National Media Forum on Highway Safety

National Media Forum on Highway Safety
Tools of the Trade

INTRODUCTION

Good communication cuts through the clutter. It gets the right message, in the right medium, delivered by the right messenger, to the right audience. Sounds simple enough… in theory. But it takes strategic
planning and knowledge of the underlying communication tools that can help ensure your efforts yield
desired results. This session walks participants through the tools available to get your message to the public. In this workshop, participants will gain knowledge to:

Critique a strategic brief created by a public relations firm;
Determine whether the subsequent creative materials are consistent in strategy with the agreed-upon creative brief; and
Analyze creative materials developed on the basis of the creative brief.

At the end of the day, your media and communication activities should reflect your desired outcomes, build on your existing partnerships, nurture potential partnerships, respond to local conditions and use cost-effective media intervention tactics. Workshop presenters will help you:

Review the impact of issues such as talent fees, public domain and usage rights on your ability to stretch your communication dollar; and
Consider how you can best use the tools available to you -- earned media and donated media for PSA’s to supplement your paid media buys.

KEY QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

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

Does your creative material support the messages of your campaign?
Is your creative approach to conveying your message consistent with what the data tells you about your target audience?
Does your media buy plan comport with your target audience?

HOW DO I GIVE AD AGENCIES GOOD DIRECTION?

INTRODUCTION

We’ve all heard the adage, “You get back what you put into it.” It’s especially true when working with your ad agency. The creative concepts your agency presents are only as good as the input you give them. Many organizations think their problems will be automatically solved when they hire an agency – that they will be able to clear off their desks by outsourcing the advertising work. However, working with a good agency is like adding a new division to your organization. Your agency should want to spend time with you, learning all it can about your organization: how it operates, what your communications objectives are, who your target markets are, what advertising has been done in the past, the attributes your brand currently has, etc.

CREATIVE BRIEFS

For each project, the first step in getting and keeping your ad agency on the right track is to work hand-in-hand with your agency representative in creating a strategy brief, followed by a document called the “creative brief.” This is the roadmap that will outline the project and keep everyone going in the same direction prior to the start of any creative concept work. A creative brief should including the following information:

Objective
Target market (who you are talking to, what they think now, and what we want them to think and do)
Key benefit and the features that support that benefit with the target (i.e., what’s the big deal that is meaningful to and will motivate the target market?)
Competition (who or what competes for the attention of your target market)
Tone of the creative and how that tone affects your existing brand
Deliverables and timeframes (any special notes about execution or budget parameters)
Although you will work with the ad agency on the content of the brief, it is important for your agency to demonstrate its understanding of the elements addressed in the brief and bring its own insights and research to the table. In other words, you shouldn’t have to spoon-feed a good agency.

As you review the submitted brief, be sure to include everyone at your organization who will be a decision-maker in the creative review process. When you approve the brief, you are authorizing your ad agency to move forward, so be certain that all decision-makers agree with every answer to every question.

Overall, a creative brief should live up to its name and be brief. After all, the end result may be a 30-second ad that has to contain all of the information you need to communicate to your target audience, and the creative brief is the ad agency’s first step in boiling down that information.

Your agency should not begin the development of any creative concepts until you and the agency are working in tandem through an approved creative brief.

The following pages contain an example of a good creative brief.

Creative Brief (pdf)

WHAT SHOULD I EXPECT IN A CREATIVE REVIEW?

When your ad agency presents creative concepts for your review, you should expect to hear the rationale for the concept that is rooted in the creative brief:

Does the concept work toward accomplishing the objective?
Does the concept resonate with the target market?
Does the concept communicate the key benefit and offer elements that support it?
Does the tone of the concept reflect my organization?
Does the concept build brand equity?
Does the execution of the concept work with our budget and deadline.

In addition to the creative brief, your agency might provide other supporting rationales. It may:

Showcase creative samples from other companies or organizations that resonate with the target market the creative is trying to reach;
Discuss what other companies or organizations similar to yours have done with their advertising; or
Present primary or secondary research reports that to demonstrate that its recommendations are on target.

In any event, remember that the creative brief should be the cornerstone of any rationale your agency
may build.

Next, you should consider the execution of the concept. Some ideas that are on strategy may not be feasible to execute, depending on the budget or the deadline. Details, tight budgets, and the specifics of execution may not be determined at this point, but the agency should be able to address the feasibility of the concept and a ballpark budget range.

Finally, it is important to consider your first impression of how you think your target will respond to the creative. After all, your target audience will watch it for 30 seconds then walk away from it – they won’t sit in a conference room discussing it for an hour. However, also remember to temper your reaction with the realization that you may not be the target for the particular message you’re reviewing, so it may not fully resonate with you.

HOW TO DETERMINE POTENTIAL PROBLEMS WITH ADVERTISEMENTS

Several problems could stall, redirect, or even kill creative concepts that your ad agency presents to you. Of course, one of those problems could be that the concepts are not in line with the creative brief and are off-strategy. But other concepts, which may be completely on-strategy, could have some political pitfalls.

If a concept is on target and there are some concerns, try to stay away from second-guessing how a particular group of individuals might react to it. Instead, ask your ad agency to investigate possible reactions by conducting additional research. With concept testing, that research usually involves conducting interviews, a focus/affinity group or a series of group sessions.

Determining possible problems is one of the hardest tasks when reviewing creative. After all, you can’t
please everyone all the time, and “safe” ads are not always good ads – you want your advertising to grab the attention of the target market, start conversations, cause reactions, and change behavior. And sometimes that involves taking a risk.

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PRE-TESTING – USING FOCUS GROUPS AND OTHER METHODS

INTRODUCTION

Pre-testing message strategies, advertising concepts, and other communications ideas can be extremely beneficial in assessing the strength of your advertising. Some of the most helpful outcomes of pre-testing ideas, concepts, and messages include the following:

Hearing and better understanding independent, “third-party” points-of-view from people representing your target market and/or other market segments
Learning whether the idea works in terms of getting attention, communicating your desired message clearly, and provoking your desired reaction (i.e., changing behavior, changing attitudes, or whatever the objective is)
Discovering unexpected insights and/or get glimpses of people’s emotional reactions to your ideas and messages
“Disaster avoidance” – learning about misinterpretations, negative perceptions or other issues you don’t intend to communicate

ISSUES

There are limitations to pre-testing. It’s important to recognize them before spending the considerable amounts of time and money to implement a pre-testing exercise:

Pre-testing methods typically are in a controlled environment, so research participants who are seeing, hearing, or reading your messages aren’t experiencing them as they would in the “real world.” In the research environment, the participants will feel obliged to pay attention to what you show and say, and then to react in some way with thoughts and comments. Yet in a real world environment, they may not even pay attention to the idea or message at all (much less react to it).
Except in unusual circumstances, the information you get is not statistically projectable to the population at large. Most of the time, the sample sizes are relatively small. In pre-testing research, you’re seeking qualitative information rather than quantitative information, such as data from polls and representative-sample surveys that can be statistically quantified and generalized across the population.
Unless pre-testing is conducted in several different geographical areas, there may be geographical biases in people’s responses. People at one end of your state may express entirely different opinions from people at another end; or people in rural areas may see things differently from those who live in larger city suburbs or urban neighborhoods.

DEFINITIONS

Three of the most common methods for pre-testing are these:

Focus Groups – Each group consists of six to 12 people. Participants are recruited after being screened according to the specific types of people you want included (for example, 18-to-24-year-old men who live in rural areas, have not attended college, and drive pickup trucks). In exchange for participation, each participant receives an incentive, which is usually cash in an amount ranging from $30 to $100. A competent group moderator, using a moderator’s guide of various questions and topics, leads the focus group discussion, which often lasts one to two hours. Focus group cost considerations include recruiting services, amount of the incentive, facility rental, moderator fees, food/beverages for participants and other coordination fees.

One-on-one Interviews – This method is similar in many ways to focus groups, except you interview participants on a private, one-to-one basis. By doing so, the opinions of each participant aren’t swayed or tempered by those of others in a group. Therefore, the information gained is usually a better reflection of each person’s true thoughts. The trade-off, however, is time – a one-on-one project will take considerably more time to conduct because of the total time it takes to do all the interviews, scheduling each person individually, additional travel time and other logistics. As with focus groups, cost considerations may include recruiting services, the cost of participants’ incentives, facility rental, interviewer fees, food/beverages for participants, and other coordination fees.

One-on-one Intercept Interviews – this method is similar to the one-on-one interviews, but instead of pre-recruiting participants, you “intercept” them in a high-traffic area, such as a shopping center or mall. (This method is often called “mall intercepts.”) Mall intercepts can be considerably less expensive and require less time to conduct. However, participants may not necessarily be representative of your desired target market; plus, the amount of time they’ll give to be interviewed is typically 15 minutes or less. Also, the research organization authorized to conduct interviews at the particular site may employ interviewers who have only limited experience or low interest in your project.

Written reports of findings for any of these methods usually take two forms – (1) top-line reports and (2) detailed findings. The preliminary top-line report can be expected within a week of the conclusion of all group or individual interactions, followed by the detailed report about two weeks after that.

The top-line report will summarize the most important and most obvious conclusions, but probably will not offer many specific details, insights or implications as to how the findings affect the pre-tested messages/ideas/concepts/materials. Nevertheless, it’s helpful to have such a summary to share with all the people involved in the creative development and approval process, so they can begin to consider and discuss improvements and/or overhauls to the messages/ideas/materials that were pre-tested.

The detailed report will both (1) reiterate many of the relevant comments as expressed by respondents, and (2) analyze and synthesize the information in insightful yet actionable ways. With these insights and implications, the creators and developers of the messages/ideas/materials have the guidance (from the target audience’s perspective) needed to enhance and improve the clarity, relevance, interest, credibility and/or emotional impact of the messages/ideas/materials.

RESOURCES

Competent marketing research firms are located in all major and most secondary cities. A Google search for “focus group research in (city name)” is one way to get started. Firms that handle focus group projects almost always handle one-on-one interviews and intercepts. Also, consider checking with the Marketing Research Association (www.bluebook.org) for sources. Soliciting proposals and cost quotes from two, three, or four firms is worthwhile, for quotes may vary considerably. Good firms often offer useful advice or suggestions that will improve the outcome of your study.

EARNED V. PAID MEDIA

INTRODUCTION

Earned media coverage can be a powerful tool to any integrated marketing communications program. Unlike advertising, earned media often carries more weight and credibility in the minds of the consumers because it is delivered and received through the recognized filter of a credible third-party organization/person such as a newspaper reporter or columnist, TV or radio news anchor or reporter.

Adopting a proactive approach to earned media allows you to build and enhance the profile and messages of your organization. But earned media is not free media. It requires significant work to generate and sustain steady coverage and to build on the momentum of past successes.

Good media management is a critical communications skill. Building strong, trusting relationships with the media; learning to pitch them in ways that in their minds adds value to their readers, viewers or listeners; generating a steady series of significant press releases, announcements and special events to give them something to cover; and putting in the time and effort to follow-up are the keys to good media relations.

ISSUES

BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE MEDIA
Good media contacts and relationships are often the key to good media coverage. Get to know key journalists and make sure they know you. Then use these relationships to help you secure steady coverage for your organization. Recognize that a good relationship should be mutually beneficial. Always try to be helpful to journalists, return all calls promptly, learn and respect their deadlines, and always be honest and forthright with them when you want to be helpful to them, particularly in those times when you must explain why you cannot.

ADDING VALUE TO GAIN COVERAGE
News editors and reporters first and foremost are interested in covering stories they believe are interesting and add value to their readers/viewers/listeners. Put yourself in the minds of their audiences; determine why your news is important to their audiences; and pitch your stories to the news editors and reporters with that in mind. This simple approach should help you gain better press coverage.

CREATING OPPORTUNITIES FOR NEWS COVERAGE
It seems obvious that if you do not offer reporters something of importance to cover, then you will not gain any coverage, yet many organizations do not build a sustained and steady program of coverage opportunities to advance their cause. Building a sustained series of news releases, news conferences, announcements, events, etc. that feature fresh and interesting news angles is key to generating good earned media coverage.

DOING THE HARD WORK OF FOLLOWING UP
Journalists are busy people with many stories to sort through. Do not expect them to pay much attention to your news releases, news conferences, or op-eds you give them for placement, unless you are willing to take the time to work the telephones to follow up. Moving your story from the bottom of the stack to the top of their stack is a vital step to generating good press coverage.

RESOURCES

www.stopimpaireddriving.org and www.buckleupamerica.org

Media Training 101 by Sally Stewart

Media Relations Handbook for Agencies, Associations and Nonprofits by Brad Fitch

THE MOST EFFECTIVE PAID MEDIA TO REACH TARGET AUDIENCES

INTRODUCTION

Every medium has its own attributes, its own strengths and weaknesses. Some offer broad-based coverage, while others are very targeted. Others can be the bedrock of an advertising campaign or be looked upon for secondary media support.

For example, television is almost always considered a primary medium, with the ability to deliver an advertising message to virtually everyone. However, with careful planning and analysis, television can be used to focus more sharply on specific target segments and particular communications objectives.

KEY QUESTIONS

To make sure you are considering, and ultimately purchasing, the most effective mediums to meet your communication objectives, ask yourself:

Whom do you want to reach?
The answer to this question will dictate how your media plan will be developed. It is extremely important to understand who your target audience is from a marketing point-of-view first. A simple age and sex demographic description does not tell you who your target audience truly is. For example, in the case of occupant protection the target audience, in some cases, has been described as “young males who do not wear their safety belts when riding in a motor vehicle, especially those who drive pickup trucks.” This target tends to skew more blue-collar, and the programming selected to reach them can be different than that used to reach a general male 18-34 target.

Many television and radio stations, as well as cable systems, subscribe to syndicated qualitative research (Scarborough, Media Audit) that can be very helpful in identifying the most effective mediums to use based on your marketing target audience description. They can also supply you with the demographic performance information from Nielsen (TV) and Arbitron (radio).

What’s the budget?
The media budget must be compatible with the objectives. Media plans can be designed to reach broader targets (such as adults 18+) or narrower segments (such as Men 18-34). In the case of television, the narrower target description (Men 18-34) requires greater selectivity of programming that specifically skews to the target. This is almost always more cost-effective; the extent of the differential is based on audience availability, programming that satisfies the target delivery and marketplace supply and demand. Knowing this, the planner must take a realistic look at the media the budget will afford. A lower budget may require focusing on less expensive -- but highly targetable -- cable TV programming (Comedy Central, TNT) over that which broadcast TV outlets (FOX, NBC) provide.

OTHER QUESTIONS

In addition to targeting the audience you want to reach, and knowing how much money you have to spend, the following questions can help you find the most effective media to reach a particular target audience:

What level of communication do you want the campaign to achieve?
Are you looking for higher reach (talking to as many members of your target audience as possible) or higher frequency (talking to members of your target audience as many times as possible)? In the cases of Click It or Ticket or You Drink & Drive. You Lose., the advertising campaign is just two weeks long. Due to this very short advertising period your strategy should focus on building frequency in delivering your message to the appropriate audience. Remember, we are trying to affect a change in behavior. Repeat exposure to the advertising message is needed to do this.
Will the plan use one medium or several media?
If more than one, do you have sufficient budget available to enable you to use each medium effectively? For example, if your plan calls for building frequency, you do not want to over-commit to prime-time programming with broadcast television which gives you great reach, but is probably too expensive to deliver the frequency you want. Husbanding dollars by using less prime programming should allow for a cable and/or radio effort to build frequency on top of your broadcast base.
How long will the schedule run?
A short campaign dictates use of those media that build their total potential audience quickly. For example, TV and radio can achieve a large measure of their total reach potential in two weeks, while a weekly magazine can take as much as 10 weeks.
When do you want it to run?
Local TV viewing levels vary from season to season for most target groups in most dayparts (prime time, late night, etc.). Some of these shifts may be very pronounced, especially in the summer. Therefore, identifying these conditions is critical to choosing the correct medium.
Where will it run?
Knowing where your target audience is physically can greatly affect your choice of medium. If your target is clustered in counties that are part of another State’s Designated Marketing Area (DMA), then a localized cable TV effort may be the best way to geographically target this group as opposed to buying the large market radio or broadcast TV stations in the adjoining State.

RESOURCES

MRI or SMRB (National media, product usage and audience lifestyle research)

Scarborough or Media Audit (Local media, product usage and audience lifestyle research)

PRIZM (Geo-demographic research)

Nielsen NSI (Local market TV ratings)

Arbitron (Local market radio ratings)

Nielsen Net Ratings (Internet usage research)

HOW TO GENERATE EARNED MEDIA

INTRODUCTION

Favorable media coverage can greatly enhance your effectiveness in delivering key messages to target
audiences. This section quickly summarizes a variety of earned media tactics you can use to help publicly communicate your statewide plan.

OPPORTUNITIES

NEWS RELEASES, ADVISORIES AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
A key to generating good press coverage is to give the media something to cover. The easiest way to do this is regularly issue news releases, advisories and announcements about any significant development likely to interest the media’s readers/viewers/listeners in your area. Examples might include: major mobilizations and crackdowns; special emphasis or focus around key holidays and special events; new national or state statistical or survey information; official proclamations; new programs, approaches, or marketing techniques being used to reach target audiences; etc.

A release is simply your story written up in a journalistic form. On receiving your release, news editors
will glance at the headline or the lead (the opening paragraph) of the release to get the gist of your story. If it fails to attract their attention or interest, then the release will get discarded. The most effective releases typically seek to convey only one central message or point with enough appropriate information to support that message.

To generate an attention-getting release that will stand out from the hundreds of others editors see daily, make sure your story is timely, unique, interesting, informational, unexpected or even a little controversial. Make sure it speaks to the interests of the editor’s readers/listeners/viewers. And make sure it always covers the journalist’s “Five W’s”: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and whenever possible, the “How” as well. Be sure to cover all of the facts, but keep your releases simple and succinct.

Unlike more fully developed news releases, media advisories are sent out in advance of events, announcements and press conferences to provide just enough information about the Five W’s to invite and facilitate press attendance and coverage at the event. Advisories and releases should always carry a contact name and phone number as a reporter’s point of contact for questions and follow-up.

NEWS CONFERENCES
Consider a news conference to announce important events, initiatives, results or achievements. The press conference has an air of importance and credibility because it uses a news format to present important information. Yet, arrange a press conference only when your news is of significant importance, likely to generate sufficient media interest, or is visually interesting resulting in better television coverage.

The goal of a press conference is to bring all of the key players together to publicize your announcement, to share dramatic visuals, and to deal with any questions or follow-up at the same time. But organizing such an event can also be very time-consuming, so if issuing a news release can do the job just as well, then opt for the news release.

NEWS INTERVIEWS, EDITORIAL BOARDS, TV AND RADIO TALK SHOWS
Inviting members of the media in for one-on-one interviews, going to a newspaper for an editorial board (a group interview with perhaps a number of editors and reporters), or scheduling a local TV or radio talk show interview can be very effective ways of explaining and promoting more complex announcements, trends or stories.

Reporters or interviewers generally ask questions to get the interviewees to respond in an interesting, illuminating, lively or even entertaining way. Consider in advance how to respond to all of the basic or difficult questions you expect to encounter and practice your answers. Identify your core messages and concentrate on getting those points across. Think through the real “news angle” of your message by putting yourself in the minds of the media outlet’s readers, viewers or listeners. Even if the questioner tends to stray, try to re-interpret any difficult or “off-the-wall” questions to get your key points across.

OP-EDS AND LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Another very effective way to generate press interest about key initiatives and announcements is to submit a guest editorial, commentary, or a letter to the editor to newspapers for publication. NOTE: These typically need to be directed to the newspaper’s opinion page editor and not the standard news reporters you may usually deal with. Strong op-ed pieces or Letters to the Editor need to be informational, persuasive and entertaining, yet succinct and to the point.

FEATURE STORIES AND TESTIMONIALS
Life-and-death highway safety stories touch real lives through heroism and tragedy. The news media love to share these kinds of human-interest stories with their audiences.

Tastefully and sensitively working with law enforcement and emergency response officials who are working on the “front lines,” as well as with the family members of crash victims, or highlighting lessons learned by crash survivors, all represent powerful human interest perspectives important to the news media. Do not overlook the opportunity to humanize your news story, announcement, or press conference with these examples as you develop your earned media plans.

GENERATING MEDIA COVERAGE
There is not much magic about attracting media coverage. As long as you have something newsworthy to cover, building coverage simply requires time, work and diligence to reach out to and follow-up on the telephone with the targeted reporters.

Make enough calls in advance of your event or announcement to identify and build the right press list and contact information for those reporters most interested or appropriate for your story or issue. Find out how they prefer to receive information from you – via e-mail, fax, or regular mail. Learn and respect their deadlines. And once you send them your information, work the telephone to follow up to make sure you know they received it, to see if they have questions, and to ask for their coverage.

RESOURCES

Good examples for each of the above tactics you can tailor and localize for your own use can be easily retrieved from www.stopimpaireddriving.org and www.buckleupamerica.org

Media Training 101 by Sally Stewart

Media Relations Handbook for Agencies, Associations and Nonprofits by Brad Fitch

Halloween Mini-Planner Draft Sample Press Release (pdf)

WHAT IS ALL THAT FOREIGN LANGUAGE?

INTRODUCTION

“Media Speak” does not have to be a foreign language. Whether it’s a station rep, a media buyer or your PR firm, once you know some of the terminology used by media professionals you’ll feel more comfortable dealing with them and making decisions that help you reach your communications goals.

(Note: Many of these terms may also be found in the glossary.)

TERMS THAT COUNT

When evaluating a media plan, developing a media buy, or negotiating a buy with a station, here are some terms and acronyms that will help you:

Reach: The number or percentage of a population group (i.e., Men 18-34) exposed to a media schedule within a given period of time.

Frequency: The average number of times people (or homes) are exposed to an advertising message or campaign.

Gross Rating Points (GRP’s): Each TV program or radio daypart delivers a specified number of rating points. GRP’s are the sum (total) of all ratings delivered by a given media buy or schedule. For example: If you purchase eight programs that each have a rating of 10 and six programs that have a rating of 5, then your schedule would deliver 80 + 30 = 110 GRP’s.

NOTE: The formula to calculate GRP’s is: Reach x Frequency = GRP’s.

Cost per Point (CPP): The cost of an advertising unit (spot) divided by the average rating of that unit for a specific demographic group. A rating or rating point is one percent of the total target audience (demographic group) in a given market (i.e., Orlando or Dallas). Often referred to as the cost of purchasing one rating point. For example, a unit or spot that costs $1,000 and delivers a “Men 18-34” rating of 10 has a CPP of $100. ($1,000 spot rate/10 rating = $100 CPP)

Flight: The dates in which a campaign is scheduled to run.

Daypart: Time periods of the broadcast day – e.g., TV dayparts are Daytime (9 a.m.-noon), Early Fringe (4:30-6 p.m.), Prime Time (8-11 p.m.), Late Night, etc. Radio dayparts are Morning Drive (6-10 a.m.), Midday (10-3 p.m.), Afternoon Drive (3-7 p.m.), Evenings (7 p.m.-midnight), etc.

Some additional terms that will turn you into an old pro:

Billboard (BB): In broadcast, airtime (generally 2-10 seconds in length), usually given at no cost to an advertiser. They are generally offered to advertisers who purchase multiple commercials within a program.

Bonus Spot: A free announcement or commercial provided by a TV or radio station to an advertiser as value-added for running a schedule (your paid commercials) with the station.

Make-good: Replacement of a spot missed or incorrectly scheduled by the station, with a spot of equal or better ratings and dollar value.

Public Service Announcement (PSA): A commercial or liner that promotes programs, activities or services regarded as servicing community interests. They are mostly carried by stations free of charge, but while paid spots are scheduled at specified times, PSA’s are broadcast at the station’s discretion.

Value Added: Any promotion or advertising unit (programs sponsorships, liners, no charge spots, print ads in the stations promotional materials, etc.) where the cost is more-or-less absorbed in the media buy. Value-added promotions or units are usually offered as a reward to good advertisers and are provided at no additional cost.

You have now completed Media Speak 101 and it’s time to go out and work with your agency to schedule a value-added billboard in a daypart that delivers additional GRP’s against your target audience. And, if you are lucky, the station will offer you some bonus spots in addition to your automatic make-goods in an effort to increase your reach and frequency.

ANALYZING A STATEWIDE MEDIA PLAN

INTRODUCTION

State media buy plans come in many different shapes and sizes. Some provide very basic information while others are extremely detailed. In any case, the key is making sure whoever writes the plan has the appropriate information before they begin.

GETTING STARTED
If you are working with a PR or advertising firm to develop the media buy plan, here’s what it needs to know before it begins:

Primary (and secondary) target audiences
Flight dates
Markets (prioritized)
Media weight (gross rating point/GRP) goals
Budget

EVALUATING THE PLAN

On a very basic level, the plan is evaluated on how well it addresses the areas listed above. But to really know if it is a good plan, you need to dig a little deeper. Therefore, in addition to target audience, flight dates, markets, and GRP goals, you should look at the following:

How well the proposed TV programs or cable TV networks reach your target audience. For example, the target audience for the Occupant Protection and Impaired Driving Enforcement Campaigns is Men 18-34. Typically, broadcast TV programming such as local news, Oprah, or daytime “soaps” do not deliver the male 18-to-34-year-old very effectively. On cable TV, Comedy Central and Spike TV are very efficient in reaching this target, but HGTV and Lifetime would not be.
In some cases the viewing habits of an 18-year-old may be different from a 34-year-old. Therefore, before making the buy, you may want to review additional research data to break out your target audience age cells (i.e., Men 18-24 & Men 25-34) for the programs you plan on purchasing. This will let you know if the audience delivery is relatively even between the two groups.
Since radio is listened to and purchased based on formats, be sure the proposed formats are a good fit with the target audience. Using Men 18-34 as the example again, classic rock and alternative rock are usually very efficient, while news/talk and gospel/Christian radio formats are typically not very efficient.
Once the geographic markets are prioritized, be sure the plan delivers sufficient media weight (GRP’s) in each market. If not, you should consider eliminating lower priority markets and reallocating the dollars from those markets to ensure that you have scheduled enough media weight in the priority markets to make an impact.
While using multiple media (TV, radio, etc.) is very important to a successful campaign, make sure you schedule adequate media weight for your primary medium before adding a secondary medium. If not, you will not reach your target with enough frequency to affect behavioral change.

For example, your media plan might include broadcast and cable TV and radio, but your budget only allows you to schedule a total of 75 GRP’s/week on broadcast TV, 50 GRP’s/week on cable and 75 GRP’s/week on radio. Assuming broadcast TV is your primary medium, you would be better off eliminating cable or radio from the buy and reallocating the dollars to broadcast TV. This would enable you to increase your GRP’s on broadcast TV to a more effective level.

OTHER HELPFUL TIPS

The TV (broadcast and cable) media weight goals for a two-week campaign are usually 100-300 GRP’s per week.
Radio media weight goals for a two-week campaign are 100-200 GRP’s/week.

NOTE: This is based on radio serving as a secondary medium.
Frequency is critical to affecting awareness and behavioral change during a short flight. Therefore, if you have a limited budget, consider scheduling broadcast programming that reaches a smaller number of your target audience, but enables you to reach them more times (for instance, go with the less expensive late night programming vs. more expensive prime programming because you get more frequency/spots even though you get less reach). In addition, due to a lower unit cost, cable TV programming also will enable you to increase the frequency of your schedule.
Sports programming typically costs more than traditional programming because it has a higher composition of Men 18-34 (who are hard to reach), because it is more specialized, and has less available inventory (spots available to purchase).

Sample Strategic Media Work Plan (pdf)

WHAT DIRECTION DO I GIVE MY AGENCY ON BUYING TIME?

INTRODUCTION

Now that your media plan has been written, presented and approved, it is time to purchase the media.

ISSUES

The actual media buyers should be told the following:

TARGET AUDIENCE
Buyers need this described in a measured demographic sense such as Men 18-34. In addition to the demographic description, include any qualitative information you may have. For example, the target is Men 18-34, but many of the men we want to talk to have blue-collar jobs. This added qualitative description will help in the selection of appropriate programming and formats.

BUDGET
Give your buyers the total budget, as well as any budget requirements by medium and/or daypart. They may have to deviate from this somewhat based on the local market conditions at the time. Also make sure they know if the budget is based on net or gross costs. With a net budget the cost of media will not include the 15% agency commission. For example, a TV spot that costs $100 gross will now cost just $85 based on net costs. If the budget is gross make sure they know if the commission is 15% or another percentage rate so the media costs will be calculated accurately.

FLIGHT DATES
Tell your buyers specifically on which days the advertising is to run. For example, the 2004 You Drink & Drive. You Lose. campaign flight pattern was three days on, two days off and then 12 days on. Also include any research that may influence the agency’s recommendations on when to advertise. For example we know that more alcohol-related driving incidents occur in the back of the week and on weekends. Knowing this your agency may want to recommend scheduling commercials to run from mid-week on.

Also, make sure your agency knows that paid advertising may only run through a certain date, but that PSA advertising may be allowed to run for a longer period of time.

DAYPARTS AND WEIGHT LEVELS
The plan should indicate the media to buy (TV, radio, cable, alternative, etc.), but should also indicate which dayparts to purchase within each medium, and the amount of weight (GRP’s) to purchase. Buyers should try to stay as close to these guidelines as possible.

MEDIA MANDATORIES AND LIMITATIONS
Indicate any special instructions you want your buyers to be aware of. For example, there may be some programming that you do not want them to buy, based on the content. Supply the buyers with a list of those programs and all other do’s and don’ts. In addition, it is always wise to have your agency tell you what movie titles they bought rather than just indicating that a movie was bought. The movie they bought may perform well against your target audience, but may be one you would not prefer your brand to be associated with.

HOW DO I KNOW OUR BUY HAS BEEN SUCCESSFUL AFTER IT IS OVER?

INTRODUCTION

Measurement is crucial in determining the success or failure of any advertising campaign. The first thing to determine is what metric or metrics will be used to determine success. In NHTSA’s case, the overall goal is to save lives, but this goal is inclusive of media, PR and creative efforts.

ISSUES

The best media plan cannot carry the day if the creative is off-strategy. Also, the best creative can fall flat if the media plan is not effective in reaching the right audience. Let’s start by looking at the elements of a media plan that can be measured after the campaign is over to determine if the execution of the plan was successful.

GROSS RATING POINT DELIVERY
Most buys using television will be based on gross rating point (GRP) delivery. The television GRP’s your agency will purchase will be based on a projection or estimate of how well the programming purchased will perform at the time it actually runs. When the Nielsen TV ratings book comes out for the appropriate market and time period, your agency can determine how close to the GRP goal the buy achieved.

Keep in mind that with just a two-week flight there is no time for stations to run make-goods to replace any missed GRP’s.

PROGRAMMING (TV)/DAYPARTS (RADIO)
Did your spots run in the programs or dayparts you requested? The invoice the station sends you is also an affidavit of performance, which will indicate exactly when your spots ran. If the programs/dayparts on the affidavit are correct you know that the station has probably met the delivery requirements you gave them.

ROTATORS
A rotator covers a prescribed period of time, but does not indicate any specific programming. For example, cable TV is often sold on daypart rotators such as Monday – Friday 4 p.m. – midnight. It is not unusual to allocate a portion of your buy to a rotator. When your agency receives the affidavit, make sure they check for an even distribution of spots over this time period. You may find your spots were clustered from 4-5 p.m. and from 11 p.m. – midnight with very few running in Prime Time (8 – 11 p.m.). If you discover this has happened and bring it to the station’s attention you will find your next rotation distributed far more equitably.

PSA’S
If you made it clear the buy required matching PSA’s for each paid spot, check your affidavit for compliance and to be sure you got what you ordered.

TRAFFIC
If you are running more than one spot and instructed the station on the correct rotation of those spots, the affidavit will let you know the exact rotation of the spots that ran.

The elements described above are good indicators of the successful implementation of your media plan.

See the Measure Success section for details on measuring the success of an overall campaign, exclusive of media buys.

TALENT ISSUES IN BROADCAST ADVERTISING

INTRODUCTION

A significant percentage of television and radio commercials produced in the United States use union
talent. This means the actors (both onscreen and off) are members of either the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) or the American Federation of Television and Radio Actors (AFTRA). The unions have established pay scales producers must adhere to in order to use these actors. These payments include session fees, residuals, holding fees, and usage fees.

DEFINITIONS

Session Fee: Initial payment to the talent for work performed for a specific purpose and period of time. It is paid by the day or by the hour, depending on the type of employment.

Residuals: Fees paid to talent for continued use of a commercial after the session fee payment.

Holding Fee: A timely payment based on session dates and made every consecutive 13-week cycle, giving the advertiser the right to use the commercial in the future.

Usage Fee: The practice of assigning each city in the U.S. points based on population. An actor’s residuals on television commercials are calculated based on the accumulation of these points in 13-week cycles.

Reinstatement: Once a commercial has been released (holding fees are not paid for the next cycle) and the client decides that they want to use the commercial again, the commercial must then be “reinstated.” A reinstatement requires the minimum of two back holding fees, only one of which can be applied to use. However, the agents usually try to negotiate for more. (This fee usually applies to television only.)

Signatory: Any entity that employs union talent and has signed union letters of agreement to abide by regulations stipulated in specific union contracts.

Use Cycles:

Cable Use: Any use on cable stations.
Internet: Commercials used on a website or on the Internet.
Network Use: Use bought on a TV network and usually edited into a network show.
Public Use: Use of a commercial in a public place, such as in a stadium, a bank, on "Diamondvision," or in taxicabs.
Wild Spot Use: Use bought for airing in individual markets or non-interconnected stations.

ISSUES

Before deciding to either produce or air an existing commercial, it is important to determine whether the spot uses union talent. For television commercials, you also must determine whether the holding fees are up-to-date or whether the broadcast will require a reinstatement fee. (These fees do not apply to radio).

If union talent is used in the commercial then the signatory (usually the advertising agency), must determine the number of times the spot will air and then calculate the usage fees. For State-specific media, these are considered “wild spots” and are much less expensive than national advertising.

When using the Click It or Ticket or You Drink & Drive. You Lose. national
advertising, you must contact NHTSA for talent usage fees.

It is also important to know that editing or changing an existing commercial that uses union talent is considered a new spot by the unions and is subject to additional session fees and residuals. Also, you cannot mix union and non-union talent in one commercial. Right-to-work states are an exception to this rule. The right-to-work states are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming. However, the signatory has an agreement to abide by the payment terms specified by the union so the rates are the same for both union and non-union actors.

KEY QUESTIONS

Does the commercial use union talent? If yes, contact the signatory or paymaster for more information on holding and usage fees.
Does the commercial require any talent changes (including voice over changes) to be suitable for broadcast? If yes, contact the signatory or paymaster for information on session fee costs.
Where and when will the commercial air? Your media plan should provide sufficient information for the signatory or paymaster to determine usage fees.
Are the holding fees up-to-date for television commercials? If no, reinstatement fees will apply.

RESOURCES FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

American Association of Advertising Agencies: www.aaaa.org

AFTRA: www.aftra.org

Entertainment Glossary of Terms: http://www.actorschecklist.com/resources/glossary.html

Screen Actors Guild: www.sag.org