In this article, written for the mSix’s website, I highlight how digital media has passed the tipping point and why marketers must evolve beyond the simplistic ‘long and short duopoly’ and use digital media to build brand fame as well as driving performance. The time is right to challenge and develop the original works of … Read More
Media Planning
What is Marketing Mix Modelling?
Marketing Mix Modelling or MMM is a regression-based approach to identifying the drivers of sales for a business or brand – making it a form of attribution. For many advertisers it is used to understand and optimise the effects of paid media in generating sales outcomes. Unlike many other forms of attribution, MMM aims to … Read More
Adstock and Diminishing Returns: non-linear advertising effects
Adstock is an important concept in marketing effectiveness. It was first quantified by Simon Broadbent in the 1970s. Its value lies in helping make marketing and media mix models more accurate by recognising that advertising and media investments have non-linear “carryover” response effects. These non-linear effects are normally grouped into two areas: the delayed effect … Read More
What is the craft of media planning?
Over the last year people have been increasingly talking about the “craft” of media planning. Back in February 2019, Gideon Spanier the media editor of Campaign wrote, “the craft of media planing needs to make a comeback” and he further opined that “media planning has declined in importance in recent years – with serious consequences”. … Read More
How to calculate cost per thousand (CPM) in paid media
Cost per thousand is a key metric in paid media planning. It’s important because it tells you the comparative cost of reaching the same volume of target audience in different media channels. Did you know that the cost of reaching 1,000 people in TV is about £5 and the cost of reaching 1,000 people by … Read More
What is a TV Audience Impact?
TV audience impacts are a measure of audience volume in media planning. In traditional media they are called impacts, in digital media they tend to be called impressions. What is the definition of a TV audience impact? An impacts is: One person Seeing one ad At one time Example: If 5 million people watch an … Read More
What is Paid, Owned and Earned Media?
Paid Media is any communications media “space” that you have to buy from a media owner. Typically this would include TV, outdoor, press and magazines, cinema, radio and third party DM and email lists. It also includes all paid digital activity, whether that paid display, search or social media. It excludes things like SEO which … Read More
How is brand advertising different to direct response advertising?
Brand advertising techniques are very different to direct response advertising techniques. Even when you are running an integrated multi-channel campaign it is important to understand the key differences between the two approaches so that you can orchestrate your overall campaign plan and budget to deliver maximum ROI. To illustrate some of the key differences here … Read More
What is the marketing mix in 2018?
Introduction This article outlines the case for considering Permission as the 8th P in the marketing mix. It is slightly lighthearted as I wouldn’t presume myself worthy of adding the 8th P, but the recent rise in big data analytics and the resulting changes in data regulation (GDPR) mean that there may be a case … Read More
TV Media Planning Terms – calculating media reach and frequency using TVRs
When media planners develop TV campaign plans they are often optimising the relationship between three sets of numbers: TVRs (or GRPs, or TRPs) – TVRs or TV rating points are a way of sizing target audiences across both demographics and geography. 1 TVR is 1% of a target audience universe as defined by both demographic and … Read More
What is the sales funnel and is it alive or dead?
The sales funnel is one of the most powerful conceptual tools in marketing. It gives marketers the ability to contextualise how consumers move from being unaware prospects to converted brand advocates. It was originally conceived by Elias St. Elmo Lewis an American ad agency owner who was operating out of Philadelphia in the early 1900s – … Read More
Understanding brand awareness, consideration and preference
Brand awareness is vitally important in the marketing process. As consumers need to be aware of a product and brand to purchase it, then the more consumers who are aware, the more purchases take place. This hierarchical approach, begins with awareness and moves through consideration and preference to purchase. This hierarchical path is sometimes called … Read More
How do TVRs build media reach and frequency?
As we saw in the “what is a TVR” post a TVR is a percentage of a given target audience in a given geographic base. But is a TVR any more than that? Well, yes it is. A TVR is an important factor in calculating how media activity builds reach and frequency. Reach is the … Read More
Advertising Response Rates by Channel
Understanding response rates by media channel is a vital component of marketing and media planning. If you know the response rates, media costs and likely conversion rates of each channel you are using, you can forecast the ROI of your planned activity – before you spend any budget. This helps to de-risk your marketing activity … Read More
DRTV Response Rates
We’re often asked to forecast or estimate campaign response rates, especially in DRTV. Here are some guidelines for those who want them: Set 1 – DRTV Phone Response Rates (high to low range as a percentage of total impacts) DRTV Type 1 – Hard Hitters – these DRTV hard hitters, with no-nonsense creative, usually on … Read More
Media ROI Evaluation Techniques
Techniques for tracking advertising and media ROI are often discussed by both advertisers and agencies as they seek to identify and maximise the ROI effect of media budgets. Deciding on which techniques to use can raise a number of issues depending on the data and budgets available for advertising evaluation. Before we get into the techniques themselves … Read More
What is a TVR?
This is a question that many marketers don’t want to ask, especially when they are halfway through the agency’s TV presentation. The trouble is, the agency team have been talking about TVRs for about 20 minutes, the coffee’s gone cold and you daren’t chip in to ask “exactly what is a TVR?” Put very simply … Read More
Does social media drive sales?
The question of sales generation is a growing problem for social media. Despite all the hype, it’s almost impossible to find any conclusive cross-category evidence that social media drives sales. Yes, there are some isolated examples of success; Dell’s Twitter pages announces some great deals and I’m sure ASOS can whip up a bit of extra … Read More
What is programmatic advertising?
If you are an advertiser you may have heard the expressions “programmatic buying”, “real time bidding” and “ad exchanges”. You may be wondering what all this is and what it means for advertisers, if you are then read on… “Programmatic” advertising, is effectively automated online media buying – often at large scale and at very … Read More
Advertising and Media Planning Books
Here’s a selection of must-read selection of adverting media planning and buying books for those working in advertising and communications strategy. If you click the link you can find the book on Amazon. The Communications Challenge: A practical guide to media neutral planning A practical guide to communications planning. Becoming quite collectable. Even I’m in … Read More
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