The Media Handbook

A Complete Guide to Advertising Media Selection, Planning, Research, and Buying

Helen Katz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000579659
• Edition: 8
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Pubblicità
• Index: Business

The eighth edition of The Media Handbook continues to provide a practical introduction to the media planning and buying processes.

Starting with the broader context in which media planning occurs, including a basic understanding of competitive spending and target audiences, the book takes readers through the fundamentals of each media channel, leading to the creation of a media plan. Throughout, concepts and calculations are clearly explained. This new edition reflects the changes in how people consume media today with:

• a new chapter on how audiences are defined and created
• reorganization of the media channel chapters to cover planning and buying together
• expanded coverage of digital formats in all channels
• added discussion of measurement
• completely updated data and examples.

The Media Handbook, Eighth Edition is the ideal text for courses in media planning and buying in advertising/communication departments.

Supplemental online resources for both students and instructors are also available. For students, there is a list of key media associations and chapter overviews. To assist in their course preparation, instructors will find lecture slides, sample test questions, and new sample media planning exercise scenarios with accompanying practice spreadsheets. These resources are available at www.routledge.com/9780367775568, under Support Material.

Chapter 1 Media in the Big Picture

DOI: 10.4324/9781003175704-1

Learning Outcomes

In this chapter you will learn how to:

• Understand how media fit within marketing
• Explain the relationship between media, consumers, and brands
• Analyze the competitive landscape for an individual brand

It’s 7:30 a.m. You wake up and check your mobile phone to see what is happening on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You look at the latest news and weather on your phone apps. At breakfast (while possibly still engaged in those activities), you might watch some of the morning news on TV or ESPN sports highlights on your phone, which are “brought to you” by Budweiser. On the way to work or class, you watch clips from last night’s talk shows on your mobile phone, with branded video ads preceding each one.

In that brief time span, you have been immersed in today’s world of media. That world includes various media platforms for which advertisers pay: radio, digital, television, mobile, newspapers, magazines, and outdoor billboards. Then there are segments of those media in which advertisers insert their brands less overtly to own the content. Last, there are social media forms such as Facebook and Twitter, where advertisers try to earn the trust and attention of the consumer. In all of these instances, when you listen to music on the radio, go online to post your Instagram story, stream a TV show, or read your favorite magazine, you also receive information through a means of communication or a medium. Given this broad definition, you can see that there are, in fact, hundreds of different media available, such as direct mail offers sent to your home, TV screens at the gym, digital coupons, stadium signs, shared bike programs with sponsor names on the wheels, tray liners in airport security bins, and samples handed out at the supemiarket. All of these, and many other media, offer us ways of communicating information to an audience. As advertising media professionals, we are interested in looking at media as means of conveying a specific kind of information—an advertising message—about a product or service to consumers.

Media play very important roles in our lives. Media help fulfill two basic needs: They inform, and they entertain. We turn to media when we want to hear the latest world news or what happened in financial markets, for instance. We also look to media to fill our evenings and weekends with escapist fare to get us out of our everyday, humdrum routines. Television entertains us with movies, dramas, comedies, reality shows, and sports. Radio offers us a wide variety of music, talk, and entertainment. We turn to print or digital magazines to find out more about our favorite hobbies and interests. Newspapers, also in print or digital, help us keep up with the world around us. And digital media, in all its varied forms, provides limitless information and a means of shared entertainments and communication.

The informational role of the media is perhaps best illustrated by considering what happens during an international crisis, such as disputes between countries or national disasters such as hurricanes or major snowstorms. When these occur, millions of people turn to their laptops or mobile devices to get breaking news updates, go to social media to hear that friends or relatives are all safe, or turn to TVs and radios for ongoing news coverage. Then, over the next several days, they seek out newspapers and magazines for more in-depth coverage and follow-up stories.

Media also affect our lives through their entertainment function. Television programs such as Black-ish and Transparent have not only reflected what lias been happening in U.S. society but also helped influence attitudes and behaviors concerning the issues of race and equality. Stories appearing in print or online magazines such as People or Vanity Fair let us know what is happening in other people’s lives, both famous and ordinary. And we take our mobile devices with us everywhere so that we can receive the latest sports scores or watch videos while we relax.

A third primary function of media is to socialize. While the informational and entertainment aspects offer “one-to-many” disseminations of content, the various forms of social media bring people together in a “one-to-one” way, whether that is you sharing pictures or videos through Snapchat and TikTok or putting a favorite recipe on a Pinterest board.

What Media Are Out There?

One way that advertisers differentiate between media channels is to consider whether their brands’ messages are paid for, owned by the advertiser, or earned by consumers taking action. This organization is shown in Exhibit 1.1. It is worth noting that the lines between the classifications are not absolute. While brands “own” their name or slogan that is placed or integrated or named at an event as part of a sponsorship deal, they may still have to pay for those rights.

Exhibit 1.1 Today’s Media Classification: Paid, Owned, and Earned

Paid	Owned	Earned
TV	Product placement	Word of mouth
Radio	Brand integration	Earned social
Newspapers	Brand website	Organic search
Magazines	Sponsorship	Public relations
Outdoor	Influencers
Digital display	Custom events
Digital video
Digital search
Paid social

Whether a brand truly owns an influencer is also subject to debate. Moreover., what a brand can earn through social media may well happen as a result of that brand’s paid messaging. And importantly, from the consumers’ perspective, these are artificial or irrelevant classifications. We will return to this dilemma in later chapters.

The Role of Media in Business

It is important to emphasize here that the focus of this book is commercial media. The communications media we will be talking about are not there simply to beautify the landscape or fill up airtime; they are designed to sell prodcts to customers. Of course, there are also media that convey information but are not commercial in intent. Consumer Reports is a magazine that does not carry any advertising. Neither do public television and radio (except for sponsorships). Google Maps and airline safety instructions are informative, but they are not advertisements in and of themselves (even if they can earn advertisements within or near them). And books certainly communicate information to their readers. Here, however, we will concentrate on those media that currently accept advertising messages. It is worth emphasizing the word currently. Twenty-five years ago, you did not find commercial messages at supermarkets, schools, doctors’ offices, or ski slopes. Today, advertisers can reach people in all of these places. People are willing to cover their vehicles, or sometimes even parts of their bodies, in sponsored ads. Companies are routinely paying people they consider influential to mention their products online, sometimes without the authors publicly acknowledging the payment. While some of these ventures have been criticized, that does not mean similar attempts will not be made again in the future. What is true today may very well change by tomorrow. The generic term media (or medium in the singular) means different tilings to different people. To people sitting at home on a Friday evening, media means whatever TV shows they stream or games they play on their mobile apps. For the local Honda car dealer, media provide ways to advertise this week’s deals on CRVs and Civics. And the Local Electric Utility Company uses media to remind its customers with their monthly bills that they can get free energy-saving audits.

Strictly speaking, a medium may be defined as a means by which something is accomplished, conveyed, or transferred. This deliberately broad definition means that consumer media would cover everything from handbills passed out in parking lots to “for sale” signs taped to lampposts. It could also include the four-page BMW supplement wrapped around the printed edition of the New York Times, or digital billboards flashing in Times Square, or the BMW vehicles that contestants drive in Bravo’s Top Chef.

How the Media Business Evolves

The media business is never static. Like many other industries, companies often start small, grow bigger (through acquisition or mergers), and then face new competition from smaller players. Those changes have effects on both advertisers and consumers. For example, the purchase of NBC Universal by Comcast back in 2013, or the 2021 merger of WamerMedia and Discovery, can alter the TV networks or movies available or promoted. Viewers might wonder why USA Network airs seemingly endless reruns of Law & Order: SVU. That is because both USA Network and Universal Studios (the TV syndication company) are part of Comcast NBCU. One media agency, GroupM, estimated that in 2020 two-thirds of all ad spending went to the top 25 media suppliers, compared to their control of 42 percent of adspend just four years earlier.¹

The impact this has on advertisers occurs primarily in negotiations where media buyers find themselves with fewer companies to buy from. If they want to place commercials during Grey’s Anatomy or The Bachelor (both on ABC) they may have to accept a package that includes ads on National Geographic Channel or FX or Freeform, all of which are also part of Walt Disney Television. This consolidation occurs in the digital sphere too (such as Facebook’s purchase of Giphy or Amazon buying Twitch). So while consumers are being offered more and more media choices (more digital audio offerings, more magazine apps, more ad-supported streaming services), the advertisers trying to reach them find that they must negotiate ...