Selecting Media Outlets

With an objective and a budget in place, the advertising campaign will next need to focus on developing the message. However, before effort is placed in developing a message the marketer must first determine which media outlets will be used to deliver their message since the choice of media outlets guides the type of message that can be created and how frequently the message will be delivered.

An advertising message can be delivered via a large number of media outlets. These range from traditional outlets, such as print publications, radio and television, to newly emerging outlets, such as the Internet and mobile devices. However, each media outlet possess different characteristics and, thus, offer marketers different advantages and disadvantages.

The characteristics by which different media outlets can be assessed include the following seven factors:

1. Creative Options
2. Creative Cost
3. Media Market Reach
4. Message Placement Cost
5. Length of Exposure
6. Advertising Clutter
7. Response Tracking

Creative Options

An advertisement has the potential to appeal to four senses – sight, sound, smell and touch. (It should be noted that promotion can also appeal to the sense of taste but generally these efforts generally fall under the category of sales promotion which we will discuss in a later tutorial.) However, not all advertising media have the ability to deliver multi-sensory messages. Traditional radio, for example, is limited to delivering audio messages while roadside billboards offer only visual appeal. Additionally, some media may place limits on when particular options can be used. For instance, some search engines or websites may only accept graphical-style ads, such as images, if these conform to certain large dimensions and limit small advertising to text-only ads.

Creative Cost

The media type chosen to deliver a marketer’s message also impacts the cost of creating the message. For media outlets that deliver a multi-sensory experience (e.g., television and Internet for sight and sound; print publications for sight, touch and smell) creative cost can be significantly higher than for media targeting a single sensory experience. But creative costs are also affected by the expectation of quality for the media that delivers the message. In fact, media outlets may set minimal production standards for advertisements and reject ads that do not meet these standards. Television networks, for example, may set high production quality levels for advertisements they deliver. Achieving these standards requires expensive equipment and high cost labor, which may not be feasible for small businesses. Conversely, creating a simple text only Internet advertisement requires very little cost that almost anyone is capable of creating.

Media Market Reach

The number of customers exposed to a single promotional effort within a target market is considered the reach of a promotion. Some forms of advertising, such as television advertising, offer an extensive reach, while a single roadside billboard on a lightly traveled road offers very limited reach.

Market reach can be measured along two dimensions: 1) channels served and, 2) geographic scope of a media outlet.

Channels Served - This dimension relates to whether a media outlet is effective in reaching the members within the marketer’s channel of distribution. Channels can be classified as:

• Consumer Channel – Does the media outlet reach the final consumer market targeted by the marketer?
• Trade Channel – Does the media outlet reach a marketer’s channel partners who help distribute their product?
• Business-to-Business – Does the media outlet reach customers in the business market targeted by the marketer? 

Geographic Scope – This dimension defines the geographic breadth of the channels served and includes:

• International – Does the media outlet have multi-country distribution?
• National – Does the media outlet cover an entire country?
• Regional – Does the media outlet have distribution across multiple geographic regions such as counties, states, provinces, territories, etc.?
• Local – Does the media outlet primarily serve a limited geographic area?
• Individual – Does the media outlet offer individual customer targeting?

Message Placement Cost

Creative development is one of two major spending considerations for advertising. The other cost is for media placement; the purchase of ad time, space or location with media outlets that deliver the message. Advertising placement costs vary widely from very small amounts for certain online advertisements to exorbitant fees for advertising on major television programs. For example, in the United States the highest cost for advertising placement occurs with television ads shown during the National Football League’s Super Bowl championship game where ad rates for a single 30-second advertisement exceed (US) $2.5 million. By contrast, ads placed through online search engines may cost less than (US) $1 dollar.

Media outlets set placement cost using several factors though the most important are determined by audience size, audience type and an advertisement’s production characteristics:

Audience Size – Refers to the number of people who experience the media outlet during a particular time period. For example, for television outlets audience size is measured in terms of number of program viewers, for print publications audience is measured by number of readers, and for websites audience is measured by number of visitors. In general, the more people experiencing a media outlet, the more the outlet can charge for ads. However, actual measurement of the popularity of media outlets is complicated by many factors to the point where the media outlets are rarely trusted to give accurate figures reflecting their audience. Today nearly all media outlets rely on third-party audit organizations to measure audiences and most marketers rely on these auditors to determine whether the cost of placement is justified given the audited audience size.

Audience Type – As we have discussed many times in the Principles of

Marketing tutorial, the key to marketing is aligning marketing decisions to satisfy the needs of a target market. A well-defined target market is critical to successful marketing and vital to a successful advertising campaign. When choosing a media outlet, selection is evaluated based on the outlet’s customer profile (i.e., viewers, readers, website visitors) and whether these match the characteristics sought by the marketer’s desired target market. The more selectively targeted the audience, the more valuable this audience is to advertisers since with targeted advertising promotional funds are being spent on those with the highest potential to respond to the advertiser’s message.

The result is that media outlets, whose audience shares very similar characteristics (e.g., age, education level, political views, etc.), are in a position to charge higher advertising rates than media outlets that do not appeal to such a targeted group.

Characteristics of the Advertisement – Media outlet also charge different rates based on creative characteristics of the message. Characteristics that create ad rate differences include:

• Run Time (e.g., length of television or radio ads )
• Size (e.g., print ads size, billboard size)
• Print Style (e.g., black-and-white vs. color)
• Location in Media (e.g., back magazine cover vs. inside pages)

Length of Exposure

Some products require customers be exposed to just a little bit of information in order to build customer interest. For example, the features and benefits of a new snack food can be explained in a short period of time using television or radio commercials. However, complicated products need to present more information for customers to fully understand the product. Consequently, advertisers of these products well seek media formats that allot more time to deliver the message. Media outlets vary in how much exposure they offer to their audience. Magazines and other publications provide opportunities for longer exposure times since these media types can be retained by the audience (i.e., keep old magazines) while exposure on television and radio are generally limited to the time the ad was broadcast.

Advertising Clutter

In order to increase revenue, media outlets often include a large number of ads within a certain time, space or location. For instance, television programs may contain many ads inserted during the scheduled run-time of a program. A large number of advertisements create an environment of advertising clutter, which makes it difficult for viewers to recognize and remember particular advertisements. To break through the clutter advertisers may be required to increase the frequency of their advertising efforts (i.e., run more ads). Yet greater advertising frequency increases advertising expense. Alternatively, advertisers may seek opportunities that offer less clutter where an ad has a better chance of standing out from others.

This can be seen with online downloads (e.g., podcasts) of sports and news programming where a 5-10 minute story will be presented with a single 30-60 second ad.

Response Tracking

As we noted in Part 13: Advertising, marketers are embracing new technologies that make it easier to track audience response to advertisements. Newer media developed using Internet technology offer effective methods for tracking audience response compared to traditional media. But Internet-media are not alone in providing response tracking. Other advertising outlets, such as advertising by mail and television infomercial programming, also provide useful measures of audience reaction.