National Media Forum on Highway Safety

National Media Forum on Highway Safety
Getting the Most for Your Advertising Dollar

INTRODUCTION

GRP’s/TRP’s, HUT, PUT…Media planning can mesmerize you with a “foreign language” of acronyms and technical jargon. The seemingly complex maze of terminology can be daunting. You want to convey your message to your target audience at the most appropriate time and place for a cost that fits your budget. Your advertising strategy ultimately comes down to which and how much media will be used; and when and how often it will be used. Devising and implementing your strategy within resource constraints requires grounding in some basic media planning vocabulary, and in understanding key questions you should be asking to ensure you get the most for your money. Getting the optimal return on your investment also requires you to differentiate your community service goals from the for-profit goals of traditional advertisers. To ensure that you play an active, knowledge-based role in the development and execution of a media buy plan, this session will help you:

Analyze the value of major elements of any proposed media plan;
Learn how to ensure your media plan ties to your communication goals;
Learn how to leverage your limited funding to get the more “bonus” on your media buys than traditional corporations; and
Learn strategies to maximize your media dollars through corporate and community
partnerships.

KEY QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

To make this session more relevant to your needs, consider the following key questions:

Is your media budget compatible with your media plan objectives?
Are your buy plans consistent with your communications program implementation?
In what ways are you working with your PR agency to get value-added communication benefits for the money you’re spending?
Have you allocated sufficient resources to forge and nourish media relationships?
Does your media plan call for the use of new and emerging technologies to deliver your message to your target audiences?
Are you using corporate sponsorships?

PLANNING AND BALANCING MEDIA BUDGETS

INTRODUCTION

Media budgets must be compatible with the media plan objectives. Lofty objectives requiring significant movement in consumer behavior may be totally unrealistic if the working media budget cannot sustain the kind of plan needed to affect this change.

ISSUES

Let’s look at the elements needed to plan and allocate, or balance, a media budget:

ADVERTISING PERIOD

When is the advertising to run?

Media costs for television and radio can vary significantly depending on the time of year it is running. On the other hand print (magazines and newspapers) and out-of-home (billboards and transit) costs tend to be static throughout the year.

GEOGRAPHY

Where is the advertising to run?

You must know exactly where the advertising needs to run. Will you be covering all markets in the State, or just a select few? Must you cover the entire designated marketing area (DMA) of your biggest market, or are there a few key counties within that market where you need to be?

SPILL-IN
Are people in the market you are budgeting for exposed to advertising from another market? People living in one market may receive a portion of their media delivery from another market. One of the major reasons for this is that all network TV affiliates (NBC, CBS, FOX, etc.) are not always present in each market, and therefore people from one market need to watch the affiliate from another to view the desired programs.

COMMUNICATION GOALS

How much advertising do I need?

Setting GRP (gross rating point) goals by medium will tell you how much budget you need. It is very important to set goals based on an overall objective of either reach or frequency. For Click It or Ticket and You Drink & Drive. You Lose., it is frequency because we need to hit the same target audience (mainly young males 18-34) over and over again with our key messages within a set period of time. To build frequency you must use each medium to its fullest potential before moving on to the next one. This does not mean you can’t use multiple television stations or cable systems. However, you should not move on to another medium until you have used, in this case, television and cable television, to the fullest extent before moving on to another medium such as radio. Adding on additional media vehicles before each has been fully used will increase reach, but at the expense of frequency.

DIFFICULTY OF MARKETING OBJECTIVE
The overall marketing objective will set the scope for the entire media effort. A very ambitious objective will require a larger budget, and a less ambitious objective requires a lower budget.

LEVERAGING PAID MEDIA AGAINST PSA’S

ISSUES

A PSA, or Public Service Announcement, is a commercial which promotes programs, activities, or services regarded as serving community interests. PSA’s are carried by stations free of charge.

Stations are not required to air PSA’s, but most stations hold a small percentage of their inventory from sale so that it can be used for PSA’s only. When a station submits for its FCC license renewal they always highlight their PSA, and other public service activities.

When negotiating your buy, make the stations aware of what the campaign is about, and how campaign performance will be measured. It is very important that you inform the stations up front of the requirements that must be met for them to be part of the buy. Tell your stations that to be on the buy they must agree to a matching 1-to-1 or better PSA schedule to the paid schedule. This will help your sales reps request PSA inventory.

Remember, you are competing for limited PSA inventory against other worthwhile causes (Heart Association, United Way, Cancer Society, etc.) By tying a paid buy to a PSA request, you should gain an advantage over other PSA advertisers who are making PSA requests without the benefit of a paid buy.

It is important to hold stations to your requirement of running matching PSA spots. Should a station not agree to do this you may decide that you don’t want them to be part of the buy. However, if you run into a situation where none of the stations will commit to a 1-to-1 PSA match for each paid spot, then negotiate for the best deal possible. The major reason a station would not match your paid schedule would be if the inventory isn’t available. Even though inventory can be very tight, most stations will still have some inventory to work with you.

To use a station that rejects your PSA request will be unfair to all of the other stations that do meet
this requirement.

USING LIMITED FUNDS EFFECTIVELY

INTRODUCTION

We’ve all been in the position where we needed more funds to get the job done. While it’s never fun to market on a shoestring, sometimes we have to be creative and think outside the box to achieve our objectives. Here are some tips on how to make the most out of the money you do have.

OPPORTUNITIES

PAID MEDIA STRATEGIES
Here are some simple ideas that will enable you to get a “bigger bang for your buck”:

Give stations flexibility to run the bonus weight in dayparts where they have ample inventory that impacts your target audience.
Concentrate your paid buy on lower-cost dayparts and programming that will enable you to generate a lot of frequency against your target audience. It is important to make sure that the lower-priced dayparts you purchase still efficiently reach your target audience. For example, sometimes a lower-rated late night (11:30 p.m.-1 a.m.) program may have fewer viewers than a prime time (8 p.m.-11 p.m.) program, but it will cost significantly less even though it has a higher composition or percentage of your target audience.
As an example, instead of buying four spots in higher-rated prime time TV programs that have a strong reach, schedule only one primetime spot and eight spots in lower-priced late fringe (11:30 p.m.-1 a.m.) and late night (1 a.m.-2:30 a.m.) programs.
Also, instead of buying spots on the broadcast networks like NBC, ABC, FOX, allocate some funds to cable TV networks like ESPN, Spike TV and Comedy Central that have a high composition of your target audience, but lower unit rates.
On radio, to maintain a strong presence on a station with limited budget you can often find that the 5-6 a.m. time period has excellent ratings at a very low cost. Also, if your message does not have to be skewed towards the end of the week, you can often get outstanding deals if you agree to schedule your spots during the early part of the week (Sunday-Wednesday).

STRETCHING PAID MEDIA
There are several strategies beyond paid media that can help you stretch your limited budget and reach your communications goals.

Because we have already established that you are going to need help, let’s identify the most likely source of help—the media. You might be amazed at how much the media can and will do for you if you just ask. And, as obvious as it might sound, the first thing you need to do is develop a rapport—introduce yourself and your organization and ask about what’s important to them.

Treat them like a partner, NOT a vendor, and do it well before you actually need something from them. Always be honest and upfront with them regarding the status of an upcoming buy or a news item. Tell them what and where you need their help to make your program work. Creating realistic expectations and parameters will help cultivate a mutually beneficial relationship with the media.

When you are negotiating the buy don’t be afraid to ask for bonus spots, program sponsorships, billboards, public service announcements (PSA’s), and other value-added opportunities they can provide.

Program sponsorships are a great way to extend your campaign message at no additional cost. They can often be negotiated as a value-added component to a buy. On TV, it might come in the form of a 5-second billboard prior to a special program. Billboards are frequently offered with sports programming. On radio, you can often negotiate value-added sponsorships for daily programs like traffic, news or sports reports or weekly programs like Rick Dees Top 40 Countdown.
Bonus spots should be negotiated when the buy is being made. You can make bonus spots one of the criteria for granting a local sales rep a buy.

NOTE: It is important to make sure that if you request bonus media weight in a market, that all stations in your buy participate in that bonus program. If you include a station that is not willing to participate, it would be unfair to all of the other stations that do agree to your requirements. Should one station not agree to your terms, then they should be left off the paid buy.

PSA time on TV and radio stations is typically set aside for commercials or liners that promote community programs, activities and services. PSA’s are carried by stations free of charge. The Occupant Protection and Impaired Driving campaigns both qualify as serving community interests.
Stations are often involved in special events. If you are making a buy, you can sometimes get involved and receive credit as a sponsor for no additional cost.

ADVANCING MESSAGES THROUGH CORPORATE PARTNERSHIPS AND SPONSORSHIPS

INTRODUCTION

One of the most effective ways to stretch limited marketing resources is to team with other organizations that can bring additional resources, reach, or credibility to bear in reaching important target audiences.

OPPORTUNITIES

NHTSA has established effective national outreach partnerships with a variety of national, state and regional law enforcement associations, other highway safety professionals and professional marketing partners from around the nation. These partnerships include such notable organizations as: AAA (American Automobile Association), MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), Major League Baseball, NASCAR, and the IACP (International Association of Chiefs of Police), just to name a few. NHTSA continues to identify and nurture coalitions and partnerships to more effectively reach and motivate behavioral change among the target audiences.

Similar partnerships and coalitions also play an important part at the State and local levels. These
partnerships, if used correctly, can bring, without the investment of any additional marketing resources
by the highway safety office, a considerable amount of help, support and exposure to a marketing
communications campaign.

Such partnerships can add high profile events, celebrity participation and endorsements important to
generating earned media coverage; additional grassroots volunteers ready to take the campaign messages to the State, the streets or the schools; greater paid media exposure or material creation/distribution. These benefits and more are all at the partner’s expense.

RESOURCES

Visit www.stopimpaireddriving.org, www.buckleupamerica.org and www.boosterseat.gov to find out more about some of the national partnerships and coalition efforts you can model or develop at the State and local level.