Marketing Communications

Chapter 8 : Media Planning

Environmental Analysis

Media Objectives

Reach
Frequency
Continuity
Costs

Media Strategy

Target Audience Decisions
Media Budgeting
Media Selection
Media Scheduling
Implementation of Media Plan

Management Science and Media Planning Models

Evaluation Models
Allocation Models.

Chapter Summary

Media planning is defined as "the process of designing a course of action that shows how advertising time and space will be used to contribute to the achievement of advertising and marketing objectives." The importance of effective media planning has increased due to four key factors – increases in media options, fragmentation of target audience, spiraling media costs, and increased complexity in media buying.

The media planning process involves deciding the right target audience, selecting appropriate media vehicles, and determining the scheduling of the media plan. A typical media planning process consists of four key steps – environmental analysis, determining media objectives, developing media strategy, preparing and implementing the media plan.

Environmental analysis involves evaluating the internal and external environmental factors relevant to the media planning process. This helps the company to identify the problems and opportunities related to the media planning. Next the company has to determine the media objectives that it wants to achieve through the implementation of the media plan.

There are four key media objectives that a company can consider – reach, frequency, continuity and costs. Based on the environmental analysis and the media objectives, the company proceeds to develop a media strategy. Media strategy provides guidelines to be followed while implementing a media plan.

The development of the media strategy involves four key steps, namely target audience decisions, media budgeting, media selection and media scheduling. The next step is preparing and implementing the media plan. During this stage the company undertakes media buying as specified in the media schedule.

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