This document outlines the key sections and considerations for developing a media plan, including media objectives, strategies, and tactics. It discusses setting objectives for reach, frequency, target audience, geography, budget, and more. For strategies, it recommends analyzing target audience media usage, objectives, creative constraints, competitors, and costs to determine the optimal media mix and formats. Scheduling and weighting reach and frequency across seasons and regions should also be proposed based on factors like seasonality and typical purchasing patterns. The goal is to justify every choice in the media plan with detailed data and rationale.

1. Dr. Kwangmi Ko Kim Advertising Campaign (Fall 2005)
The second part of Paper III has three major sections: Media Objectives - Media
Strategies -- Media Tactics (Executions)
Media Objectives
· Outline what the media plan is expected to accomplish.
· Because the media objectives tell what is to be accomplished, they do not mention
specific media selection yet. Media selection is at the strategy level; objectives deal only
with what is to be done.
· Poor example : Use network television to provide broad national coverage
- Use media that will provide broad national coverage to support
national sales and distribution
Media objectives can take many forms and cover many different areas: however, the
following objectives are basic to most media plans.
· Target Audience : whom are you trying to reach?
· Reach/Frequency : Present relevant level of Reach and (Average) Frequency for a 4-week
period. For example, Reach 80%, and Average Frequency 5.
First, you need to consider which one is more important for your advertising
objectives since there is trade-off between Reach and Frequency. --Do you want
reach? Or more frequency? Which is more important?
*** General Rule of Thumb***
If you want to increase broad range of awareness, coverage is more
important. So, focus on Reach.
If you want to attract new customers nationally, emphasize Reach.
IF you want to hold current users in key markets, increase Frequency.
If you want to focus on convincing your target audience that your brand
is better than Brand B, “exposure” is more important. So,
frequency needs to be emphasized.
How much “Frequency” is enough? --”Effective Frequency” Three plus rule
What is proper “Reach” level? - typically between 50%-80%
Use Ostrow Model (p. 117, Media Flight Plan book)
· Geographic coverage (Regionality): Where should advertising be placed? Is there a need
for certain geographic emphasis? For example, top 25 or top 50 DMAs.
· Creative implications : Does the copy platform or creative strategy have any
implications for planning media? (Sometimes the creative strategy, by its
nature, can limit selection planning to a single medium).
· Promotion support : Include if media will be needed to support promotion effort.
· Trade Communication : If applicable, indicate what media need to do to support trade
consumers.
· Budget limitation: Put your working media cost here.

2. Example:
· Reach/Frequency: Provide average reach, 70% while maintaining average frequency of 4.0.
· Regionality: Use national media to support national distribution and sales, but also provide
advertising heavy-up in the top 50 markets that are located in the West and South regions.
· Seasonality: Year-long advertising is desirable, but it is far more important to provide
adequate advertising weight during the peak selling seasons: for example, the summer selling
seasons, back-to-school (August-September), and holiday gift giving periods (December-
January)
· Creative implications: Primary media must provide for visualization of the product.
Primary media must be able to accommodate the commercial jingle.
· Promotion support: Provide media support for the national couponing effort scheduled for
August.
· Trade Communication:
o Provide for strong communication with the retail trade in order to build
awareness and encourage stocking of the brand.
o Provide media specifically to reach buyers and managers of food, drug, and discount
stores.
· Budget: The forgoing media objectives are to be accomplished within a working media
budget of $10.5 millions.

3. Dr. Kwangmi K. Kim Advertising Campaign (MCOM 447, Fall 2005)
Media Strategy: In this section, you need to recommend three main things: media
mix, scheduling, weighting of Reach and Frequency by seasonality and regionality.
Steps to follow:
1. Narrow down your media options by discussing each factor/issue.
2. After narrowing the choices of media, you need to choose the relevant
media mix for your campaign.
3. Then, recommend media format for each medium if applicable. For
example, if you chose TV as part of media mix, you need to recommend
specific TV formats (e.g, cable TV, network TV, syndicated TV)
1. The following five factors should be considered and discussed before making decisions
on Media Mix
· Target audience’s use of media class (Quintile Ranking)
Using the Quintile information from MRI, consider media classes that have high
quintile rankings (i.e., high index in Quintile I and II, and low index in Quintile IV
and V) against your target audience. - This means you have to use a right MRI
table for your target audience.
· Advertising Objective
Is your advertising objective met better with a set of media mix than others? -
network TV to maximize reach quickly, radio to increase frequency among selected
target, newspapers or magazines for informative, complex information delivery
Justify your recommendation through demonstration of your knowledge on
characteristics of different media. Almost all the textbooks on mass communication,
including the one for your Media Planning Course, address this issue.
· Creative Constraints
Does your creative strategy require certain media than others? (e.g., television for
demonstration, vivid color for magazine and TV, jingle and cathy phrases for radio
and TV). Explain why and why not.
· Budget constraints
Consider the cost to buy time and space in each medium. Also, consider the general
cost efficiency (CPM).
Note that the two types of costs are different. For example, network TV time (“unit
cost”) is expensive to purchase, but very cost efficient (low CPM). On the other
hand, consumer magazines are both expensive (than NPs) to purchase and not very
cost efficient (high CPM), but necessary to reach selective target audience.
· Competitors’ media mix

4. Using CMR, compare your brand’s media mix with that of the competitors. This is a good
place to bring “Share of Voice” concept again. Are they similar or different? Do you want to
maintain the competitive position within the current media mix? Or, do you want to seek
opportunity in an underutilized media class where competitors are weak?
2. Propose your recommendation of media mix, then discuss media format/genre within
a certain medium (for example, cable tv, syndicated tv, network tv for TV, and women’s
magazine, fashion, health magazines for magazines, network radio or spot radio). Also,
discuss dayparts for broadcast media.
3. Propose scheduling pattern
Out of three patterns (continuous, pulsing, and flight), which pattern of schedule, in line
with the seasonality issue, would you recommend to your client? What would you
consider to make a decision? (For example, a typical payday is 15th of each month--
You might want to make your advertising schedule heavier around 15th of each month to
build awareness and generate interests).
4. Weighting, Reach and Frequency
Here, make a recommendation on which geographic markets will receive more “weights”
(meaning emphasis in the media plan) than others, which season will receive more
weights. Also, provide specific reach/frequency for each month during the whole
campaign period.
Good media plans are the ones that every choice is clearly identified and supported
with detailed data and rationale.