Although some things remain the same in our ever-changing world, there are still a number of important changes to be detected in every area, and not in the least with regard to media planning. There may be some basic elements in the media plan that will remain in place for a while longer, but today's, and definitely tomorrow's media planner is facing a big challenge when it comes to constructing not just a feasible, but an outstanding plan to satisfy the ever increasing demands of advertisers. This is the era where experience only provides a limited and vaguely reliable source to build upon. The ability to maintain a novel mindset, creativity, awareness, and a high-level of adaptability, combined with the aptitude to distinguish all the different components to be measured in their own diversified rank of importance, as well as the appropriate estimate of consumers' elevating levels of education and awareness, are the drivers for future successful media planning. This paper provides ten evolution points that need to be considered in future media planning.
A review of Sissors and Baron's (2002) evaluation of the important elements of media planning provides us with an invaluable insight into the multiple areas media planners of the near future will have to engage in. In this paper we will present a number of suggested points of attention, inspired by the aforementioned book, thereby, incorporating a number of own insights and predictions.
Media planners will increasingly be distinguished from media buyers. If, in the past, the role of a media planner could be incorporated or used interchangeably with that of a media buyer, which will progressively change in the future. The reason for this trend is easily explained: Writing the media plan is a comprehensive task that requires close cooperation and input from various constituencies such as the art department and the marketing department. On the other hand, being involved in the media buying process requires intense maintenance of a network and continuous involvement in that network: Accepting invitations for meetings and parties, and inviting crucial connections in return so that negotiations take place under more relaxed and agreeable circumstances. This, too, is a full-time job. Target groups will become more narrowly defined. If, for instance, men between 25 and 35 need to be reached, there is, progressively, a multitude of possibilities to consider: What men? Are they the softer types, or the masculine ones? How about their income? Are we looking for any particular ethnic group? Could they also be gay, or are we specifically targeting the heterosexual crowd? Although the above focus points may sound familiar, they are just a few of the broadening scope of questions to be answered in order to formulate the target group as specifically as possible, and reduce wastage of funds to a minimum. |
