The Marketing Book 5th Edition

Identify message-delivery

objectives

Establish media allocation

Monitor competition

Match targets to media

Draft strategic plan

Select options

Set schedule

Draw up operational

plan

Buy media

Run campaign

Review strategy

434 The Marketing Book

expense of the former. In the case of other
ingredients of the marketing mix, the search
will be on for the appropriate expert inter-
mediary. As before, this section will use the
generic term ‘agency’ for all of these. It will also
by default concentrate on the particularly com-
plex task of allocating available funds among
proliferating advertising media.
Developing the plan for delivering the
message is a team operation. In the advertising
context, it involves account managers(see ‘Work-
ing relationships’), who keep the client
involved throughout the process, in-house or
idependentmedia planners, information technol-
ogists with access to a vast array of media
research, and media buyers, who bargain with
themedia owners. Their collective aim is to find
the right targets, outflank the competition, and
do so cost-effectively.
Planning the correct strategy for delivery
of the message starts with the client brief, from
which an internal media briefis distilled. Spe-
cialists apply that to the twin tasks of media
selection, choosing the vehicles to deliver the
creative strategy to the target audience, and
media scheduling, fixing the timing of individual
exposuresover the duration of the campaign.
The classic British textbook is Broadbent and
Jacobs (1984), to which no equally detailed
successor has yet appeared. Beware, however,
that the media landscape has changed radically
since it was published; the general principles
are all that remain valid. In the absence of a
readily available textbook explanation of the
principles and practices involved, Figure 17.3
offers a procedural framework, based on pro-
fessional guides and long-term observation of
practitioners in action.
The process begins with the isolation of
objectives in the client brief relevant to such
media-related factors as the ‘mood’ or ‘tone of
voice’ of the advertising and the description of
the target audience. The latter must include a
clear psychographic profile, for the sophisti-
cated and comprehensive databases built up by
industry-widemedia researchover many years
can tell planners a great deal about associated Figure 17.3 The message delivery process