication. Melissa Lerner, a specialist in new media planning at a
pioneering out-of-home media company, describes nontraditional media in the A
Matter of Principle feature as a creative opportunity for innovative thinkers.
The search for nontraditional media—that is, new ways to reach target audiences
—is particularly important for advertisers trying to reach the elusive youth
market, since teens are often the first to experiment with new media forms. In
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some ways, this search for innovative ways to deliver messages is just as creative
as the message concepts developed on the creative side of advertising. That’s why
one of the principles of this book is that the media side can be just as creative as
the creative side of advertising.
Product Placement
For years we have been exposed to product placement, in which a brand appears in a television
program, movie, or even in print as a prop. With product placement, a company pays to have
verbal or visual brand exposure in a movie or television program.
Product placement has become important because it isn’t as intrusive as conventional advertising,
and audiences can’t zap the ads as they can for television advertising using the remote control or a
DVR. At the same time, it may make the product a star—or at least be associated with a star.
Television programs have also gotten into the product placement game.
The greatest advantage of product placement is that it demonstrates product use in a natural setting
(depending on the movie) by people who are celebrities. It’s unexpected and if it’s a subtle use,
may catch the audience when their resistance to advertising messages is dialed down. It’s also
good for engaging the affections of other stakeholders, such as employees and dealers, particularly
if the placement is supported with its own campaign.
The biggest problem is that the placement may not be noticed. There is so much going on in most
movies that unless you can overtly call attention to the product, its appearance may not register. A
more serious problem occurs when there is not a match between the product and the movie or its
audience. Another concern is that advertisers have no idea whether the movie will be a success or
failure as they negotiate a contract for the placement. If the movie is a dud, what does that do to
the brand’s image?
Another problem is an ethical one—when is a product placement inappropriate? For example,
some pharmaceutical marketers have found that a product “plug” can be a way around the FDA’s
requirements on the disclosure of side effects. Public policy critics warn that it’s not just drugs; the
problem exists for weapons, alcohol, tobacco, and gambling, among other product categories that
raise social concerns. Product placement has been called “stealth advertising,” by the Writers
Guild of America who argued that “millions of viewers are sometimes being sold products without
their knowledge … and sold in violation of governmental regulations.”
Branded Entertainment
Similar to product placement, the use of the media of entertainment to engage consumers with
brands is referred to as advertainment or branded entertainment. In some cases, companies
may produce films for the Internet where the brand is integrated into the storyline.
An example of branded entertainment is described in the Inside Story feature in this chapter,
which explains how an animated program was created for the male grooming brand Axe. The
integrated launch campaign was a 360-degree promotional effort, and the show included the
following: launch parties, a dedicated website, text messaging, interactive billboards, in-store
video trailers, and a sweepstakes.
Search and Mobile Marketing
Because approximately 97% of consumers use computers to search for product and store
information, marketing strategies are designed to assist in this process. Mobile search using cell
phones is one of the fastest growing media forms.
For many companies this means their communication programs have added responding, as well as
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targeting, to their brand communication strategies. Another new practice that responds to this
increase in consumer control over the contact point is search marketing, which refers to the
placement of online ads near topics of interest that people search on their computers, tablets, or
smart phones. Search engine advertising is driven by the key words that consumers use in their
search for information or entertainment.
Mobile marketing is an exciting new platform for location-based messages that, among other
uses, can reach consumers with a promotional message when they are in the neighborhood of a
store.
Word of Mouth
Since we recognize the power of personal communication in decision making, creative folks are
challenged to come up with exciting new ways to generate buzz and convey brand messages
through word of mouth. Buzz is important because it means people are talking about a brand, and
when it gets passed rapidly through a network of friends, we call that viral communication. This
buzz may be the most important factor in consumer decision making because the
recommendations of others are more persuasive than any advertisement.
Guerilla Marketing
Exciting and involving personal experiences are designed to reach people on the
street and in public places through a practice known as guerilla marketing, a
really hot area of alternative marketing communication. This place-based strategy
creates unexpected personal encounters with a brand, such as painted messages on
streets or costumed brand characters parading across a busy intersection. Effective
guerilla marketing uses surprise and curiosity to catch attention and create
excitement as well as buzz about a brand.
The idea is to use creative ways to reach people where they live, work, and walk
to create a personal connection and a high level of impact. If it works, the
encounter gets talked about, creating a buzz moment. Guerilla marketing is so
much fun that it inspires creative people to come up with great ideas.
END-OF-CHAPTER SUPPORT
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