Media Planning Process

Media planning is the process by which marketers determine where, when, and how often they will run an advertisement in order to maximize engagements and ROI. The media plan might split advertising spend and resources between various online and offline channels such as broadcast, print, paid ads, video ads or native content.

Media planning is the process of identifying and selecting media outlets like television, newspapers, radio, magazines, etc., on which paid advertisements can be done. The person who is in charge of evaluating these media options and strategizing the advertising campaign to promote the said products or services is known as the media planner. Media plans help in finding the most efficient way to deliver the advertiser’s message across its audience.

1. Market Analysis:

Every media plan begins with the market analysis of environmental analysis. Complete review of internal and external factors is required to be done.

At this stage media planners try to identify answers of the following questions:

• Identification of the Target Audience:

Which is the audience for our product? This happens to be the most important consideration in the media decisions. We first examine our market plans and advertising plans. These provide us details about the audience for our product.

Detailed studies of our audience can be made. We can describe our audience in terms of age, religion, sex, education – these are demographic characteristics. We can describe it in terms of their income and occupation.

Audience can also be described in psychographic terms – activities, interests, opinions forming a lifestyle, personality traits, brand preferences. After having a complete picture of our target audience, we undertake the study of the media’s readership in terms of demographic, economic and psychographic terms.

Agencies conduct their own media research. Even media itself provides a demographic profile of their readers. There are readership surveys to guide us. We have to select those media vehicles whose demographic profile matches the target audience of our product. We can target our product to a segment of the market.

Then we have to select that media vehicle which reaches this segment. We may have to use another media vehicle to reach some other segment. It should, however, be seen that a united image is projected and consistency of message is maintained through different media mix.

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. Different customers differ with regard to age, income, education level, personality, attitude etc. If target audience or customers are educated and young, print media and T.V., can be selected. If number of target customers is more, then mass-media like, T.V., Newspapers will be suitable.

• Study of Factors Affecting Media Planning:

There are various factors which affect media planning.

While making media planning, the media-planner must consider these factors which are described as follows:

(a) Internal Factors: Internal factors are those factors which are directly related to company like size of company, advertising budget, size of organization, distribution strategy of organization, potential market area etc. Advertising budget is very important factor, while selecting media planning. If size of ad-budget is more, then costly media like T.V. can be selected. If size of ad budget is small, the cheap media will be selected.

(b) External Factors: External factors includes media coverage, media image, media adopted by competitors etc. while selecting the media, the advertiser must consider the media selected by competitors and leaders of that industry. Along with cost of various media should be compared.

• Identifying the Geographical Area:

Total geographical area of target market is identified. Those areas, where the sale of the company’s product is more, are identified. For low potential market area, smaller advertising budget is allocated. The geographical area also includes whether advertising should be done at local level or national level or international level.

2. Message Distribution:

The first step in the setting up of objectives was the definition of the target audience. The next step is the distribution of message to this audience. The number of messages and the frequency of their appearance matter a lot.

We have to decide whether a single message is sufficient or there should be several repetitions of the same. These lead us to the concepts of reach and frequency, which are to be balanced.

The overall constraint on both these concepts is the advertising budget. We also have to calculate the total message weight of the campaign.

• Reach:

Reach indicates a percentage of target audience who is exposed at least once in a given period to a particular media vehicle. It does not matter how many times they actually see or hear the ad message.

We concentrate on one exposure only. Thus, if 3,000 out of a target audience of 10,000 teenagers tune into the FM radio one or more times during a month, the reach is 30 per cent, i.e., 3,000 divided by 10,000.

Though reach measures exposure, it does not actually measure those who have noticed a particular ad. The objective of reaching 30 p.c. of target audience is based on the people who tune in radio FM, irrespective of the fact whether these people have taken cognizance of our ad.

It is a term that is used for all media (print, TV, radio) and indicates the number of people who are actually exposed to the medium in a given period which is normally linked to the periodicity of the medium.

While deciding about the reach, the time period selected is either four weeks or corresponds to the purchase cycle of the product.

• Frequency:

Frequency indicates the number of times people in the target audience are exposed to a media vehicle during a given period of time. Average frequency gives the average number of times people or households in our target audience are exposed to a media vehicle.

Generally, a single exposure may not work either in creating an awareness or provoking someone to buy. The more the exposures, the better the impact. Besides, more exposures make us rise above the competitive noise. It is good to plan how many we would like our audience to see the message in a given medium.

While introducing a new product more frequency. When the ad size is small, we need more frequency. When the message is complex, we need more fre­quency. Higher frequency helps us stand out in the clutter.

We have to decide the effective frequency-it is not frequency which is needed to communicate effectively with the target audience. It is a difficult thing to settle. There can be a minimum frequency and maximum frequency to be effective.

Lesser frequency makes the communication ineffective. Higher frequency may be a waste of ad resources. There can be also ad fatigue if there are too many repetitions.

While we talk of effective frequency to set the least number of exposures needed, we also consider effective reach to indicate the percentage of the target audience exposed to the ad, some minimum number of times or more. This adds the dimension of repetition to the concept of reach and frequency.

Greater reach and frequency stretches the media budget. It is necessary to optimise both reach and frequency. Balancing is difficult especially when two or more ads are being employed or two or more media are being used. We have, therefore, to consider the message weight of the entire media plan. 

• Message Weight:

The sum of the reach number of specific media vehicles in a given media plan gives the message weight. Here, while summing the reach, duplication or overlapping is ignored. Message weight is expressed in terms of gross impressions or gross rating points (GRP).

Gross impressions are a summation of exposures of the target audience to media vehicles in a media plan. Each exposure is counted as one impression. Suppose an advertiser puts advertisements on a programme of a TV channel viewed five times by 6,000 people in the target audience and seven times by 6,000 people in a four weeks period.

Also suppose during the same four weeks period, the ad is put on another programme of a second TV channel viewed 3 times by 3,000 people in the target audience, the gross impressions would be:

For a mass media like a TV channel, message weight is expressed in gross rating points (GRPs). It is a sum of the rating points of all programmes in the TV media plan. One rating point indicates one per cent of the target audience. GRPs of the entire media plan are given by:

GRPs for TV are calculated generally for a week or a month. Television Rating Points in (TRPs) are available in India calculated on the basis of the panel method. The ultimate business of TV is to deliver the eyeballs. It is obviously an issue of audience share. Gross impressions in print media are counted for every ad in every media vehicle used during the whole campaign.

There should be an attempt in the media objectives to balance the reach and frequency. There should be an appropriate message weight at the same time. This will help us realise our advertising plan. To face a heavy competitive campaign, we should have greater frequency to ensure the repetition of the message.

It is not so important to have a wider reach. While advertising an innovation, a greater reach is preferred to a greater frequency. It is also important to have a large message weight. Once the media objectives are set, we are ready to develop strategies to realise them.

3. Selecting Suitable Media:

For selecting appropriate media, different media are compared on the basis of cost per reader, cost per viewer, media-image, etc. While selecting media, the advertiser should ensure that media matches with features of target audience. The selected media should match with message-requirements, e.g. If message involves demonstration, then media with audio visual effects will be selected. While selecting suitable media, availability of media should also be kept in mind. It is possible that a particular media suits our requirements, but it is already booked, so some other media will have to be selected.

4. Selecting Optimum Media-Mix:

If the advertiser feels that no single media is sufficient in itself in achieving advertising objectives then different media can be used in combination and their optimum mix is decided by the advertiser. By combining different media, advertiser can increase coverage and improve the chances of achieving advertising goals. Overall ad-budget also influences the ration of different elements of media mix.

For example, to achieve advertising objectives and after considering advertising budget, the advertiser may decide a mix of 45% television, 20% newspaper, 10% magazine, 15% outdoor media and 10% internet media. Different advertisers may decide different media-mix depending upon their requirements, but media-mix should be such that advertiser can communicate advertising-message to the target audience most effectively and at lowest possible cost.

5. Selecting Suitable Media Vehicle within Each Selected Media:

After selecting media, appropriate media vehicles are to be selected. For example, after deciding that advertising is to be done through newspaper, it is decided that in which newspaper it is be done-whether through Indian Express, Tribune, or Hindustan Times, etc.

If it is decided that advertising is to be done through magazine, then out of various magazines, appropriate magazine/magazines are selected. If advertising is to be done through television, then it is decided that at which T.V. channel or in which T.V. programme advertisement is to be given. Suitable media vehicles are selected to attain media objectives.

6. Media Scheduling:

In media scheduling, decisions regarding date or time when these advertisements are to be shown are taken. In media-scheduling, time-gap in two advertisements is also decided. Purpose of media-scheduling is to issue advertisements at appropriate time with appropriate frequency so that target audience can be contacted at minimum advertising cost.

It helps to control wasteful advertising expenses. If advertisement is related to product to be used by school/college going children, then it is better to show the advertisement in the evening time in T.V. programmes. If the product is of seasonal nature, then ad should be shown more frequently in the season period and less frequently in the off season period.

7. Executing Advertising Programme:

After selecting media and deciding its schedule, advertising department is given the task of designing suitable advertising copy and executing it in the selected media. Some companies assign this task of designing advertising to professional advertising agencies.

8. Follow-Up and Evaluation:

After implementing advertising programme, advertiser evaluates its effectiveness to know whether media objectives have been achieved, whether media-plan has contributed in achieving overall advertising-objectives. Answers to these questions help the advertiser to know success or failure of media strategy. If our media strategy is not effective, then corrective actions will be taken for future media planning, so that in future, better media-plans can be made.