• Selecting Advertising Media

• Selecting Advertising Media

The advertiser must next decide upon the media to carry the message. The main steps in media selection are: (1) deciding on reach, frequency and impact; (2) choosing among chief media types; (3) selecting specific media vehicles; and (4) deciding on media timing,

reach The percentage of people

DECIDING ON REACH, FREQUENCY AND IMPACT. TO select media, the in the target market

exposed to an ad advertiser must decide what reach and frequency are needed to achieve adver­ campaign during a tising objectives. Reach is a measure of the percentage of people in the target

given period. market who arc exposed to the ad campaign during a given period of time. For

804 • Chapter ) 9 Mass Communications: Advertising, Sales Promotion and Public Relations

example, the advertiser might try to reach 70 per cent of the target market during frequently

the first three months of the campaign. Frequency is a measure of how many The number of times the

times the average person in the target market is exposed to the message. For average person in the

example, the advertiser might want an average exposure frequency of three. The target market is exposed

advertiser must also decide on the desired media impact ­ that is. the qualitative to an advertising

value of a message exposure through a given medium. For example, for products message during a given

that need to he demonstrated, messages on television may have more impact than period.

messages on radio because television uses sight and sound. The same message in media impact

a national newspaper may he more believable than in a local daily. The qualitative value of

Suppose that the advertiser's product might appeal to a market of 1 million an exposure through a

consumers. The goal is to reach 700,000 consumers (70 per cent of 1,000,000). given medium.

Because the average consumer will receive three exposures. 2,100,000 exposures (700.000 x 3} must be bought. If the advertiser wants exposures of 1.5 impact (assuming 1.0 impact is the average), a rated number of exposures of 31.500,000 (2,100,000 x 1.5) must be bought. If a thousand exposures with this impact cost eculO, the advertising budget will have to be ecu31,500 (3,150 x 10). In general, the more reach, frequency and impact the advertiser seeks, the higher the adver­ tising budget will have to be.

CHOOSING AMONG CHIEF MEDIA TYPES. The media planner has to know the reaeh, frequency and impact of each of the major media types. Table

19.2 shows the available media in key western and Asian markets. Table 19.3 displays the distribution of advertising spend by type of mass medium in these countries. The leading media have advantages and limitations, as shown in Table

How do advertisers select appropriate media from the range of media avail­ able? Media planners consider many factors when making their media choices. The media habits of target consumers will affect media choice: for example, radio and television are the best media for reaching teenagers. So will the nature of the product: fashions, for example, are best advertised in colour magazines and Nikon cameras are best demonstrated on television. Different types o/messed! may require different media: for instance, a message announcing a big sale tomorrow will require radio or newspapers; a message with a lot of technical data might require magazines or direct mailings or an online ad and Web site (see Chapter 22). Cost is also an important consideration in media choice: whereas television is very expensive, newspaper advertising costs much less. The media planner looks at both the total cost of using a medium and the cost per thousand exposures ­ that is, the cost of reaching 1,000 people using the medium.

Media impact and cost must be re­examined regularly. For a long time, tele­ vision and magazines dominated in the media mixes of national advertisers, with other media often neglected. Recently, however, the costs and clutter of these

media have gone up, audiences have dropped and marketers are adopting strat­ egies aimed at narrower segments."'Advertisers are also turning increasingly to alternative media, ranging from cable TV and outdoor advertising to parking

meters, taxis and even shopping trolleys.

SELECTING SPECIFIC MEDIA VEHICLES. The media planner must now media vehicles

choose the best media vehicles ­ that is, specific media within each general media Specific media ­within

type. In most cases, there is an incredible number of choices. For radio and tele­ each general media type,

vision, and in any one country, there are numerous stations and channels to such as specific

choose from, together with hundreds, even thousands, of programme vehicles ­ magazines, television

shows or radio the particular programmes or shows where the commercial should be broadcast, programmes.

Prime­time programmes are the favourites; the costs, however, tend to escalate with the popularity of the programme.

Table 19.2

Available media in major European, North American and Asian countries

Austria lielgium Denmark Finland France Germany Greece Ireland Italy

Netherlands Norway

Portugal Spain Sweden

Switzerland Turkey

United Kingdom Bulgaria

Czech Rlov. Rep. Hungary Poland Romania

United States Canada Australia

China Hong Kong India Indonesia Japan Malaysia New Zealand Singapore South Korea Taiwan

DAILY

NEWSPAPERS, NATIORAI/ REGIONAL 1

RADIO STATION 2

1,79] 558 2,778 1 ,603 1,600 630 2,1,132' 790 f 744

POSTER PASELS­

lOfT

399" na 53 ua

32 l > 72"

15 3 na

806 • Clifipier 19 Mass Communications; Advertising, Kales Promotion andPublic Relations

Table 19.3

Distribution of advertising expenditure by medium in major European, North American and A&ian (•mmtries

TOTAL MASS

OUTDOOR/

­MEDIA (US$ M)

PRINT (%)

TV(%)

RADIO {%)

CINEMA (%) TKAKSIT (%)

56 26 12 n.a.

79 14 4 # 3 Germany (W)

44 42 7 •i 7 Ireland

55 27 11 n.a. 7 Italy

43 51 2 n.a. 4 Netherlands

83 12 2 i 3 Norway

37 44 8 n.a. 11 Spain

1 T4 Switzerland

93 2 n.a.

78 7 2 1 12 United Kingdom

4 United States

53 35 n

54 22 12 n.a.

48 35 9 2 6 China

54 40 6 ;• n.a. Hong Kong

35 32 5 n.a. 13 Malaysia

49 41 2 s 8 New Zealand

49 36 15 n.a. n.a. Singapore

3 South Korea

48 30 5 n.a.

55 35 7 •n 3

Iii the case of magazines, the media planner must look up circulation figures and the costs of different ad sizes, colour options, ad positions and frequencies for specific magazines. Each country has its own high­ or general­circulation magazines (for example, TV guides) which reach general audience groups. There is also an array of special­interest publications that enable advertisers to reach special groups of audience (for instance, business magazines to reach business execu­ tives). The planner selects the media that will do the best joh in terms of reaching

the target customer group ­ that is, in terms of their selectivity towards the target. Then he or she must evaluate each magazine on factors such as credibility, status,

reproduction quality, editorial focus and advertising submission deadlines. The

Important Decisions in Advertising 807

Table 19.4

Advantages and limitations of media forms

MEDIUM

LIMITATIONS Newspapers Flexibility; timeliness; local market

ADVANTAGES

Short life; poor reproduction

coverage; broad acceptance;

quality; small pass­along

audience. Television (jombmes sight, sound and

high believability.

TTigh absolute eost; high

motion; appealing to the senses;

clutter; fleeting exposure; less

audience selectivity. Radio Mass use; high geographic and

high attention; high reach.

Audio presentation only, lower

attention than TV; fleeting exposure. Magazines High geographic and demographic

demographic selectivity; low cost.

Long ad purchase lead time; some

selectivity; credibility and prestige;

waste circulation; no guarantee

high­quality reproduction; long life;

of position.

good pass­along readership.

Outdoor Flexibility; high repeat exposure; No audience selectivity; creative

low cost; low competition.

limitations.

media planner ultimately decides which vehicles give the best reach, frequency and impact for the money.

Media planners have to compute the cost per thousand persons reached by a vehicle. For example, if a full­page, four­colour advertisement in The Economise costs S30,000 and its readership i.s 3 million people, the cost of reaching each group of 1,000 persons is about £10. The same advertisement in Business Week

may cost only £20,000 but reach only 1 million persons, giving a cost per thou­ sand of about £20. The media planner would rank each magazine by cost per

thousand and favour those magazines with the lower cost per thousand for reaching target consumers. Additionally, the media planner considers the cost of producing ads for different media. Whereas newspaper ads may cost very little to produce, flashy television ads may cost millions. Media costs vary across different countries, so care must be taken not to generalize the figures.

Thus the media planner must balance media cost measures against several Qiedia impact factors. First, the planner should balance costs against the media vehicle's audience quality. For a mobile telephone ad, business magazines would have a high­exposure value; magazines aimed at new parents or woodwork enthu­ sisisists would have a low­exposure value. Second, the media planner should

consider audience attention. Readers of Vogue, for example, typically pay more attention to ads than do Business Week readers. Third, the planner should assess the vehicle's editorial quality. For example, die Financial Times and Wall Street Journal Europe are more credible and prestigious than the News of the World.

DECIDING ON MEDIA TIMING. Another decision that must be made concerns timing: how to schedule the advertising over the course of a year.

| Suppose sales of a product peak in December and drop in March. The firm can vary its advertising to follow the seasonal pattern, to oppose the seasonal pattern, or to be the same all year. Most firms do some seasonal advertising. Borne do only

808 • Chapter \9 Mass Communications: Advertising, Sales Promotion and Public Relations

seasonal advertising: for example, many department stores advertise — usually their seasonal sales ­ in specific periods in the year, such as Christmas, Easter

and summer. Finally, the advertiser has to choose the pattern of the ads,

continuity

Continuity means scheduling ads evenly within a given period PiJsing means Scheduling ads evenly

scheduling ads unevenly over a given time period. Thus 52 ads could either he within a given period.

scheduled at one per week during the year or pulsed in several bursts. The idea is to advertise heavily for a short period to build awareness that carries over to the

next advertising period. Those who favour pulsing feel that it can be used to Scheduling ads

pulsing

achieve the same impact as a steady schedule, but at a much lower cost. However, unevenly, in bursts, over

some media planners believe that although pulsing achieves minimal awareness,

a certain time period­

it sacrifices depth of advertising communications.