Media Buying

Today I had an awesome opportunity to sit down with Stephen Marcum, Campbell Harrington and Brear’s director of media strategy and learn a lot of things about media buying that you can’t learn from sitting in a classroom. Because media buying is kind of an abstract area there really isn’t a set formula on how it should be done. There are definitely general guidelines of costing and you can sit down and takes not on the different kinds of media buying, but they strategy behind the process is best learned by watching someone who is experienced in the field actually do it.  

Each client purchasing advertising space has different needs in order to successfully reach the market they are trying to advertise to. For some businesses print ads work best while for others TV and Radio are other profitable contenders.  It’s all about researching the market area and figuring out which medium is going to work the best! Seem simple? Not so fast! So you’ve figured out the medium of what you’re going to use little did I know before today how many subcategories are connected to each medium. For newspaper you need to figure out where in the paper the ad needs to go so it will be most valuable. Do you choose the sports section, or the life and style section? Do you print the ad in black and white of in color? For radio, what station do you play the ad on and what’s the best time to have the ad playing? And, as for TV, what network do you advertise on, or how long should the spot be?

These are all critical details that take time and research to figure out. You need to know not only your client but they target audience of their message. It’s so much more than just punching a bunch of numbers into a calculator and giving the client a bill for the advertising space.

I’m grateful I got to sit in on and listen to a man with a good amount of knowledge and experience in media buying. It’s an important skill to have because even as new media marketing strategies develop, traditional advertising will always be a part of the business.