Media Planning Strategy

• Greatest Generation: born prior to 1946 (Ages: 65-plus)
• Boomers: 1946-1964 (Ages: 46-64)
• Generation X: 1965-1976 (Ages: 34-45)
• Millennials: 1977-1994 (Ages: 16-33)
  
  With our beloved Boomers struggling, we are turning to the Gen X and Gen Y demos, with their disposable incomes, technology addictions and consumption-happy habits to perk things up.
  
  Anyone with a medium sized family can see at a glance that there are some huge differences between how these three demographics go about consuming media - How do you seek out products or services? What media types do you turn to (or perhaps have attached to you) every day? Now compare your answers to those of your younger cousin, grandmother, nephew, father, etc...... While Boomers are more apt to still rely on their daily newspaper or respond to direct mail flyers, Gen X and Y'ers are far more likely to rely on the internet for both new and entertainment and are more likely to respond positively to email marketing and mobile coupons. 
  
  Been dragging your feet when it comes to looking into local internet marketing? Now is the time to take a step back and consider who your most viable target audience is - there is a good chance that your Yellow Page or radio spot just isn't worth the investment anymore.
  As a small business, how are you planning on getting your local advertising in front of this audience? Perhaps it time to mix up your local store marketing and media planning strategy?

It’s an idiom the advertising industry has tossed around for years: grab the low hanging fruit.  These are the people already looking for a particular product or service, they know what they want, they’re familiar with an established company, and all they need is a little nudge to get them walking in the door to spend money. 

But what about the high hanging fruit?  The people content with the status quo who aren’t looking to try something new or different.  Appealing to this group is particularly challenging for service companies that must rely on their prospective clients to proactively reach out in order to engage with a new company.  

I’m going to throw myself in the category of the high hanging fruit.  I’m quite positive I’ve stuck with the same handful of companies my entire life that are providing crucial services including tax preparation, financial planning, and insurance.  In order to prompt me to try a new company, I would need to be convinced that what I’ve been doing for the last 10 or so years is not the best option, that it would be worth it to schedule an appointment in my already packed schedule, or that I actually need a new service I’m not currently utilizing.

Many of the service companies actively looking for new clients are running national campaigns that have done well to establish their respective brands as household names.  As an average Jane consumer, I enjoy watching the Aflac duck risk his life on a daily basis, I’m charmed by the Geico gecko, and I think the Fidelity green line is ingenious.  These memorable campaigns are great at keeping their brands top of mind and may be enough to attract the low hanging fruit, but I would argue that a more aggressive approach is sometimes needed in order to attract the consumer base a little further out of reach. 

To bridge the gap between advertisements that I, as a consumer, perceive as sheer entertainment and those that will influence my behavior, these companies need to complement their national campaigns with advertising strategies that deliver a more personalized touch.  Their services need to be presented as tangible and easy to obtain, I need to feel like a qualified potential client, and most importantly, I need to be assured that there is a real person behind the catchy message who wants to meet me and is waiting just down the street to be my new agent, advisor, or consultant. 

People in the high hanging fruit category like me don’t want to call 1-800 numbers and talk to someone across the country who doesn’t know us.  We’re perhaps a little too timid to walk into an office without a friendly invitation, and we might not even realize there is a local branch of a well-known company in our area.  Through local marketing efforts, these national companies can give me a map to their office, a picture of a person to meet, and phone number that will be answered by someone in my same county, let alone continent. 

National companies can equip their local affiliates with the tools and resources they need to complete the challenging puzzle of local advertising.  Witty campaigns are a great start, but co-op programs, locally customized advertising material, and a smart media planning strategy are what it takes to fill in the missing pieces.  These local marketing ideas can transform amusing ads into influential ads that will, (to continue with the allegory), give a tree a good shaking to knock the top fruits from their secure holding and bring them falling into the net below.

Marketing is part science and part art.  Neither can succeed without the other and it is incumbent upon anyone who relies on marketing to remember that.

We recently launched a campaign for a healthcare client that had just the right amount of art and science.  This was a terribly exciting campaign for us because we were responsible for all aspects of the initiative – from creative concepting, through production, media planning, media buying, trafficking of creative, results tracking and post buy analysis.  Typically we are handed creative, or have specific media guidelines that we must work under and it can be restricting to the team.  In this case we owned it all and the execution was damn near perfect if I don’t say so myself. 

Was the creative perfect from an Art perspective? No, but it was damn good and was done at the right price.  And through leveraging our technology is now fully customizable and available for execution in all 210 DMA’s around the country.

Was the media buy scientifically analyzed eight ways from Sunday to ensure the exact right reach and frequency for the given target and market? No, but it was carefully analyzed using syndicated and proprietary research and planned with reach and frequency targets that made good sense for the creative and overall campaign strategy. 

Now here is the kicker – the campaigns costs were roughly 1/3^rd of what they would have been with a traditional agency and the results have far exceeded this customers expectations.  Here is the other kicker, this is a small business – not some behemoth that cut their budget from $3 million to $1 million.  We took the costs from $75k to $25k and far outperformed expectations.   Leveraging our Local Marketing Automation technology and media buying expertise of Balihoo (science) with the creative concepting and production capabilities (art) of our creative department we nailed what is the future of local marketing – technology enabled integrated campaigns.  Damn that is nice!

Here at Balihoo, I get the opportunity to work closely with our media team.  I observe and learn from them while they develop media strategies for our clients on a daily basis.  I’m continually impressed by the time and commitment they put into each advertising media plan they create.  They are extremely committed to researching every media type in local advertising markets in order to reach our clients’ diverse audiences.  The alternative media vehicles they research particularly fascinate me and have caused me to pay closer attention to the creative ways brands promote their products or services in my life.  I can always appreciate an ad that catches my attention due to its particular location, delivery or behavior.

A prime example of one of these innovative media vehicles happens to be just that, a vehicle.  Well, kind of – it’s a vehicle for horses, anyway, and happens to be owned by a good friend of mine.  This friend competes professionally in the Pro Rodeo Cowboy Association and travels the country year-round to compete in the biggest rodeos in the world.  He and his horses have traveled on nearly every main roadway through every state in the western three quarters of the continental United States.  He also happens to be part of a unique but growing group of cowboys who are sponsored by inspired companies looking to support one of our country’s most cherished western traditions. 

These partnerships are very beneficial to both parties.  The cowboys typically wear the brands’ logos on their competition attire while their trucks or horse trailers display brand decals.  This sort of advertising delivers invaluable brand exposure from the big screens of our country’s largest sporting event venues to its vast network of interstate highways.  The cowboys, in turn, are supported in their never-ending quest to reach the next rodeo and compete without the worry of expensive entry fees and fuel prices. 

My friend is sponsored by Celadrin, a joint supplement company out of California.  The partnership is a good match, and I applaud Celadrin for making rodeo a part of their integrated marketing strategy.  What a great opportunity for them to get their logo, web address, and retailers' names on a vehicle that will travel their entire trade area year-round.   Further, they are associated with a successful athlete of an extremely physically demanding sport.  Rodeo cowboys exude ruggedness, athleticism, and raw grit, all of which is admired by the large audiences professional rodeos draw.   My friend’s endorsement of their product makes sense because he uses it on a daily basis and strongly believes in its benefits, so it’s an easy sell for him when talking to friends and fans, alike.

I encourage all companies to think outside the box and consider new and innovative ways to deliver their message to their audience.  I’m not sure if I’ll see a rodeo cowboy sponsorship make its way into one of Balihoo’s recommended advertising media plans, but based on our team’s meticulous approach to scrutinizing local marketing ideas, I wouldn’t be surprised if something equally as creative and original showed up.

Throughout 2009 ad spending fell at a pretty alarming rate. Having finally said farewell to 2009, ZenithOptimedia and GroupM just announced that the national revenue loss fell between 7-to-10%.

According to AdWeek, Internet will be the only medium to grow global ad spending and will do so by 9.5%. "In a time when marketing departments have to justify every dollar they spend, the rapid and clear returns offered by Internet advertising are more attractive than the longer-term brand-building benefits offered by other media."

If you are a newspaper or magazine publisher you might just be wincing (in both surprise and jealousy) at the sound of these numbers – considering that overall, the newspaper/magazine industries suffered a staggering and well-publicized 18 to 20% drop.

However, if you are a small business owner or in charge of your local marketing strategy, now is the time to perk up and revamp your plan for 2010.

Here are 2009 results and agency estimates for 2010:

• Television – Down 8% in 2009 - Up 4.6% in 2010
• Internet – Up 9.5% in 2009  -  Up 12% to 13% in 2010
• Magazines – Down 20% in 2009  -  up 1% in 2010
• Newspapers – Down 18% in 2009  -  up 1% in 2010

The Silver Lining: Ad prices have dropped substantially in many markets! You might be surprised to see how significantly prices have changed over the past year - it is time to hunker down and review (or develop) your 2010 advertising media plan.

It's that time again......twice a year, the Balihoo team makes a trip national conventions for two of our large clients in the carpet industry, Carpet One and Flooring America.  This is the gathering place for local franchise carpet store owners to come together for all things hardwood, laminate, carpet and installation.  But convention isn't just about carpet, this is the place to make connections, meet peers, learn about new products and programs meet with vendors and most importantly (in our eyes), learn more about how to improve their local advertising to drive new leads to through their doors.  
 
As I booked my flight, my room and began to prepare for thetrip to DC, I was reminded of how the meeting and business travel industry has come under attack in the past few years.  I ran across this article, www.Meetingsmeanbusiness.com, which brings up some really interesting facts about the value of face-to-face meetings.

• For every dollar invested in business travel, companies realize $12.50 in incremental revenue. 
• More than half of business travelers stated that 5-20% of their company's new customers were the result of trade show participation.
• According to business traveleres across all industries, 25% of existing customers and 28% of revenue could be lost to competitors could be lost if customers were not met in-person.

Convention has proven time and time again to be the best place to educate store owners on the value of marketing, developing a media planning strategy and the benefit of using the franchise marketing software made available to them by their franchisor. 

We find it to be worth the time and investment to travel and build relationships with face-to-face meetings.  Hopefully all of our carpet store franchisees will feel the same.  See you at convention!

As we begin inching toward the close of 2009 signaling the end of this decade, it's interesting to look back at what's been accomplished in the media and marketing tech world. The advances that have been made directly effect how I plan and purchase media and how the people I work with on a local advertising level choose to spend their ad budgets. 

Check out this article in Advertising Age from this month's issue.  It's the full list of the Top 10 Media/Marketing Technology Innovations of the past decade:  
http://adage.com/article?article_id=141029 

Obviously, each of the top 10 innovations impact those of us in local marketing and media. Although, one in particular stands out as top of mind for our clients in each annual advertising media plan I present. Referring to the DVR or Digital Video Recorder: "Is anyone seeing my ad or are they just skipping through it?" The penetration and usage of the household DVR directly effects how we negotiate and subsequently purchase television advertising.  It is important for media professionals to not only do our research but also have the discussion with both network and cable television sales representatives about how their programming is impacted and what programs they see being DVR'd most often.  With 30% of American TV households participating in DVR usage (and that number continuing to grow) it cannot be ignored.

Take a few minutes to check out the above article- you'll be surprised how many of the "Top 10" directly effect you, not only in business but in your daily life.


 

Public Television.  Although it may not be the most popular media vehicle for advertisers in this age of Twitter, a burgeoning blogosphere, and increasingly interactive outdoor advertising, it’s still a perfectly viable, albeit decidedly un-sexy, medium to consider in media planning strategy when attempting to reach a more…   how do I put this delicately?  Distinguished audience.  It’s fairly well-known in media circles that PBS reaches an audience that tends to be older, more affluent, and thus more likely to purchase luxury goods and services.  We think. 

Because of the rules that surround ‘advertising’ on Public TV, advertisers aren’t technically ‘advertising’ at all, they’re underwriting or sponsoring given programming—“Nova this evening is brought to you by Lear, specializing in all of your private jet setting excursions.”  These sponsorships are not allowed to feature calls-to-action or pricing information of any kind—additionally, (or perhaps interestingly is a better word) if you’re selling personal products, soap, etc., you might be out of luck: they’re reviewed on a case-by-case basis and if your ad features any “waist-to-knee” footage, you’ll receive a large “REJECTED, OVERT PBS VIOLATION” stamp on your sponsorship submission.  The collateral damage that results from these stringent FCC-enforced rules is a complete lack of ratings information.  Without ratings information, media planners are acting on a gut-feeling when recommending PBS to those dedicated to retail marketing.  “Well, we feel like this is a good fit for your Nantucket-based-boutique-400-thread-count-seersucker-robe business, but you’re just going have to trust us as we have NO data to back up our feeling.”

Until now. I found recently via MediaBuyerPlanner that PBS recently signed with ratings company Nielsen in an attempt to hopefully shed some much-needed light on what we’ve suspected all along: the Antiques Road Show has a lot of viewers.  Kidding aside, this is a very good thing: PBS is helping us planners to be surer about our choices, in turn allowing us to make our clients and their local advertising more successful.  Armed with the appropriate ratings data, we can either abandon previously-recommended PBS sponsorships or—and PBS is hoping it will go this way—ramp them up.  Don’t be surprised to see luxury goods producers/Centrum Silver clamoring for PBS underwriting in the coming months.  I just hope I can get through Masterpiece without constantly being reminded of the fact that I’ll probably never own a Rolex; amid my frustrations, however, I will thank them for “bringing me that programming”.