Advertising: Pay to Play

Developing the Media Plan

The media plan is a document that outlines the strategy and approach for an advertising campaign, or for the advertising component in an IMC campaign. The media plan is developed simultaneously with the creative strategy. A standard media plan consists of four stages: (a) stating media objectives; (b) evaluating media; (c) selecting and implementing media choices; and (d) determining the media budget.

Media objectives are normally started in terms of three dimensions:

  • Reach: number of different persons or households exposed to a particular media vehicle or media schedule at least once during a specified time period.
  • Frequency: the number of times within a given time period that a consumer is exposed to a message.
  • Continuity: the timing of media assertions (e.g. 10 per cent in September, 20 per cent in October, 20 per cent in November, 40 per cent in December and 10 per cent the rest of the year).

The process of evaluating media involves considering each type of advertising available to a marketer, and the inherent strengths and weaknesses associated with each medium. The table below outlines key strengths and weaknesses of major types of advertising media. Television advertising is a powerful and highly visible medium, but it is expensive to produce and buy air time. Radio is quite flexible and inexpensive, but listenership is lower and it typically delivers fewer impressions and a less-targeted audience. Most newspapers and magazines have passed their advertising heydays and today struggle against declining subscriptions and readership.  Yet they can be an excellent and cost-effective investment for reaching some audiences. Display ads offer a lot of flexibility and creative options, from wrapping busses in advertising to creating massive and elaborate 3-D billboards. Yet their reach is limited to their immediate geography. Online advertising such as banner ads, search engine ads, paid listings, pay-per-click links and similar techniques offers a wide selection of opportunities for marketers to attract and engage with target audiences online. Yet the internet is a very crowded place, and it is difficult to for any individual company to stand out in the crowd.

Table: Advertising Media Strengths and Weaknesses

Advertising Media Type Strengths Weaknesses
Television
  • Strong emotional impact
  • Mass coverage/small cost per impression
  • Repeat message
  • Creative flexibility
  •  Entertaining/prestigious
  • High costs
  • High clutter (too many ads)
  • Short-lived impression
  • Programming quality
  • Schedule inflexibility
Radio
  • Immediacy
  • Low cost per impression
  • Highly flexible
  • Limited national coverage
  • High clutter
  • Less easily perceived during drive time
  • Fleeting message
Newspapers
  • Flexibility (size, timing, etc).
  • Community prestige
  • Market coverage
  • Offer merchandising services
  • Reader involvement
  • Declining readership
  • Short life
  • Technical quality
  • Clutter
Magazines
  • Highly segmented audiences
  • High-profile audiences
  • Reproduction quality
  • Inflexible
  • Narrow audiences
  • Waste circulation
Display Ads:

Billboards, Posters, Flyers, etc.
  • Mass coverage/small cost per impression
  • Repeat message
  • Creative flexibility
  • High clutter
  • Short-lived impression
Online Ads (including mobile):

Banner ads, search ads, paid listings, pay-per-click links, etc.
  • Highly segmented audiences
  • Highly measurable
  • Low cost per impression
  • Immediacy; link to interests, behavior
  • Click-thru and code allow further interaction
  • Timing flexibility
  • High clutter
  • Short-lived impression
  • Somewhat less flexibility in size, format


The evaluation process requires research to to assess options for reaching their target audience with each medium, and how well a particular message fits the audience in that medium. Many advertisers rely heavily on the research findings provided by the medium, by their own experience, and by subjective appraisal to determine the best media for a given campaign.

To illustrate, if a company is targeting young-to-middle-aged professional women to sell beauty products, the person or team responsible for the media plan should evaluate what options each type of media offers for reaching this audience. How reliably can television, radio, newspapers or magazines deliver this audience? Media organizations maintain carefully-researched information about the size, demographics and other characteristics of their viewership or readership. Cable and broadcast TV networks know which shows are hits with this target demographic and therefore which advertising spots to sell to a company targeting professional women. Likewise newspapers know which sections attract the eyeballs of female audiences, and magazines publishers understand very well the market niches their publications fit. Online advertising becomes a particularly powerful tool for targeted advertising because of the information it captures and tracks about site visitors: who views and clicks on ads, where they visit and what they search for. Not only does digital advertising provide the opportunity to advertise on sites that cater to a target audience of professional women, but it can identify which of these women are searching for beauty products, and it can help a company target these individuals more intensely and provide opportunities for follow-up interaction.

The following video further explains how digital advertising targets and tracks individuals based on their expressed interests and behaviors.