MEDIA PLANNING

Defining Media Planning

Media Planning consists of a series of
decisions made to answer the question for
advertisers :
`What is the best means of delivering
advertisements to prospective purchasers
of my brand or service ?

Media Planning The Process

QUESTIONS
Who are we talking to ?

ANSWERS
: Target audience

Where are these people ?

: Markets

How many people to reach ?

: Reach

How many times ?

: Avg Frequency/ Avg OTS

Which media ?

: Media selection

Which months & what

time of the day?

: Scheduling

Reach
THE OBJECTIVE OF ANY MEDIA BUDGET IS TO MAXIMIZE
REACH & FREQUENCY & GRP`S within a given Advertising
Budget

Reach defined as % of Target Audience who is exposed at

least once to an advertisement in a given period to a
particular media vehicle or a group of Media.

E.g.:-The size of T.A of Livon 10 million

Our target is to reach 80% of the TA

Thus our Advertising plan has to reach 8 million persons
within a predefined budget.

The Media Planning Process

Reviewing the media brief

Competitive analysis
Who are we talking to ?
Timing Strategies
Media objectives
Effective reach and frequency
Media strategy

What should the brief contain ?

Category / brand history
Competitive universe, competitive activity, sales &
share trends, , brand positioning
Marketing objectives
General - volume/ share /trial goals, changes vs
last year
Specific launches/relaunches, extensions, etc.
Role of advertising
Awareness, image, learning, action or response

What should the brief contain ?

Purchase / Usage data
Awareness tracking
Regional priorities
Seasonal priorities

Competitive Intelligence
Reported expenditures
Competitors spending patterns, scheduling strategies/
tactics etc

Creative executions
Positioning, complexity of message, target audience,
communication objectives

Market intelligence
Likely happenings, degree of success of past
competitive strategies, etc

Media Objectives need to be

established to answer ...
Who?
Target Audience

Where?
Geography

When?
Scheduling

How Often?
Communication Goals

WHO?
THE TARGET
AUDIENCE

Identifying The Target

Audience
Demographic variables
Sex, income, age, SEC, occupation, marital status, etc
Socio-psychographic variables
Lifestyles, attitudes, etc
Product usage variables
Heavy/medium/light or non-users
Need to address multiple segments
End consumers, decision makers, influencers, buyers

Timing Objectives
Determine best times to advertise
Weeks of year
Days of week
Times of day
The timing of advertising depends on three
factors:
Seasonality
Consumers' product purchase cycle

Scheduling Patterns
Continuity

Media weight scheduled for many weeks

throughout year

Flighting

Intermittent, with gaps in advertising.

Pulsing

Continuous advtg with heavier weight in some

months - flighting and continuity combined

Media Strategies
Evolve from media objectives and describe
how they will be accomplished.
Reflect specific course of action to be taken.
A matter of evaluating different media types
and mixes to determine best way to achieve
objectives within given budget

Which Media Do We Use, Why

Or Why Not ?
Magazines
Pros

Target selectivity
Good colour reproduction
Pass along readers
Long shelf life
Broad coverage
Detailed copy/depth of copy
Skewed toward educated,
upscale targets

Cons

Limited impact
Lacks immediacy
Long lead time
No warmth of human voice

Which Media Do We Use, Why

Or Why Not ?
Newspapers
Pros

Immediate high reach

National/local flexibility
Short lead time
Ethnic appeal
Timely/newsworthy
environment
Shopping/retail environment
Facility of second reading
Detailing of message

Cons

High cost of national coverage

Short issue life
Non targeted readership
No warmth of human voice

Reach and frequency

Reach is the number of different people who are
exposed an advertising message at least once.
Frequency is the number of times thay are
exposed to the message.
The strategy of greater reach is desirable in following
circumstances;
When introducing the new use for the product in order to expand its
market share.
To improve the image of the company
When a new product is introduced

HIGH FREQUENCY IS REQUIRED:1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

When the message is not easy to remember

When the direct order from people is desired
as a result of a given advertisement
When competitor is using higher frequency to
reach the same segment of the market .
When product or brand differentiation is low
from that of competitor
When a reaction is desired within a limited
time period

Factors important in determining

frequency levels
Media factors
Marketing factors
Message and creativity factors
1. Media factors:
Attentiveness: the higher the level of attention achieved by the
media vehicle, the less frequency is required. Low attention
getting media will require more repetitions.
Number of media used: the more media are used, the lower the
level of frequency required.
Clutter: the more advertising that appears in the media used, the
more frequency is needed to break through the clutter.

Cont..
Repeat exposure: media that allow more repeat exposure require less
frequency.eg: monthly magazines
Scheduling: continuous scheduling requires less frequency than does
fighting or pulsing.
2) Marketing factors:
Brand loyalty
Usage cycle: products used daily will quickly needed to be replaced.
Higher level of frequency is desired
Brand history: is the brand new or established? New brands generally
require higher frequency levels

TRP
Unlike a newspaper or a magazine, where the publisher
can count how many copies are sold, there is no direct
way to know exactly how many people are watching any
given programme.
This gives us an index of the choice of the people and
also the popularity of a particular channel.
The purpose of the "target rating point" metric is to
measure impressions in relation to the number of people
in a specific target audience for an advertisement

 For calculation purpose, a device is attached to the TV

set in a few thousand viewers houses for judging
purpose.
These numbers are treated as sample from the overall
TV owners in different geographical and demographic
sectors.
The device is called as Peoples Meter.
It records the time and the programme that a viewer
watches on a particular day.
Then, the average is taken for a 30-day period which
gives the viewership status for a particular channel

Gross rating points

Gross rating points (GRPs) is a term used in advertising
to measure the size of an audience reached by a specific
media vehicle or schedule.
It is the product of the percentage of the target audience
reached by an advertisement, times the frequency of
their exposure during the schedule.
GRP:- Reach X Frequency

For example, a TV commercial that is aired 4 times

reaching 40% of the target audience, would have 160
(GRP = 4 40%) i.e., GRPs = frequency % reach.

 Targeted Rating Points are a refinement of GRP's to

express the reach time frequency of only your most
likely prospects.
For example, if you have 150 GRP's for a television spot,
but you know that only half of that audience is actually
your market, then you would state your TRP as 75 to
calculate your net effective buy.