Media Planning : The Introduction

Hi cool blogger!

If you’re an advertiser or someone related to the business, you really have to read this article, because I’m going to introduce you to something interesting.

This is all about Media Planning.

If you happened to read our backgrounds (Management Trainee in GroupM Indonesia), then you must be understand that we’re dealing with this thing. With this advertise thing. At first, I really didn’t understand what Media Planning is. But when I join the program (MMT Batch 2 GroupM), I was trained by the expert on media planning who helped us understanding the business.

MMT Batch 2 GroupM - Media Planning

So here’s the most basic thing you need to understand: ‘Every business needs to be advertised’. Why? Because advertise help them to generate awareness, and finally, interest in their offerings. So can the business advertise them self? And the answer is NO. This is where the advertising agencies took place. They help the business to communicate to their target audience, by creating the right advertisement, and bring it to the right place.

But it was the old way. Today, the advertising agencies divided into two main businesses: ‘Creative Agencies’ and ‘Media Agencies’. Creative agencies appointed to create the advertisement—in a most creative and memorable ways. While the media agencies supposed to plan in what media, on what time, with the right budget.

Based on http://www.admedia.org, media planning helps you to determine which channel are you going to use, to communicate your advertising. Will it going to be television? Radio? Billboard? Or simply newspapers? It also tells you how, when, and where to use media, in order to reach your target audience. In short, media planner should able to forecast the best way to communicate a message, using the right media, in the right place, and in the right time.

Questions that need to be answered by the media planner are:

1. How many media can I reach through different media?
2. On which media should I place the ads?
3. Which frequency should I select?
4. How much money should be spent in each medium?

The decision making is helped by using tools that could indicates or gives you exact data of what trends that happens in society, related to media use. What programs are most watched? In what time? By what age?

How can we measure the success of our campaign?

Basically, there are three important parameters we could use: Reach, Frequency, and Gross Rating Point (GRP).

Reach is the number of your target audience (individuals) you want to expose to your brand through selective media in a period of time. Frequency is number of times your target audience get exposed to the advertisement. Basically, a person should see the message for at least three times, before he/she could acknowledge the message. While GRP’s described number of spot you placed the advertisement message in a program, multiplied by the rating of the program. These three is only the basic parameters you could use when you have to design a media plan. 

MMT Batch 2 GroupM - Media Planning

There are more parameters you should consider, based on the media you use, and the consumer’s behaviour. And maybe I would share another terminology in this blog. But the most important thing you should understand in media plannin business is, the better plan the better the result. The more accurate plan, the more people you could gain.

Until then,

See you!:D

Sincerely,

Agent O
MMT Batch 2 GroupM