Media planning is required because product consumers are scattered across media and one consumer may be using more than one media format. If there were just one TV channels, one newspaper, one radio station and one social media website, there would have been no need for media planning at all. However such a scenario does not exist in real world and if it did, it would lead to Ad space clutter and so the example should be taken only in academic sense. Since the closing years of 20th century the world has witnessed an explosion in Media platforms and today the job of a Media planning agency has become extremely tough.Manufacturers and other commercial entities want to advertise their product using available media in the target location. Presence of large number of media companies and media formats means high advertising costs. Very few businesses can afford to cover a large spectrum of media platforms. Therefore there is a need of Advertisement media planning professionals who specialize in understanding various media platforms in a geographical zone and who also have a grasp on consumer behavior patterns of that region. These Media planning agencies or advertising agencies use a plethora of Media planning tools to provide Media planning services to their clients.
Major Media formats for Media planning
Some important Media Planning terms
Main objectives of Media planning/Buying
The main objective of availing Media planning services is by a Business is to achieve a desired “Reach” and “frequency”. To achieve both these parameters, the Media planning agencies and Media buying agencies make use of various Media planning tools.
Social Media Planning use Media planning tools like TRP, CPP, CPT, UC, CTR and PPC etc to negotiate and buy media spaces. The Media buying agency has to be ready with its own genuine media statistics and not rely on the figures submitted by the media selling companies for achieving better negotiations. Buying strategies and tactics like bulk buying, add-ons, value add packages and e-blast etc can be used to make more effective buying. A buying rate card which mentions the quoted media rates and negotiated rates only goes on to show the media buying benefit to the advertiser. This rate card can show savings made per advertisement exposure on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. After all the main objective of Media planning and Media buying is to use minimum budget for maximum advertising impact!
Major Media formats for Media planning
- Electronic media ( T.V., Radio)
- Print media ( Newspapers, magazines, Pamphlets )
- Digital media ( CDs, DVDs, Social media, Mobile phones)
- Outdoor ( Banners, billboards)
Some important Media Planning terms
- Reach – The number of households who are exposed to a media vehicle at least once in a given region.
- Target Group – The key consumer group for a brand whom the advertiser is planning to give the advertising message.
- Universe – Actual count of consumers in the target group.
- Rating point – The percentage (%) of the target universe group who are actually exposed to a TV or Radio Ad at a given point of time. 1 rating point = 1% of target audience.
- GRP (Gross rating point) - Total size of audience reached by a particular media vehicle.
- TRP (Target rating point) – It is the GRP achieved in a special target group by a media vehicle.
- Frequency – The number of times an individual is exposed to a brand’s advertisement campaign.
- CPP (Cost per point) - Cost spent to buy one rating point or in other words cost of reaching 1% of the target audience.
- CPT (Cost per thousand) – It stands for the cost of reaching 1000 target audience with a particular media campaign and media vehicle.
- Day part Viewership - The demography of audience exposed to a media campaign during different parts of a day.
- UC (User clicks) - Number of first clicks by a website visitor.
- CTR (Click through rate) – It is the count of users who actually clicked at the desired link of the advertisement campaign.
- PPC (Pay per click) – It is also known as “Cost per click” and is the cost a business gives to a website for each click on the business Ad link on the website.
Main objectives of Media planning/Buying
The main objective of availing Media planning services is by a Business is to achieve a desired “Reach” and “frequency”. To achieve both these parameters, the Media planning agencies and Media buying agencies make use of various Media planning tools.
- Reach: Reach is the total count of households or individuals who are exposed to a media vehicle at least once in a given period. However it is not the count of people who are exposed to the actual advertisement. The “Reach” number is a crucial input of Media planning tools as it helps the media planner to create a media-mix based upon the “Reach” of various media vehicles in a given advertising region. The number of households which must be exposed to the advertising message is established and then a media-mix of all the media vehicles that may be required to achieve that number is evolved. The cheapest combination of media mix which achieves the target media-reach is communicated to the Media Buying Companies who finally make the buy after negotiating with the media companies.
- Frequency: It is the number of times a household or an individual is actually exposed to the brand advertisement which is being promoted by the Media planning agency. This is equally important and crucial Media planning tool as by better reach only, an advertisement campaign’s success can not be gauged. It is only if target number of households actually get exposed to the advertisement message that the media plan is considered to be successful. To achieve better frequency or advertisement exposure, Media buying agencies buy those time slots and media vehicles which are more likely to find the target group. For this, Media buying Companies need to thoroughly research the demography of the target geographical region of the Advertisement campaign.
Social Media Planning use Media planning tools like TRP, CPP, CPT, UC, CTR and PPC etc to negotiate and buy media spaces. The Media buying agency has to be ready with its own genuine media statistics and not rely on the figures submitted by the media selling companies for achieving better negotiations. Buying strategies and tactics like bulk buying, add-ons, value add packages and e-blast etc can be used to make more effective buying. A buying rate card which mentions the quoted media rates and negotiated rates only goes on to show the media buying benefit to the advertiser. This rate card can show savings made per advertisement exposure on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. After all the main objective of Media planning and Media buying is to use minimum budget for maximum advertising impact!