Campaign Critique

BUS302

Media planning and analysis

Learning objectives

• Identify the variables used to segment target audience for media planning

• Understand how to measure reach, frequency and TARP’s

• Describe the logic of the three-exposure hypothesis.

The media planning process

• An overview of the media planning process

Selecting the target audience

• Three types of information are used to select a target audience:

1. buyer behaviour

2. demographics

3. consumer values and lifestyles.

• Establishing which message is most effective for the audience is often determined by buying behaviour.

Specifying media objectives

Issues to be addressed by the marketer when setting objectives include:

1. Reach – what proportion of the target audience should receive the message?

2. Frequency – how frequently should the target audience be exposed to the message?

3. How much exposure is needed to accomplish reach and frequency objectives?

4. How should the budget be allocated?

5. How close to purchase time should the target audience be exposed to the marketing communications?

6. What is the most cost-effective way to accomplish the marketing objectives?

Reach

• ‘Reach’ is the percentage of the target audience who are exposed to the vehicles used to deliver the marketing communications (MC) message.

• Who sees and hears what is difficult to measure.

• Data from audience measurements firms such as OzTAM TV offer an implied number of people exposed to the medium being measured.

• By itself, reach is not an effective objective.

Frequency

• Frequency represents the number of times during a period that the target audience will be exposed to the media vehicles.

• Higher frequency rates can be achieved through repetition of the advertisement.

• Higher frequency rates will have a greater impact on the consumer making a choice to buy the brand.

Advertising weight

• Advertising weight is used to determine the required advertising support to achieve the IMC objectives.

• Three metrics can be used to determine advertising weight.

1. gross rating points (GRPs)

2. target audience rating points (TARPs)

3. effective rating points (ERPs).

• Advertising weight is generally set by using past historical records; e.g. OzTAM.

GRPs

Reach (R) Frequency (F)

Gross rating points

• GRPs reflect the gross weight that a particular advertising schedule delivered.

• This is a gross weighting, which could include a duplicated audience.

Criticism of GRPs

GRPs as a measure has its critics. For example:

• A product in its introductory stage needs higher levels of frequency.

For instance, if plan A has a reach of 90 times a frequency of 2.0 = 180 (GRPs)

and plan B has a reach of 52 times a frequency of 3.2 = 166 (GRPs)

then nominally, plan A has better GRPs; but while the product is in its introductory stage, plan B would be a better fit.

Target audience rating points (TARPs)

• An important variant of GRPs.

• While GRPs measure the gross audience weighting, TARPs only measure the target audience viewing the advertisement through that particular vehicle.

• Thus, TARPs are an adjusted measure of GRPs.

• TARPs are a more targeted measure of the potential audience.

Effective rating points (ERPs)

• ERPs is the effective measure of the media schedule.

• The effective measure considers:

• how often members of the target audience have an opportunity to see advertising messages for a particular brand

• that an advertisement does not reach members of the target audience too few or too many times

• that effective reach is used to measure sufficient, but not excessive media exposure.

Number of exposures Effect

1 What is it?

2 What of it?

3 or more Recall

How many exposures?

• Exposures are measured by conducting continuous market research.

• However, continuous market research is costly and time-consuming; therefore:

• a rule of thumb (ROT) has been adopted, largely based upon the three-exposure hypothesis.

An alternate view: the efficiency index

• The objective of the index is to select the media schedule that generates the highest exposure value per GRP.

• The choice of a media schedule comes from a set of alternative schedules.

• The process involves: • estimating the exposure utility for each level of vehicle exposure

(or Opportunity To See)

• calculating the exposure distribution of the various media schedules

• determining the value at each OTS level and then totalling across all OTS levels

• developing the index by dividing the total value for each schedule by the number of GRPs produced for that schedule.

Effective reach in practice

• Opinions are divided.

• The most widely held views:

• fewer than three exposures during a four-week period is ineffective

• more than ten exposures during a four-week period is considered wasteful

• using effective reach is likely to lead to a more diverse strategy, away from television as the exclusive media.

Timing your advertisements

• The question is how the media budget should be distributed throughout the campaign.

• There are three general schedules to be considered:

1. continuous

2. pulsing

3. flighting.

Continuous versus discontinuous schedules

• In a continuous schedule, a relatively equal amount of advertisement expenditure is spent throughout the campaign.

• Depending on the length of the campaign, a discontinuous allocation may be adopted; e.g. during winter months, Coca-Cola may reduce advertising expenditure – and increase it leading into summer.

• Two types of discontinuous schedule include pulsing and flighting.

Discontinuous allocation

• Pulsing and flighting schedules involve differential levels of advertising expenditure throughout the year.

• Differences:

Pulsing schedule – some amount of advertising dollars are spent in every period of the campaign, but the amount varies from period to period.

Flighting schedule – expenditure is varied throughout the campaign and in some months it is zero.

Recency planning

• The recency principle challenges the idea behind the effective reach (3+) criterion, which can lead to the adoption of flighting scheduling.

• The recency principle is based on three interrelated ideas.

1. The first exposure to the brand message is most powerful.

2. The role of advertising is to influence choice.

3. High levels of weekly reach, rather than heavy frequency, should be the goal.

Influencing brand choice

• The consumer’s needs determine the effectiveness of the marketing message.

• A marketing message is most effective when shown to a consumer who is actively deciding whether to make a purchase.

• The logic is that reaching a consumer when they are actively making a choice (reach), is more effective than reaching fewer consumers more often (frequency).

Optimising weekly reach

• The recency principle suggests that media schedules should be nearly continuous and should:

• influence rather than teach consumers (contrary to the three-exposure model)

• reach consumers when they are ready to buy

• budget to reach more consumers more often

• sustain 100% of the target audience (at least once per week) and maintain this throughout the year.

Selecting media categories and vehicles

• After establishing media objectives, the media planner considers the use of various media and media vehicles.

Media; e.g. print media/magazines. Media vehicle; e.g. specific magazine used (for instance,

Women’s Weekly).

• Media habits of the target audience should therefore be taken into account.

• A mix of media can be used to increase coverage, reach and frequency.

Practicalities of budgeting

• The continuous model of advertising has many appealing features, but few advertisers have the budget to sustain this model.

• No single model is likely to be most effective all the time.

• Rules for budgeting should be flexible, and advertisers need to adjust their strategies to suit their circumstances.

• Only a small subset of the population will be influenced by the marketing message; e.g. an advertisement for a car will likely influence only those

in the market for a new car.

Cost effectiveness for traditional advertising

• CPM and CPM-TM measure the cost efficiency of achieving the MC objectives.

• CPM measures total contacts exposed to the advertisement.

• CPM-TM measures only the target market exposed to the advertisement.

Cost effectiveness for online advertising

• Three metrics are generally used to calculate the CPM for online ads.

1. Click-through rate (CTR) the number/proportion of visitors who clicked on the advertisement.

2. Cost-per-click (CPC) a fixed cost charged every time a person clicks on an advertisement.

3. Cost-per-acquisition (CPA) fixed cost charged every time a person clicks on an advertisement and completes

a desired action, such as purchasing or ordering a product.