MEDIA PRINCIPLES

MEDIA PRINCIPLES

How to use reach and frequency

1. Use them to determine if the media plan can achieve the goals of your strategy.If your advertising objective is to get 50 percent of homes to be aware of your product or to try it, it can’t be done if your reach is less than 50 percent

2. Recognize that reach and frequency are interrelated. As reach goes up, frequency comes down. You can’t have both unless you add more money and go to a different media plan. Determine the best balance for your objectives.

The relationship between reach, frequency and rating points is expressed in this formula:

R x F = GRP

If your plan delivers a 90 reach and a 4 frequency, the total GRPs in a four-week period will be 360, or 90 per week.

3. Be aware that the same words in different contexts can mean different things. A medium that reaches young people or the frequency of newspaper advertisements in a schedule is not the same consumer exposure concept expressed in reach and frequency figures.

Two keys to success: frequency and continuity

People’s memories are short. That was the finding of a German psychologist, Hermann Ebbonghaus, in 1885. What Professor Ebbinghaus learned was:

§ People forget 60 percent of what they learn within a half-day.

§ The more repetition, the better retention.

§ Forgetting is rapid immediately after learning, and then levels off.

These facts are fundamental to two media issues: first, the relative importance of frequency versus reach: second, the value of continuous advertising.

People forget quickly.

Advertisers who seek to reach a broad audience at the expense of sufficient frequency among key prospects risk wasting all their advertising.

If your product is one that people are always in the market for-soap or toothpaste-the need for “reminder” advertising is obvious. But frequency is just as important for products purchased only occasionally-cars, headache remedies. The message must be there when people are ready to purchase.

Repetition aids retention.

Most of the great advertising success stories are ones of frequency. Even low-spending brands usually succeed by concentrating messages against a select audience.

Don’t aim for a broad target with a small budget. Better to reduce the reach objective and aim for a smaller audience-with sufficient frequency to be effective. This may mean advertising in fewer markets, advertising some products but not others, or advertising only in vehicles that reach a precisely defined group of people.

Your message needs continuity as well as frequency, it it’s to be remembered. If money were no consideration, plans would all call for continuous advertising for 52 weeks at high levels.

Since that isn’t practical, compromises must be made between effective levels and budgets. And a compromise is reached between bursts and continuous advertising.

Each product’s need for frequency depends on its purchase cycle, its stage of development, competition, and the advertising copy.

THE AGENCY PROCEDURE

The various stages through which a media plan evolves within an agency are quite complex. They will vary from agency to agency, and within agencies, from account to account. The variations will depend on the size of the problem to be tackled, the agency’s organization and its relations with its clients. The following figure illustrates the sequence, which will be followed, more or less, in the planning of most large campaigns conducted by sophisticated advertising agencies on behalf of the sophisticated clients.

PLANNING MEETING

The initial planning meeting is usually a large one and will comprise senior people working on the account, and possibly the agency management: the account director and his team, and creative and media personnel will take part. In some cases the client may be represented.

The purpose of this meeting is formally to evaluate the current progress of the brand, and its market, and the intentions for the period under review (usually the following financial year).

The outcome or end result of the meeting should be a draft marketing strategy, which outlines the way in which the agency feels the brand’s targets should best be achieved.

CLIENT APPROVAL

This draft will then be discussed with the client, the agency being represented possibly by the management, certainly by the account team. When approved, the marketing objectives from the basis of both creative and media work.

DEPARTMENTS WORKING

At the next stage the creative and media departments work separately, although it is necessary for them to confer together as frequently as possible. The media plan for the current year will be critically examined for its strengths and weaknesses and the evidence of any available media tests considered.

Changes that have taken place in the media scene since the current plan was developed; together with necessary changes in strategy flowing from changed marketing objectives, will be discussed. Most importantly, the likely effect on the media choice of the basic creative appeals, which are being developed, will be taken into account.

Creative requirements likely to have a critical effect on the media plan are clearly those of movement and colour. It is likely at this stage that the account team will be in fairly constant touch with both the creative and media departments. Indeed Stephen King has argued very eloquently that there really can be no chicken and egg in the creative media situation; both have to evolve together. From this view has sprung the title of Campaign Planner, although the function he fulfils varies from agency to agency. Media planning, atleast in broad-brush strokes is always part of his assignment; and he may also be concerned with account handling, research and the creative input.

DRAFT MEDIA AND CREATIVE STRATEGIES

From these vital deliberations will flow draft media and creative strategies. These will be submitted to the client for his approval and it is usual for those who have been involved in their creation to be present to argue their case.

ANALYSIS OF PLAN AND DATA

Once these basic strategies have been approved, detailed work can commence. At this stage it is still necessary for media and creative personnel to plug closely together, since a vital factor for discussion will be size of the space, or length of time, which is required to carry the advertising message. The bulk of media planner’s task is now concerned with the accumulation and analysis of data. It is sufficient to say here that whether a model is used to assist in the production of a plan or not, similar procedures have to be gone through. The principal differences arise because the computer is able to consider may more variables at one time than a planner can without its assistance. For the use of a media model, all judgments have to be quantified.

MEDIA SCHEDULE

From a computer printout, or from his own calculations, the planner will now have a series of media vehicles, together with number of insertions in each of them. To turn this into a schedule, he needs to consider the spread of the campaign over time; he will then embody the whole of his thinking into a proposal, for submission to the agency plans board.

PREPARING PROPOSAL

When this hurdle has been cleared, the total package, usually in the form of a document containing the full campaign plan, marketing, media and creative, together with ancillary recommendations for perhaps research and merchandising, will be presented to the client. The agency presentation team will usually include agency management, together with all senior personnel who have been responsible for creating the plan. Once it is agreed, the schedule is returned to the media department for buying.

Of course, if at any stage during the development of the plan there is a rejection, then the re-cycling process has to start and everyone has to try again. The advantage of obtaining client approval of strategies is that the problem is broken down into manageable portions. If the client sees nothing until he sees the final plan, he may well find himself in disagreement with the original marketing strategy, and much time will have been wasted.

THE PROCEDURE DIAGRAM: