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CHAPTER CONTENT
Chapter Key Points
1. What is the role of media research in developing media plans?
2. What are the four steps in media planning?
3. What are the responsibilities of media buyers?
.
Chapter Overview
Media planning is a problem-solving process. The problem: How can media choices help
meet the marketing and advertising objectives? The ultimate goal is to engage the target
audience with the right message in the best possible way at the best possible time in the
most efficient way possible. In this chapter, we review how a media plan is developed,
that is, how media planners set objectives and develop media strategies. We then explore
the media buying function and explain how media buyers execute the plan.
Chapter Outline
How Are Media Plans Created?
Media planners are in the connection business. Their work connects brand messages
with customers and other stakeholders. They identify and activate the points of
contact where brand messages touch consumers and engage their interest.
The Iceland cancer campaign was multiplatform, including traditional media,
particularly print and outdoor, but also websites, internet videos, social media and
viral marketing, a theatrical play, and party hosting. This media plan involved a lot
more than advertising, which supports the point we made in Chapter 11 that all forms
of marketing communication use media.
Engagement-making connections that resonate with the audience is the hallmark of
effective marketing communication.
Media Engagement Research
If the right media aren’t in play, no matter how great the message, nobody sees or hears
it.
Media Sources
Before planning can begin, media researchers gather information on the media that
might be used to engage the audience. Figure 14.1 and the list below illustrate the
wide range of media information sources and the critical role media research plays in
the overall advertising planning process:
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Client Information: The client is good source for various types of
information media such as demographic profiles of current customers
(both light and heavy users), response to previous promotions, product
sales and distribution patterns, and, most importantly, the budget or how
much can be spent on media. Geographical differences in category and
brand sales also affect how the media budget is allocated. With consumer
goods and services especially, rates of consumption can differ greatly from
one region to another.
Market Research: Independently gathered information about markets and
product categories is another valuable tool. Mediamark Research, Inc.
(MRI), Scarborough (local markets), and Mendelsohn (affluent markets)
are research companies that provide this service. This information is
usually organized by product category (detergents, cereals, snacks, and so
on) and cross tabulated by audience groups and their consumption
patterns. Accessible online for a fee, this wealth of information can be
searched and compared across thousands of categories, brands, and
audience groups.
Competitive Advertising Expenditures In highly competitive product
categories, such as packaged goods and consumer services, marketers
track how much competing brands spend on media compared to how
much they are spending on their particular brand. This is called share of
voice. Marketers want to know which, if any, competing brands have
louder voices (i.e., are spending more) than they do.
Media Kits The various media and their respective media vehicles provide
media kits, which contain information about the size and makeup of their
audiences. Although media-supplied information is useful, keep in mind
that this information is assembled to make the best possible case for
advertising in that particular medium and media vehicle.
Nielsen Media Research audits national and local television, and Arbitron
measures radio. Other services, such as the Alliance for Audited Media
(formerly known as Audit Bureau of Circulations), Simmons, and MRI,
monitor print audiences, and Media Metrix measures internet audiences.
All of these companies provide extensive information on viewers,
listeners, and readers in terms of the size of the audience and their profiles.
Media Coverage Area The broadcast coverage area for television is called
a designated marketing area (DMA). The coverage area is referred to by
the name of the largest city in the area. This is a national market analysis
system, and every county in the United States has been assigned to a
DMA. The assignment of a county to a DMA is determined by which city
provides the majority of the county households’ television programming.
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Most DMAs include counties within a 50 to 60-mile radius of a major city
center.
Consumer Behavior Reportsare useful in planning media strategies. For
example, media planners use such services as the Claritas PRIZM system,
Nielsen’s ClusterPlus system, and supermarket scanner data to locate the
target audience within media markets.
Media planners must gather, sort, and analyze volumes of data and
information before media planning can begin. Media research begins with
collections of data about the readership and viewership of various media.
Here’s a quick summary of the key concepts and standard sources of the
data.
Newspaper Readership
Nearly half of all adults receive home delivery of a Sunday or weekday newspaper;
delivery levels are highest in small and medium-size cities and lowest in rural
locations and larger metropolitan areas. Newspaper reading tends to be highest among
older people and people with a higher educational and income level. It is lowest
among people in their late teens and early 20s and among lower-education and
lower-income groups.
Newspaper readership tends to be selective, with a greater percentage reading specific
sections rather than the whole paper. Business and professional newspapers, such as
Ad Age, have particularly high readership levels.
Newspapers measure their audiences in two ways: circulationand readership.
Readership is always a larger number than circulation because when a paper is
delivered to a home or office, it is often read by more than one person. This type of
information facilitates the media planner’s ability to match a certain newspaper’s
readership with the target audience.
Agencies obtain objective measures of newspaper circulation and readership by
subscribing to one or both of the following auditing companies:
The Alliance for Audited Media is an independent auditing group that
represents advertisers, agencies, and publishers. This group verifies statements
about newspaper circulation and provides a detailed analysis of the newspaper
by state, town, and county. Its members include only paid-circulation
newspapers and magazines.
Simmons-Scarboroughprovides a syndicated study that annually measures
readership profiles in approximately 70 of the nation’s largest cities. The study
covers readership of a single issue and the estimated unduplicated readers for
a series of issues.
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Magazine Readership
Magazine rates are based on the guaranteed circulation that a publisher promises to
provide. Magazine circulation is the number of copies of an issue sold, not the
readership of the publication (called “readers per copy”). A single copy of a magazine
might be read by one person or by several people, depending on its content.
The Alliance for Audited Media is responsible for verifying circulation numbers.
Created in 1914, this group audits subscriptions as well as newsstand sales and also
checks the number of delinquent subscribers and rates of renewal.
MediaMark, which provides a service called MRI, is the industry leader in magazine
readership measurement. MRI measures readership for many popular national and
regional magazines (along with other media). Reports are issued to subscribers twice
a year and cover readership by demographics, psychographics, and product use.
The Simmons Market Research Bureau provides psychographic data on who reads
which magazines and which products these readers buy and consume.Other research
companies, such asStarch and Gallup and Robinson, provide information about
magazine audience size and behavior.
One problem with these measurement services is the limited scope of their services.
Without the services of an objective (outside) measurement company, advertisers
must rely on the data from the magazines themselves, which may be biased.
One interesting change in magazine measurement is the move, which is supported by
the MPA, to quantify the “experience” of reading the magazine. A major study to pilot
test this concept found that the more engaged people were in the magazine
experience, the more impact the advertising had.
The Radio Audience
The radio industry and independent research firms provide several measures for
advertisers, including a station’s coverage. This is simply the number of homes in a
geographic area that can pick up the station clearly, whether those homes are actually
tuned in or not.
A better measure is station or program ratings, which measures the percent of homes
actually tuned in to the particular station. Factors such as competing programs, types
of programs, and time of day or night influence the circulation figure.
The Arbitron Ratings Company estimates the size of radio audiences for more than
250 markets in the United States. Arbitron uses a seven-day, self-administered diary
to capture listening data.
A new technology called the Portable People Meter is a pager-size device that detects
codes embedded in the audio programming regardless of where the device—whether
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traditional radio, computer, or cell phone—is located. The device has been found to
be quite effective at predicting audience interest, even leading to some major format
changes
The Television Audience
A great number of advertisers consider television their primary medium. Can
television deliver a target audience to advertisers effectively? What do we really
know about how audiences watch television? Is it a background distraction? Do we
switch from channel to channel without watching any single show? Or do we
carefully and intelligently select what we watch on television?
Television viewers are sometimes irritated by the intrusiveness of advertising and
switch channels or zip through commercials on prerecorded programs. Clutter is part
of the problem advertisers face, and the audience has become very good at avoidance,
unless the ads are intrusive or highly engaging. The Super Bowl is one of the few
programs where viewers actually watch commercials.
A.C. Nielsen is the research company that dominates the television measurement
industry.Exposure in television measures households with sets turned on, a
population referred to as households using television (HUT). But a HUT figure
doesn’t tell you if anyone is watching the program.
We defined an impression as one person’s opportunity to be exposed one time to the
advertising in a program. The impressions from television—the number of viewers
exposed to 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 or during a time period. We add all of these impressions up
and call them gross impressions. For television programs, the exposure is estimated
in terms of number of viewers
Other forms of television viewing measurement include ratings and share. Ratings
(percentage of exposure) are used because gross impression figures are so large. A
rating of 10 means that 10 percent of HUT were tuned to the program carrying a
brand’s ad. Since one rating point equals 1 percent of the 114 million homes in the
United States, a 10 rating would be around 11 million households.
Another way to look at viewership is in terms of the share of the audience, which is
based on the number of televisions turned on. The share is larger than a rating
because the base figure (televisions turned on) is smaller than HUT. A rating of 10 for
a Sunday night program might, for example, be a share of 20, which means that 20
percent, or one-fifth, of the 11 million televisions turned on were tuned to the
program carrying the brand’s ad.
Independent rating firms, such as A. C. Nielsen, provide the most commonly used
measures of national and local television audiences. Nielsen periodically samples a
portion of the television viewing audience, estimates the size and characteristics of
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the audiences watching specific shows, and then makes these data available, for a fee,
to advertisers and ad agencies, which use them in their media planning.
Nielsen’s calculations are based on audience data from about 5,000 measurement
instruments, called people meters, which record what television shows are being
watched, the number of households that are watching, and which family members are
viewing. The company also uses viewer diaries mailed out during the sweeps period,
which are quarterly periods when more extensive audience data and demographics
are gathered. About 1 million diaries are returned each year to collect demographic
data.
A new locally based meter system would allow Nielsen to identify the age, race, and
sex of viewers on a nightly basis. These ratings are based on programs and are not
measures of specific advertisements.
One interesting finding from an analysis of ratings is that even in this age of DVRs,
the lead-in show matters.Another finding during the recent recession is the power of
ethnic media. For example, the number-one television station in Los Angeles isn’t one
of the networks; rather, it’s the Spanish-language KMEX.Something not measured by
all of these metrics is the dedication of a program’s superfans.
Outdoor Viewership
Outdoor advertising reaches people as they travel by a sign’s site. The advertiser is
interested in the percentage of the population of the total market (based on car or
pedestrian counts) who, within a 24-hour period, are exposed one or more boards
carrying the brand message.
Traditionally outdoor boards have been purchased and measured in terms of
showings, which are estimates of the percentages of the population who had the
opportunity to see the sign.
These showings are usually stated as 25, 50, or 100 percent. The number of signs
carrying the brand message is determined by the percentage of the audience that the
media planner hopes to reach. A 50 showing, for example, means that 50 percent of
the market’s population was exposed to one or more of the outdoor brand messages in
one day.
Media planners may convert the showing to something equivalent to rating points in
order to make it easier to compare the weight of the various media buys.
Online Audiences
Media planners are interested in estimates of the number of visits to a website, how
much time was spent on the site, and new and repeat visitors as well as supplemental
information, such as more sophisticated analytics that are provided by ad-buying
services and the sites themselves.
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Google and Yahoo! have built impressive models and ad-buying programs to help
media planners. For ads and banners, data are collected about the number of
click-throughs that moved the user from the ad to the advertisers’ site.
Various types of software programs are available that can be integrated into the
advertiser’s information technology system that collect these types of usage data,
which are then transmitted to companies that specialize in providing these
measurement systems.
Nielsen and comScore have digital ratings program, as do Google, Microsoft, and
Facebook. These systems record activity, but not demographics, so the data are not as
useful as planners might like.
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