Principles of Media Planning - American Marketing Association

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Principles of Media Planning

By Barbara Langbecker and Enza V. Chiodi
Barbara Langbecker is VP, Group Director and Enza V. Chiodi is Senior Vice President, Planning Director, both at Creative Media PHD, a New York-based media strategy and communications firm.

	1. Introduction

At some point in the marketing process, the work has to change from research and strategizing to actually going out and promoting a product or service to potential customers.

One of the most potent tools to reach consumers is a media advertising campaign. When well conceived, a media campaign enables marketers to reach thousands of consumers simultaneously with a uniform, focused message.

The key concept, however, is "well-conceived." Media advertising is a sophisticated tool. Especially today with the ever-growing assortment of specialty cable television channels and the variety of new media options available, marketers have to target their advertising dollars carefully to reach the right audience at the right time.

Such calculations are the job of the media planner. Media planners are often part of a full-service advertising agency, but they also work in specialty firms. In either case, the media planner works closely with the marketing and advertising team to devise a media strategy.

The media strategy is a roadmap to ensure that an advertisement reaches the right audience at the right time. The three big questions in any media plan are:

What is the right media mix?
What specific media offer access to the target market?
When should advertisements air, and how often?

When the marketing, advertising and media team arrive at satisfactory answers to those three questions, what follows is a balancing act to make the most effective use of the marketing budget. There is no such thing as a perfect media plan. It is an organic creation specifically targeted to the product or service, the marketing objectives and the marketing budget.

When the team devises a media plan that they think has the best chance for success, they pass it along to a media buyer to make it all happen.

The following tutorial is an introduction to media planning, including terminology, a review of the process and a general discussion of what works, and what doesn't.

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Table of Contents

1.	Introduction
2.	Media Planning Process
3.	Creating a Media Plan
4.	Conclusion