Media Plan

A media plan answers many question in an advertisement campaign, such as which media should ads be placed or during which month should media plan appear or how much money should be spent in each medium.

The plan when approved will become a blueprint for selection and use of media. Media plan gives directives on how an advertising campaign will be conduct and its cost.

Essential Element of Media Plan

1. Media Objectives: Every Media Plan must start with objectives. This gives a directional element to the media plan. It points to the goals that the Media Plan hopes to achieve.

It will identify the marketing targets. Generally, the Media Objectives are similar to the objectives of the marketing objectives of the product.

2. Competitive Analysis: Analysis of the competitors is important. This part also includes budgets, media selection and timing of media delivery.

- Budget- How much are leading competitors are spending for their brands?

- Media Selection- What are the medias used by competitors?

- Timing of Media Delivery-

3. Target Audience Analysis: This gives a deeper understanding of target audience on issues such as product usage, demographics and media behaviour.

4. Media Habits: What media mediums are preferred to the target audience. What channels they watch, what do they read etc.

5. Media Selection Rationale: State the medias selected and reason behind it.

6. Media Strategy: This will state out how the media objectives are being achieved.

7. Flowchart and Budget: Flowchart reveals the how the ads are schedule, the frequency, the reach, ad sizes and the cost. The budget usually is an estimated cost that will still have to be decided by the client and agency.

8. Evaluation: After some time of running the advertisement, an evaluation is prepared. This evaluation is shows the effectiveness of the advertisement and the achievement of the objectives.

Reach is the number of people who are exposed to an advertisement atleast once.

Frequency is the number of times a person see an advertisement according to advertising schedule.

This is important for a media plan, as in the evaluation it can be reach and frequency can be used to find out how effective advertisement was.

The type of media vehicle you choose depend your budget and its ability to reach out to the target audience.

Types of Media Vehicles:

1. Newspaper:

- Advantage: The circulation of newspapers is large.

Offers immediate message registration, since newspapers are daily.

It is linked to a local community, has they have sections of news for the local area.

Newspapers are large in size and offer a variety of sizes for advertisements.

- Disadvantage: Clutter Factor- There is a lot of competition for the reader’s attention in a newspaper.

Quality of print- Newspaper printing are limited in colour capability and high contrast may not result in good print.

Newspaper advertising is expensive.

2. Magazine:

- Advantage: Magazines are passed along, that is primary audience passes them to secondary readers.

The good quality paper and printing allows for high colour contrast advertisements to be printed, and a good show of creativity.

They are best medium for micro target marketing.

- Disadvantages: Their circulation is selective and not amoung majority of the population.

They could be weekly or monthly.

3. Radio:

- Advantages: Biggest advantage is of high frequency at a reasonable cost.

By choosing the station and show target audience can be reached.

Radio are in most households due it inexpensive price.

Radio are everywhere due to portability.

- Disadvantages: A product can not be shown or demonstrated.

Radio spot lacks the permanence.

Due to audience specialization, a single station cannot reach a broader market reach.

4. TV:

- Advantage: The use of sight, sound and motion drives a strong impact on audience.

Demonstration of product on a TV screen.

Scheduling can be done according to programs, giving the ability to connect to target audience.

- Disadvantage: TV is watched for entertainment, advertisement cause interruption.

Advertisement slots on TV may be high according to the program.

The increasing number of channels on TV are fragmenting the viewership.

5. Online Advertising:

- Advantages: Ability to be interactive with audience.

Scheduling is very flexible.

It is cost effective.

- Disadvantages: Has to deal with clutter as online advertising is rapidly increasing.

6. Outdoor Bill Board:

- Advantage: Constant repetition is a boon for outdoor advertising.

It offers a broad coverage due its location.

Large image area available for art.

- Disadvantage: Board scheduling is inflexible and cann’t be change quickly.

Driver attention is primarily on the road and reading a billboard is secondary.

Most outdoor billboard with good location is expensive.