In the previous blog, we’ve discussed elements that you should consider them in the third step of your media planning process, developing your media strategy. The last thing you should know in determining about your reach and frequency is the recency concept.
Recency is all about being as close as you can to the purchase decision making point called by Armani experts as the purchase moment of truth. So as a brand, you might have to know the times when the very decision is made, at that moment, if you are in front of their eyes, so it’s more possible that they choose you.
By considering the recency concept, you might say that the ads have to rent the spaces all the time because we don’t know when they are looking for us. This statement is almost true when your ads are about products like FMCGs such as shampoos, mineral waters, and whatever you can see at any supermarkets. These kinds of products usually take the continuous strategy of scheduling to be present everywhere that their customers might be present, this is what we call it be in the eye of your customer if you market an FMCG product.
After reach, frequency, and recency which you know about them, you might want to know about three other concepts that we promised about in previous blogs:
- Creative aspects and mood
- Flexibility
- Budget considerations
So let’s deep inside without any killing the time.
Creative Aspects and Mood
The context of the medium in which the ad is placed may also affect viewers’ perceptions. A specific creative strategy may require certain media. Because TV provides both sight and sound, it may be more effective in generating emotions than other media; magazines may create different perceptions from newspapers. In developing a media strategy, marketers must consider both creativity and mood factors. Let us examine each in more detail.
- Creative Aspects It is possible to increase the success of a product significantly through a strong creative campaign. But to implement this creativity, you must employ a medium that will support such a strategy. In some situations, the media strategy to be pursued may be the driving force behind the creative strategy, as the media and creative departments work closely together to achieve the greatest impact with the audience of the specific media.
- Mood Certain media enhance the creativity of a message because they create a mood that carries over to the communication. Considering the product type you are marketing, you might choose a different media or media vehicle that its enhanced mood meets your specific situation.
Flexibility
An effective media strategy requires a degree of flexibility. Because of the rapidly changing marketing environment, strategies may need to be modified. Flexibility may be needed to address the following:
- Market opportunities. Sometimes a market opportunity arises that the advertiser wishes to take advantage of. The development of a new advertising medium may offer an opportunity that was not previously available.
- Market threats. Internal or external factors may pose a threat to the firm, and a change in media strategy is dictated. For instance, assume a situation in which a competitor alters its media strategy to gain an edge. Failure to respond to this challenge could create problems for the firm.
- Availability of media. It’s a common problem that a desired medium becomes not available to the marketer. Perhaps the medium does not reach a particular target segment or has no time or space available. There are still some geographic areas that certain media do not reach. Even when the media are available, limited advertising time or space may have already been sold or cutoff dates for entry may have passed. Alternative vehicles or media must then be considered.
- Changes in media or media vehicles. A change in the medium or in a particular vehicle may require a change in the media strategy.
These factors fluctuate, so you as an advertiser should make your media plan flexible in order to better respond to upcoming situations you don’t know about them today.
Budget Considerations
One of the more important decisions in the development of media strategy is cost estimating. The value of any strategy can be determined by how well it delivers the message to the audience with the lowest cost and the least waste or what we call it higher ROI (Return on Investment). Advertising and promotional costs can be categorized in two ways.
The absolute cost of the medium or vehicle is the actual total cost required to place the message. Relative cost refers to the relationship between the price paid for advertising time or space and the size of the audience delivered; it is used to compare media vehicles.
Determining Relative Costs of Media To evaluate alternatives, advertisers must compare the relative costs of media and vehicles within these media. The broadcast, print, and out-of-home media do not always provide the same cost breakdown. So as an advertiser you should know metrics as follows:
1.Cost per thousand (CPM): It’s the cost per thousand people reached. The formula for this computation is
So you may pay more for a media or a vehicle, but considering the CPM might show you that it’s more efficient to choose that media if it has a lower CPM.
2.Cost per ratings point (CPRP): The broadcast media provide a different comparative cost figure, referred to as cost per ratings point or cost per point (CPP), based on the following formula:
As you might guess, this metric is not tangible for OOH media, so it’s for comparison between broadcasting media, in other words, TV commercials.
Most media buyers rely on target CPM, or TCPM, which calculates CPMs based on the target audience, not the overall audience. CPMs are limited in that they make only quantitative estimates of the value of media. Although they may be good for comparing very similar vehicles, they are less valuable in making intermedia comparisons, for example, CPM for magazines versus Internet banner ads is not comparable and that’s because of some differences among media that preclude direct comparisons.
So now you might figure out that this process isn’t just a routine. That is why we call our media planners at Armani artists. As a general comparison between media, you might need the below figure which is general but serves as a good lead.
Figure 1- General comparison between media types
EVALUATION AND FOLLOW-UP
The next step is evaluating and that is because all plans require some evaluation to assess their performance. The media plan is no exception. All the metrics used in this step should address 1) how well did these strategies achieve the media objectives? And 2) how well did this media plan contribute to attaining the overall marketing and communications objectives?
The problem arises because lack of metrics for some media but even if the evaluation procedure is not foolproof, it is better than no attempt. This concept will be our main consideration in future blogs as one of the jobs that media agencies like Armani Media Agency do in their projects.
References
Belch, G. E., & Belch, M. A. (2015). Media Planning and Strategy. In G. E. Belch, & M. A. Belch, Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communication Perspective (pp. 337-372). New York: McGraw-Hill Education.
