Media Buying

Media Buying, a sub function of advertising management, is the procurement of media real estate at optimal placement and price. The main task of media buying lies within the negotiation of price and placement to ensure the best possible value can be secured.

Media Buyers are the individuals responsible for purchasing time and advertising space for the purpose of advertising. When planning what to buy, they must evaluate factors based on but not limited to station formats, pricing rates, demographics, geographic, and psychographics relating to the advertiser's particular product or service objectives. The Media Buyer needs to optimize what is bought and that is dependent on budget, type of medium (radio, internet, TV, print), quality of the medium (target audience, time of day for broadcast, etc.), and how much time and space is wanted.

Media Buyers can purchase spot, regionally, or nationally. National Media Buyers might have to factor in determinates based on a state by state basis. Rates, demand of leads, space, and time, and state licenses will vary from state to state. National Media Buyers will need National Media Planning to generate National Media Marketing strategies and National Media Advertising that can be adaptable from area to area but also work on a national level.

There is an apparent distinction between General Marketing Media Buyers and Direct Response Media Buyers. General Market Media Buyers enact or actualize media plans drawn up by media planners. They negotiate rates and create media schedules based on a media plan constructed by a Media Planner. Through the Media Planner, General Market Media Buyers rely on published cost per point guides. An experienced Direct Response Media Buyer knows what stations generate a specific quantity of response and knows within reason, the break even point of the expenditure versus the return. With that information, the Direct Response Media Buyer is efficient in negotiating a functional rate and in purchasing media from the appropriate stations[citation needed]. The Direct Response Buyer attaches unique phone numbers to each station they purchase media from and track the sales, and make adjustments to the media plan and schedule as necessary to optimize results. With these differing methodologies, Direct Response Marketing can be considered a specialized arena.

Media Research Planning can be done by Media Buyers as well as Media Specialists. Depending on product and service, Media Buyers and Media Specialists must do a fair amount of research to determine how best to spend the allotted budget[citation needed]. This includes research on the target audience and what type of medium will work best to reach the largest amount of consumers with the most effective method. Media Planners and Media Specialists have a vast array of media outlets at their disposal, both traditional media and new media. Traditional media would include radio, TV, magazines, newspapers, and out of home. New media might include Satellite TV, cable TV, Satellite radio, internet. The internet offers a number of Online Media that has surfaced with the improvement of technology and the accessibility of the internet. Online Media can include social media, emails, search engines and referral links, web portals, banners, interactive games, and video clips. Media Planners and Specialists can pick and choose what and/or which combination of media is most appropriate and effective to achieve their goal, whether it is to make a sale, and/or to deliver a message or idea. They can also strategize and make use of product placements and Positioning. Inserting advertisements as print ads in newspapers and magazines, buying impressions for advertisements on the internet, and airing commercials on the radio or TV, can be utilized by Direct Response Advertisers as well as Remnant Advertisers.

All the major marketing services holding companies own specialist media-buying operations.

Prior to the late 1990s, media buying was generally carried out by the media department of an advertising agency. The split between creative agencies and media agencies is often referred to as "unbundling". In 1999, WPP Group created MindShare from the media departments of its two advertising networks, Ogilvy & Mather and J Walter Thompson, now JWT.

In 2003, after purchasing Young & Rubicam and Tempus, WPP further consolidated all of its media operations including media buying and media planning through the formation of GroupM, which is now the number one media investment management company in terms of billings.[2] The other major media holdings include Omnicom's OMD, Publicis's Vivaki and ZenithOptimedia, Interpublic's Mediabrands, Aegis's Aegis Media and Havas's Havas Media.

Space and Time offers the advertiser an unparalleled media buying service across all media. We use our considerable buying power with media owners to pare down our clients' campaign costs and make their marketing budgets go that much further. As a specialist media agency, we negotiate and buy advertising all day, day in day out, in local and national press, radio, TV, outdoor, direct marketing, online and ambient media. We do this on behalf of a range of clients from the property, retail, b2b, leisure and public sectors, and even for media owners and other advertising agencies, and we're extremely good at it.

Our size affords us a unique position in the marketplace: we're big enough to put some real clout behind your budget, but not so big that publishing groups will be reluctant to give us the largest discounts for fear of setting a precedent that will cripple their future revenues.

Our offices in the Home Counties, South Coast, North West, Midlands and Scotland ensure that Space and Time is properly represented at a regional and local level. This means that although we're a national firm trading on a volume basis with the national sales outfits, if there's a deal to be had at a local level, we'll know about that too.

Buying isn't all about the rates though, it's about knowing what works and what doesn't, what everything is truly worth, and what really ought to be free. If your current agency isn't getting you free editorial space with your press advertising, speak to one that will. If your radio ads aren't guaranteed to run first in break, or your poster campaigns aren't getting free of charge overshow you might be using the wrong agency. If you don't regularly get a call or a text message about a last minute deal that nobody else has been told about yet, let us look at your needs.

Source: Internet