Outline of a Media Plan

Executive Summary
 A short presentation that goes at the
beginning of a media plan
 Shows only the main details of the plans
that busy executives can quickly know the
essence of the plan
 So that busy executives can quickly know the
essence of the plan
 It should include a table of contents of
your media plan
Situational Analysis
 Research prepared in document format to
provide background for a media planner to
prepare a plan.
 Provides perspective on where a brand has
been and where its potential lies in the
future.
Situational Analysis Includes
 History of the market
 Deals with sales of all brands in the market-
including client (all pertinent brands)
 Includes geographic sales distribution, (zip
codes for Homevestors), market size in dollars
and units (What type of market is this
according to Homevestors…in presentation),
market share, any seasonal effects and price
effects
Situational Analysis Includes
 Distribution channels
 Objective is to learn how a brand and its competitors
distribute products
 Includes methods of selling, advertising budgets and
how and why promotions may be used. Distribution
information often affects media strategy because it can
help planner decide where to advertise.
 How this relates to you. If Homevestors was on the air
all months last year, maybe they should consider
heavying up in some months or cutting back in others.
Contact Ms London for last years flowchart to see what
they did.
Situational Analysis Includes
 The consumer of the product
 This profile of users of the product type (not
just Homevestors) includes personal
demographics such as age, sex, income,
occupation and geographic location. Lifestyles
and attitudes should be included
 Profile of who buys this product vs who buys
competitors product (mom and pop) if
available.
Situational Analysis Includes
 The product
 A history of the product and how it was
developed.
 When and why any product changes were
made and the effects of such changes
 Consumer perceptions of the values of various
brands can be important…how do consumers
view Homevestors…they like to improve
neighborhoods…vs competitors if known
Situational Analysis Includes
 Advertising and media analysis
 Analysis of media expenditures for competing
brands (SOV) You have 4th quarter data…
assume it’s the same for all quarters.
 Includes media classes used…names of media
(TV, RADIO) and dollar and % allocation of
each medium.
Organizing your Plan
 State the Marketing Challenge/Objective
succinctly…what is your original problem,
challenge or task? What the whole thing
is about.
 This was given to you by Homevestors…IT is
the Marketing objective, NOT the Media
objective
Organizing the Plan
 Data tables
 Are you going to have this at the end in an
addendum or along side the presentation…
media numbers are boring, so consider
addendum or charts with colors.
 Present an overview of competitive
activity and elements…Include SOV data
 Clients what to see what their competitors are
doing and you might get them to increase
budgets by doing this.
Organizing the Plan
 Budget table-Provide one…
 This is like an outline of spending:
 Outdoor $300,000
 TV $150,000
 Radio $100,000
 DM $100,000
 YP $5000
Organizing the Plan
 Provide a flow chart.
 Start working on this NOW. This will take you
a lot of time to do. You need to decide how
you are going to spend the budget and
whoever is putting this together needs to start
working on it now.
 Creative elements of a flowchart
 Flighting
 Different weight levels…heavier at start?

 Different dayparts in TV

 Placing certain medias on the air at the same

time…outdoor and DM?
Organizing the Plan
 Flowchart continued
 Don’t do the same thing all year long month in and month out.
Boring and not creative.
 Do include interesting things…Are you tying into any
promotions or tradeshows? Are you conducting any unique
guerilla tactics that should be highlighted on flowchart?
 Are you going to set aside any money for opportunistic
purchases that may come up during the year?
 Are you going to do a series of radio remotes with the radio
hosts?
 Are you proposing any promotions during the year to coincide
with holidays or tax season or end of year?
 Your flowchart should reflect all of these…and if there is a way
you can make it interesting with color, do it.
Organizing the Plan
 Write Media Objectives
 Remember 2 elements of each objective
 Each objective should relate to a marketing objective
and/or strategy
 Each media objective should be stated as completely
as possible.
 The more detail, the more likely the objectives will
serve as guides for media strategies.
 Your Media Objective might include: We need large
reach and modest frequency (making that up) You
need to define what “large” and “modest” are.
Organizing the Plan
 The difference between media objectives
and media strategies: Media objectives
are goals that are related to the marketing
objectives and strategies; media
strategies are actions that can fulfill these
objectives…many strategies can fulfill one
objective…your job is to choose most
effective strategy from all possibilities.
Organizing the Plan
 Objectives: Example: Reach 60% of
target audience a minimum of 3+ times if
first 4 weeks of campaign with sustaining
R/F of 50R, 3F (Making up)
 Strategy: How you are going to reach
60% of target audience a minimum of 3+
times (combination of TV, radio, DM,
yellow pages, etc.)
Organizing the Plan
 Include rationale on why you didn’t include
certain things…did not include newspaper
due to declining readership levels.
Phoenix paper costs have escalated 10%
in past year while readership has declined
15%. Made this cost prohibitive when
considering other alternatives.
Organizing the Plan
 Tactics: How you will accomplish your
strategies…
Example Objective: 70 R, 15+ F
Strategy: TV, Radio, outdoor,
promotion
Tactics: :30 and :15 second TV
running M-W only, :60 second radio on
news/talk only, :30 sheet pre-emptible
outdoor, specific zip codes for DM, Radio
and DM at same time
Organizing the Plan
 Different tactical ways of scheduling broadcast
 Continuity-same amount of weight throughout the plan
(you might have some hiatus weeks, but all weeks with
activity have same weight levels)
 Pulsing-Just like a pulse. One week activity, next week
nothing, next week activity, next week nothing. On
again, off again tactic
 Stair stepping Different weight levels by consecutive
weeks. Example: 3 week flight- Week 1 = 125 grp’s.
Week 2 = 100 GRP’s. Week 3 =75 GRP’s. Week 4 off
the air. You might repeat this pattern throughout the
plan.
Organizing the Plan
 Graphic Elements
 How can you make this stand out?
 Colored charts on SOV?
 Bar graphs on who their target audience is?
 Web site presentation
 Animation
Organizing the Plan
 Make it cohesive
 Practice your Presentation
 Be creative and provide creative ideas
 Provide information on how you
interpreted the research.
 Provide information on how you took any
geographic considerations into account.