Test 4

Buying Magazine Space

A magazine's rates are partially based on its circulation. The RATE BASE is the circulation figure on which the publisher bases its rates; the GUARANTEED CIRCULATION is the number of copies the publisher expects to circulate. This assures advertisers they will reach a certain number of people. If the publisher does not reach its delivered figure, it must provide a refund. For that reason, guaranteed circulation figures are often stated safely below the average actual circulation. However, this is not always true. Circulation actually gets overstated more often than people think. As many as 30 percent of consumer magazines audited by the ALLIANCE FOR AUDITED MEDIA, formerly the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC), each year don't meet the circulation levels they guarantee to advertisers. So media buyers expect publications to verify their circulation figures. Publishers pay thousands of dollars each year for a CIRCULATION AUDIT—a thorough analysis of the circulation procedures, outlets of distribution, readers, and other factors—by companies such as ABC. Data from the ABC or other verified reports tell the media buyer the magazine's total circulation. This PRIMARY CIRCULATION represents the number of people who buy the publication, either by subscription or at the newsstand. SECONDARY( OR PASS ALONG) readership, which is an estimate determined by market research of how many people read a single issue of a publication, is very important to magazines. Business publications are classified in two ways based on readership: vertical and horizontal. A VERTICAL PUBLICATION covers a specific industry in all its aspects. HORIZONTAL PUBLICATIONS, in contrast, deal with a particular job function across a variety of industries.Horizontal trade publications are very effective advertising vehicles because they usually offer excellent reach and they tend to be well read. Media buyers also want to know a magazine's ratio of subscriptions to newsstand sales. Today, subscriptions account for the majority of magazine sales. Newsstands (which include bookstore chains) are still a major outlet for single-copy sales, but no outlet can handle more than a fraction of the many magazines available. Business publications may be distributed on either a PAID CIRCULATION or CONTROLLED CIRCULATION basis. A paid basis means the recipient must pay the subscription price to receive the magazine. Bloomberg Businessweek is a paid-circulation business magazine. In CONTROLLED CIRCULATION, the publisher mails the magazine free to individuals who the publisher thinks can influence the purchase of advertised products. Executives at Fortune 1000 corporations receive a strategy 1 business magazine. To qualify for the free subscription, people must specify that they want to receive the magazine and must give their professional title and information about the size of their company. Dues-paying members of organizations often get free subscriptions. Magazines, and newspapers too, often provide liberal ADDED-VALUE services to their regular advertisers, such as: -Special free promotions to stores. -Marketing services to help readers find local outlets. -Response cards that allow readers to request brochures and catalogs. -Help handling sales force, broker, wholesaler, and retailer meetings. -Advance editions for the trade. -Research into brand preferences, consumer attitudes, and market conditions. Magazine rate cards follow a standard format. This helps advertisers determine costs, dis- counts, mechanical requirements, closing dates, special editions, and additional costs for features like color, inserts, bleed pages, split runs, or preferred positions. Three dates affect magazine purchases. The COVER DATE is the date printed on the cover. The ON-SALE DATE is the date the magazine is actually issued. And the CLOSING DATE is the date all ad material must be in the publisher's hands for a specific issue. Lead time may be as much as three months. you compute the cost per thousand (CPM) by dividing the full-page rate by the number of thousands of subscribers: Page rate/(circulation divided by 1,000) = CPM If the magazine's black-and-white page rate is $10,000, and the publication has a circulation of 500,000, then: $10,000/500,000 divided by 1000= 10,000/500=$20CPM Magazines and newspapers often give discounts. FREQUENCY DISCOUNTS are based on the number of ad insertions, usually within a year; VOLUME DISCOUNTS are based on the total amount of space bought during a specific period. Most magazines also offer cash discounts (usually 2 percent) to advertisers who pay right away, and some offer discounts on the purchase of four or more consecutive pages in a single issue. Magazines charge extra for special features. Color normally costs 25 to 60 percent more than black and white. Some publications, such as Money, even offer metallic inks and special colors. Bleed pages can add as much as 20 percent to regular rates, although the typical increase is about 15 percent. Second and third cover rates (the inside covers) typically cost less than the fourth (back) cover. According to SRDS, however, in 2008, ESPN the Magazine charged $208,000 for a normal color page, $457,600 for the second cover, and $270,400 for the fourth cover. Magazines charge different rates for ads in geographic or demographic issues. GEOGRAPHIC EDITIONS target geographic markets; DEMOGRAPHIC EDITIONS reach readers who share a demographic trait, such as age, income level, or professional status.

Types of Radio Advertising

Advertisers may use one of the national radio networks to carry their messages to the entire national market simultaneously via stations that subscribe to the network's programs. In addition, more than 100 regional radio networks in the United States operate with information oriented toward specific geographic markets. Networks provide national and regional advertisers with simple administration and low effective net cost per station. Disadvantages include lack of flexibility in choosing affiliated stations, the limited number of stations on a network's roster, and the long lead times required to book time. Networks provide national and regional advertisers with simple administration and low effective net cost per station. Disadvantages include lack of flexibility in choosing affiliated stations, the limited number of stations on a network's roster, and the long lead times required to book time. SPOT RADIO affords national advertisers great flexibility in their choice of markets, stations, airtime, and copy. They can put commercials on the air quickly—some stations require as little as 20 minutes' lead time, and advertisers can build local acceptance by using local per- sonalities. Radio rep firms, like Katz Radio, represent a list of stations and sell spot time to national advertisers and agencies. LOCAL TIME denotes radio spots purchased by a local advertiser or agency. It involves the same procedure as national spots. Radio advertising can be either live or taped. Most radio stations use recorded shows with live news in between. Likewise, nearly all radio commercials are prerecorded to reduce costs and maintain broadcast quality. For the most part, the terminology used for radio is the same as for other media, but some terms are particular to radio. The most common of these are the concepts of dayparts, average quarter-hour audiences, and cumes (cumulative audiences).

Buying OOH Advertising

Advertisers use OOH advertising for a variety of purposes. For example, to introduce a new product or announce a change in package design, an advertiser might want to saturate the market. The basic unit of sale for billboards, or posters, is 100 gross rating points daily, or a 100 showing. One rating point equals 1 percent of a particular market's population. Buying 100 gross rating points does not mean the message will appear on 100 posters; it means the mes- sage will appear on as many panels as needed to provide a daily exposure theoretically equal to the market's total population. Actually, a showing of 100 gross rating points achieves a daily reach of about 88.1 percent of the adults in a market over a 30-day period. For less saturation, units of sale can be expressed as fractions of the basic unit, such as 75, 50, or 25 gross rating points. If a showing provides 750,000 total impression opportuni- ties daily in a market with a population of 1 million, it delivers 75 GRPs daily. Over a period of 30 days, the showing would earn 2,250 GRPs (30 3 75). This measurement is called Daily Estimated Circulation, or DEC. However, in 2009, the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA) and the Traffic Audit Bureau developed a new method of measuring out-of-home's true reach and frequency. Their new rating system is called Eyes On Impressions (EOI). EOI actually takes into ac- count many other factors other than the number of people who pass a display, such as size of the display, angle to the road, format, street type, distance from the road, and roadside position. This new rating system then calculates those factors into a formula that estimates the number of people who actually see the ad in a week. The main factor that differentiates DECs from EOIs is estimation of traffic on a daily basis versus estimation of seers of the ad on a weekly basis. The net effect is twofold: (1) that out-of-home is now the only ad me- dium that tracks viewers of ads, rather than just the potential to see ads and (2) that the frequency of out-of-home has been drastically reduced over a monthly period where the reach difference is negligible.

Direct-Response Advertising

Advertising that asks the reader, viewer, or listener to provide feedback to the source is called direct-response advertising. Any medium can be used for direct response, but the most common in addition to direct mail are catalogs, traditional print, radio, TV, and digital media. Direct Mail: The Addressable Medium for closing a sale or generating inquiries. All forms of advertising sent directly to pros- pects through a government, private, or electronic mail delivery service are called direct-mail (action) advertising. It's very useful to direct marketers seeking an imme- diate response. Types of Direct Mail Sales letters, the most common direct-mail format, are often mailed with brochures, price lists, or reply cards and envelopes. Postcards are used to announce sales, offer discounts, or generate customer traffic. National postal services regulate formats and dimensions. To encourage response, some advertisers use business reply mail so the recipient can respond without paying postage. The advertiser needs a special first-class postal permit and must print the num- ber on the face of the return card or envelope Folders and brochures are usually printed in multiple colors with photos or other il- lustrations on good paper stock that reproduces printed images well. Broadsides are larger than folders and are sometimes used as window displays or wall posters in stores. They fold to a compact size to fit in a mailbag. Self-mailers are any form of direct mail that can travel without an envelope. Usually folded and secured by a staple or seal, they have special blank spaces for the prospect's name and address to be written, stenciled, or labeled. Statement stuffers are ads enclosed in monthly customer statements from department stores, banks, oil companies, and the like. To order, customers write in their credit card num- ber and sign the reply card. House organs are publications produced by associations or business organizations—for example, stockholder reports, newsletters, consumer magazines, and dealer publications. Direct-Response Print Advertising Newspaper ads and inserts featuring coupons or listing toll-free phone numbers can be very effective at stimulating customer responses. Today, the same is true with magazines. Moreover, in magazines, advertisers can devote most of the space to image-building, thus maximizing the medium's power. Direct-Response Broadcast Advertising Direct marketers' use of TV and radio has increased dramatically in recent years. more people are watching infomercials and buying the advertised products. In fact, one survey found that 60 percent of infomercial purchasers preferred this type of shopping to buying items in store Direct-Response Digital Advertising Direct-response advertis- ing represents the vast majority of online advertising efforts. Using e-mail to distribute marketing messages remains popular because of its low cost and effectiveness. Online direct response includes display, or banner, ads and search ads. Social media sites are increasingly featuring ads that allow an immediate response. Mobile is another popular direct-response medium. Mobile includes SMS (short message service or text ads), MMS (multime- dia message service, or text plus images, audio, or video), mobile applications (better known as apps), QR (or quick-response) bar codes, and mobile banner ads.

Emerging Opportunities for OOH

Cinema Advertising Advertising in movie theaters (cinema advertising) is a growing but controversial practice. Product Placement Another way to reach movie and television audiences is to pay a fee to have the product written into the movie or program. Such prod- uct placement is becoming more common. ATMs With so many thousands of money devices in service, it's only natural that the captive audience of ATMs are targeted for creative promotional tactics.

Developing Effective Direct-Mail Packages: Ad Lab 17-A

Good direct-mail campaigns help build relationships be- tween advertisers and customers. As with an ad, the effectiveness of a direct-mail campaign relies strongly on both its message and its overall appearance. Shaping the Message To develop the message element in direct mail, experts suggest several techniques: stress the benefits; repeat your offer more than once; offer an incentive; offer a guarantee; don't be afraid of long copy; don't write copy that is over the reader's head; and give the customer more than one option for responding. Integrating the Message with the Direct-Mail Pieces Creating direct mail involves fitting the message with the key physical components of the direct-mail package. As discussed in Chapter 10, the five steps of the creative pyramid (attention, interest, credibility, desire, and action) may be guidelines for forming the message. Next, this information must be incorporated into all the components of the direct- mail package. The AICPA postcard attracts attention with its colorful and humorous graphics.The mismatched fonts and image of the Contador beckon the recipient to look further.The specifics within the postcard build credibility by providing data that the offer is real and important. The prizes offered further attract the target's desire to visit the site. Some Secrets of Direct Mail Research has revealed countless direct-mail techniques that improve re- sponse rates: indent type and set it flush left with a ragged right edge; avoid printing in reverse type; list dollars saved in your offer rather than percentages; use the word you in the text; provide a reason for sale pric- ing (almost any will do); and do not paste labels over old addresses— print new materials.

Behavioral Targeting: Cookies

In fact, every time you step into the Internet, some computer may be watching to see just where you go. Software using HTTP interacts with what are known as cookies, small pieces of infor- mation that get stored in your web browser when you load certain Websites. Cookies track whether a certain user has ever visited a specific site. This allows the site to give users different information depending on whether they are repeat visitors. Cookies also indicate the users' frequency of visits, the time of last visit, and the domain from which they are surfing. Additionally, cookies give marketers great insights into their campaigns on a daily basis, such as the number of times users call for an ad, time of day, type of browsers they use, whether or not they click, and so on. Typical online marketers employ the services of third-party ad servers. Third-party ad servers deliver ads from one central source, or server, across multiple web domains, allowing advertisers the ability to manage the rotation and distribution of their advertisements. This allows the agency to understand direct metrics from advertising to sales in near real time. More sophisticated technology provides marketers with addi- tional details about the consumer. The computer first assigns each user an anonymous and encrypted identification number for track- ing purposes. A user profile is then created with data on the con- tent of the pages read, what keywords may have been used in a search, the time and day that a web page was viewed, the frequency with which an ad is seen, the sequence of ads that are seen, the computer operating system of the user, the browser type, and the IP address. From these data, marketers' computers can again guess the user's ISP, telephone area code, and NAIC code. Marketers may then match these data with demographic information gathered of- fline to create a clearer picture of consumer behavior than has ever been available. behavioral targeting - The ability for an advertiser to send an ad to someone based on their online activity. However, behavioral targeting, this new ability to track people's behavior on the Internet, has stirred considerable debate. Although software developers claim that the users are tracked anony- mously with encrypted identification numbers, privacy advocates believe the marketing method is too invasive into consumers' lives

The Rise of Social Media and Influencer Marketing

In some radical instances, companies have used social media as their main web presence, and have all but forgotten an actual Website. This is counterintuitive to how the Internet grew as a medium, however it makes sense given the characteristics of social media. Since all social media require a profile to engage, one could argue that the profile of a company is essentially the job of a corporate Website. The lack of control defies how marketers were taught to pro- tect the brand. Conservative or risk-averse brands find engaging in social media difficult and cumbersome, and young brands, like Zynga and Zappos.com (now owned by Amazon.com), are reaping the benefits. Adoption of Social Media The inherent nature of social media—the fact that they are social—thereby connecting and relating people to one another, helps explain their monumental rise in popularity. The media carry attributes that allow a single point, in any part of a system of connected points, to broadcast to the entirety of the system or network. Another attraction of social media for advertisers is the ability to target. Despite its appeal, social media still poses risks for brands that don't "get" how to relate to their customers. Web 2.0. Where Web 1.0 was considered the static Internet full of pages and links, Web 2.0 is the social web, where everything is open and sharable. Social Trends Trending is a term used by tweeters to describe what people are talking, or tweeting about on Twitter. Facebook Connect and Twitter's open application protocol interface (API) means that any site, tool, or application can feed and extract information from the social network sites in accordance with how the user has granted permissions.

Gross Rating Points

In television, gross rating points (GRPs) are the total rating points a particular media sched- ule achieves over a specific period. As we discussed in Chapter 9, a weekly schedule of five commercials on programs with an average household rating of 20 would yield 100 GRPs. Recall that GRPs are computed as follows: Reach (average rating) * Frequency= Gross rating points GRPs allow advertisers to draw conclusions about the different markets available for a client's ads by providing a comparable measure of advertising weight. However, GRPs do not reflect a market's size. For example, while campaigns in Knoxville and Charlotte might have the same GRPs, they would differ significantly in their reach:

How Magazines are Categorized

In the jargon of the trade, magazines are called books, and media buyers commonly categorize them by content, geography, and size. Content One of the most dramatic developments in publishing is the emergence of magazines with special content, which has given many books good prospects for long-term growth. The broadest classifications of content are consumer magazines, farm magazines, and business maga- zines. Each may be broken down into hundreds of categories. Consumer magazines, purchased for entertainment, information, or both, are edited for consumers who buy products for their own personal consumption: Time, Maxim, Glamour, Good Housekeeping. The Portfolio Review, "Outstanding Magazine Ads," shows the range of creativity in consumer magazine advertising. Farm publications are directed to farmers and their families or to companies that manufacture or sell agricultural equipment, supplies, and services: Farm Journal, Progressive Farmer, Prairie Farmer, Successful Farming. Business magazines, by far the largest category, target business readers. They include trade publications for retailers, wholesalers, and other distributors (Progressive Grocer, Packaging World); business and industrial magazines for businesspeople involved in manufacturing and services (Electronic Design, American Banker); and professional journals for lawyers, physicians, architects, and other professionals (Archives of Ophthalmology). Geography A magazine may also be classified as local, regional, or national. Today, most major U.S. cities have a local city magazine: San Diego Magazine, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Palm Springs Life. Their readership is usually upscale business and professional people interested in local arts, fashion, and business. Regional publications are targeted to a specific area of the country, such as the West or the South: Sunset, Southern Living. National magazines sometimes provide special market runs for specific geographic regions. Time, Newsweek, Woman's Day, and Sports Illustrated allow advertisers to buy a single major market. National magazines range from those with enormous circulations, such as TV Guide, to small, lesser-known national magazines, such as Nature and Volleyball. The largest circulation magazine in the United States today is AARP The Magazine, distributed to the 22.4 million members of the AARP. Size Size Classification Large - ex. Spin, Interview - 4 col. x 170 lines (9 1⁄2 x 11 1/3 inches) Flat - ex. Time, Newsweek - 3 col. x 140 lines (7 x 10 inches) Standard - ex. National Geographic - 2 col. x 119 lines (6 x 8 1⁄2 inches) Small or pocket - ex. Reader's Digest, Jet - 2 col. x 91 lines (4 1⁄2 x 6 1⁄2 inches)

Other Interactive Media

Interactive TV Interactive TV is powered by digital video recorders (DVRs, sometimes also called personal video recorders). In par- ticular, television advertisers are working to increase program sponsorship and prod- uct placement. For the moment, however, because the percentage of interactive TV households remains so low, most advertisers are simply repackaging existing TV or Internet spots for the interactive TV format rather than investing in develop- ing unique content. Mobile Advertising When mobile advertising was first introduced, the carriers controlled a lot of the inventory as they limited the amount of traffic that went outside their deck. The deck refers to the con- tent and experience that the carrier made available to their users when they loaded a web browser on their phones. This was due in large part to the carriers' desire to boost revenues from their own data services and not bog down their networks with massive data downloads from off-deck web surfing. The most common form of mobile advertising, banner advertising (also called WAP, Wireless Access Protocol, Banner), is very similar to online banner advertising. Banner advertising is standardized by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) which, much like the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) for online banner advertising, has issued guidelines and standards for mobile web advertising The other form of advertising and the one that represents the largest inventory is spon- sored SMS (Short Message System). Companies like 4INFO, in the United States, offer news, horoscopes, and sports scores, among other things, for free to users via SMS, and ad- vertisers sponsor these messages. The carriers have set up very strict guidelines in the use of SMS and act as a gatekeeper for all messages that go over their networks in an effort to reduce SMS spam. A person can reply back to the SMS message to opt-in to the marketing message that has been displayed, or can go directly from that SMS, via a link, to a mobile web page. QR codes, mobile coupons, and video present other opportunities, but are still not read- ily available to the masses as each phone needs to have functionality or a software/application that will allow it to interact and use these emerging technologies. Digital Interactive Media5 of the Biggest and Still the Best Online Advertising Methods, by James Debono 1. Websites and Blogs 2. Social Media Websites 3. Banners and Display Advertising 4. Pay Per Click (PPC) or Keyword 5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Pros of Internet Advertising Truly Interactive Medium• Enormous Audience• Immediate Response• Selective Targeting• Provides In-depth Information Cons of Internet Advertising Not Truly a Mass Medium• Targeting Costs• Slow/no Downloads • Lack of Control• Security and Privacy Concerns The Internet as a Medium Types ofInternet Ads: WebsitesBanners and ButtonsSponsorshipClassified AdsE-MailSearch-Engine Marketing Social Media: GoalsBuild awareness Strengthen relationships with clients, prospects, and influencers Better understand your buyers Improve customer service Identify new product ideas Increase web site traffic Improve search engine rankings Drive traffic to your trade show displays at events Generate leads Generate sales

Problems with Digital as an Advertising Medium

It is not a mass medium in the traditional sense, and it may never offer mass media efficiency. Some marketers may decide it's too complex, too cumbersome, too cluttered, or not worth the time and effort. Moreover, the Internet is not controlled by any single entity, so there may be no one to hold accountable. Security (e.g., for credit card purchases online) has improved, but it's still a problem for some. The technology for running television-quality video is still not in place, and the long-term cost of full participation in the Internet is anybody's guess. The final draw- back is also one of the Net's greatest appeals: It is the most democratic of media—anybody can get on it and do or say just about anything. That's both good and bad.17

Who Uses the Internet

Media budgets tend to be very pragmatic. As audiences migrate, so do the media dollars. As a result, media spending on Internet advertising has grown substantially. One of the great draws of the Internet from the marketer's point of view is its demographics. Historically, the majority of people who surfed the Internet were well educated, upscale, white males who used the Internet for business or scientific purposes. Yet, recent surveys of Internet demographics suggest the reach of the medium is much more diverse and in some ways closely resembles the U.S. population (see Exhibit 15-5). Women and men use the In- ternet in roughly the same proportion (women 79%, men 81%). Internet reach is still great- est among non-Hispanic whites (83%). Internet usage is growing steadily, but still lags, for users over 65 (48%). There is now no area where Internet usage has decreased. And what is this audience doing? Of the 273 million monthly Internet users, the Pew Internet & American Project Life Study suggests that more than 250 million use e-mail and search engines to find information. Almost 230 million use maps. Use of the Internet for weather and travel also ranks very high, 231 million and 177 million people, respectively. As would be antici- pated from a growth medium, all of these numbers are still increasing.

Special Possibilities with Magazines

Media buyers need to be aware of the many creative possibilities magazines offer advertisers through various technical or mechanical features. These include bleed pages, cover positions, inserts and gatefolds, and special sizes, such as junior pages and island halves. When the dark or colored background of the ad extends to the edge of the page, it is said to BLEED off the page. Most magazines offer bleed pages, but they charge 10 to 15 percent more for them. The advantages of bleeds include greater flexibility in expressing the advertising idea, a slightly larger printing area, and more dramatic impact. If a company plans to advertise in a particular magazine consistently, it may seek a highly desirable COVER POSITION. Few publishers sell ads on the front cover, commonly called the first cover. They do sell the inside front, inside back, and outside back covers (the second, third, and fourth covers, respectively), usually through multiple-insertion contracts at a substantial premium. A less expensive way to use magazine space is to place the ad in an unusual place on the page or dramatically across spreads. A JUNIOR UNIT is a large ad (60% of the page) placed in the middle of a page and surrounded with editorial matter. Similar to junior units are ISLAND HALVES, surrounded by even more editorial matter. The island sometimes costs more than a regular half-page, but because it dominates the page, many advertisers consider it worth the extra charge. Sometimes, rather than buying a standard page, an advertiser uses an INSERT. The advertiser prints the ad on high-quality paper stock to add weight and drama to the message. A GATEFOLD is an insert whose paper is so wide that the extreme left and right sides have to be folded into the center to match the size of the other pages. When the reader opens the magazine, the folded page swings out like a gate to present the ad. Not all magazines provide gatefolds, and they are always sold at a substantial premium. Some advertisers create their own CUSTOM MAGAZINES. These look like regular magazines and are often produced by the same companies that publish traditional magazines.

How Newspapers are Categorized

Newspapers can be classified by frequency of delivery, physical size, or type of audience. A DAILY NEWSPAPER is published as either a morning or evening edition at least five times a week, Monday through Friday. With their emphasis on local news and advertising, WEEKLY NEWSPAPERS characteristically serve small urban or suburban residential areas and farm communities. They are now the fastest-growing class of newspapers. A weekly newspaper's cost per thousand is usually higher than a daily paper's, but a weekly has a longer life and often has more readers per copy. There are two basic newspaper formats, standard size and tabloid. The STANDARD- SIZE newspaper is about 22 inches deep and 13 inches wide and is divided into six columns. The TABLOID NEWSPAPER is generally about 14 inches deep and 11 inches wide. Newspapers used to offer about 400 different ad sizes. But in 1984, the industry introduced the STANDARD ADVERTISING UNIT (SAU) system, which standardized the newspaper column width, page sizes, and ad sizes. An SAU COLUMN INCH is 21/16 inches wide by 1 inch deep. There are now 56 standard ad sizes for standard papers and 32 for tabloids. Virtually all dailies converted to the SAU system (some at great expense) and so did most weeklies. Some dailies and weeklies serve special-interest audiences, a fact not lost on advertisers. They generally contain advertising oriented to their special audiences and they may have unique advertising regulations. The United States has 919 Sunday newspapers, mostly Sunday editions of daily papers, with a combined circulation of more than 46.9 million.26 Sunday newspapers generally combine standard news coverage with special functions like these: -Increased volume of classified ads. -Greater advertising and news volume. -In-depth coverage of business, sports, real estate, literature and the arts, entertainment, and travel. -Review and analysis of the past week's events. -Expanded editorial and opinion sections. Most Sunday newspapers also feature a SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT magazine. Some publish their own supplement, such as Los Angeles Magazine of the Los Angeles Times. Other papers subscribe to syndicated supplements; Parade magazine has a readership of more than 67 million each week. Printed by rotogravure on heavier, coated paper stock, Sunday supplements are more conducive to color printing than newsprint, making them attractive to national advertisers who want better reproduction quality. Another type of newspaper, the INDEPENDENT SHOPPING GUIDE or free community newspaper, offers advertisers local saturation. Sometimes called pennysavers, these shoppers offer free distribution and extensive advertising pages targeted at essentially the same audience as weekly newspapers—urban and suburban community readers. Readership is often high, and the publishers use hand delivery or direct mail to achieve maximum saturation.

Audience Measures

Rating services and media planners use many terms to define a station's audience, penetration, and efficiency. TV HOUSEHOLDS (TVHH) refers to the number of households that own television sets. The number of TVHH in a particular market gives an advertiser a sense of the market's size. Likewise, the number of TVHH tuned in to a particular program helps the advertiser estimate the program's popularity and how many people a commercial is likely to reach. The percentage of homes in a given area that have one or more TV sets turned on at any particular time is expressed as TV HOUSEHOLDS USING TV (HUT). If there are 1,000 TV sets in the survey area and 500 are turned on, HUT is 50 percent. The program rating refers to the percentage of TV households in an area that are tuned in to a specific program. The rating is computed as follows: RATING=TVHH tuned in to specific program/total TVHH in area. The percentage of homes with sets in use (HUT) tuned to a specific program is called the audience SHARE. A program with only 500 viewers can have a 50 share if only 1,000 sets are turned on. Ratings, in contrast, measure the audience as a percentage of all TVHH in the area, whether the TV sets are on or off.

Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing Most people looking to find information on the web now use a search engine. Search engines are Websites that allow people to type a word or phrase into a text box and then quickly receive a listing of information on a search-results page. AdWords Google's search results page is thus composed of two distinct areas: search results, which are organic (unaffected by sponsorship), and sponsored links. Google's sponsored links have three important characteristics. First, advertisers do not pay just for being seen, a common practice with banner ads. Instead, advertisers pay Google only when a search engine user clicks on the link and visits the sponsor's site. Second, the amount that an advertiser owes for each click-through is not actually set by Google. Instead, it is determined in an auction, where companies can bid for keywords used in search, such as the term marketing. Higher bids generally lead to better listings, such as those located on the first search results page and located near the top of the page. Google adds one additional twist to their AdWords: the ranking of sponsored listings is not completely determined by how much a company bids on a keyword but on their ad's performance as well. Text ads that attract lots of clicks rise in the rankings, while links that are ignored fall. Third, Google benefits from the targeted nature of search. AdSense Google's other major ad program is AdSense. Websites that use AdSense set aside a portion of pages for Google text ads. The ads themselves are selected by Google software and inserted automatically, without any input from the Website. Google's AdSense software attempts to insert ads that are relevant to the site's content. The revenue model for the AdSense program is very similar to AdWords in that advertisers pay Google only when web users click the link and visit the sponsor sites. In this case, the owner of the site in which the ad appeared also gets revenue. Of course, to benefit from search-based ad programs, companies must have Websites that convert visitors into customers. Banners and Buttons The basic form of web advertising is the ad banner. A banner is a little billboard that spreads across the top or bottom of the web page. When users click their mouse pointer on the banner, it sends them to the advertiser's site or a buffer page. The standard size for an ad banner is 468 pixels (picture elements) wide by 60 pixels high. That means that on a standard 81⁄2- by 11-inch page, the banner would measure just over 41⁄2 inches wide by 1/2 inch high. While banners are a common unit of web advertising, the cost of a banner can range wildly—anywhere from free to thousands of dollars per month. Some standardization is tak- ing place in the business, with most sites now charging, on a cost-per-thousand basis, any- where from $0.25 to $100.00 CPM, depending on the number and type of visitors the site regularly receives. Similar to banners are buttons, small versions of the banner that often look like an icon and usually provide a link to an advertiser's landing page, a marketing tool that leads people into the purchasing or relationship-building process. Because buttons take up less space than banners, they also cost less. Full motion, animation, and user interaction, for example, are now com- monplace. In fact, one of the greatest areas of recent growth has been rich-media advertising, which includes graphical animations and ads with audio and video elements that overlay the page or even float over the page. Many of the rich-media ads complement the standard banners endorsed by the IAB, as each of these can display 15-second animations. Some of the more common types of rich-media ads include animated banners, interstitials, Superstitials, and preroll. The interstitial is a catchall term for a variety of ads that play between pages on a Website, popping up on the screen while the computer downloads a Website that the user has clicked on. All of their various formats tend to perform well in terms of click-through rates and brand recall—which is what the advertisers care about. With polite download technol- ogy, the ad avoids tying up bandwidth when the user needs it. The standard Superstitial ad is quite large and plays for a long period of time (up to 20 seconds). The size and playing time of this type of ad are similar to television ads, making them as rich as any experience available online. Rich mail, on the other hand, allows graphics, video, and audio to be included in the e-mail message. When you open up a rich e-mail, your e-mail client automatically calls up your Internet connection and launches an HTML page in your e-mail window. Preroll is now a fast-growing advertising segment. With more bandwidth comes the consumption of more video entertainment online, and companies such as Broadband Enter- prises and YuMe Networks are trying to capitalize on this by aggregating much of this con- tent and placing 5-second to 30-second video advertisements as a third-party ad server. How is this different from TV? As we discussed previously, the Internet's ability to hypertar- get is one of the many ways it sets itself apart. So, imagine if you could get the great qualities of TV advertising—sight, sound, and motion—to a highly targeted audience, at prices lower than those of TV. Sponsorships and Added-Value Packages A form of advertising on the Internet that is growing in popularity is the sponsorship of web pages. Corporations sponsor entire sections of a publisher's web page or sponsor single events for a limited period of time, usually calculated in months. In exchange for sponsorship support, companies are given extensive recognition on the site. Sometimes an added-value package is created by integrating the sponsor's brand with the publisher's content, as a sort of advertorial, or with banners and buttons on the page. Classified Ads Another growing area for Internet advertisers, and an excellent op- portunity for local advertisers, is the plethora of classified ad Websites, like Craigslist. Many of these offer free classified advertising opportunities because they are typically supported by ad banners of other advertisers. In style, the classifieds are very similar to what we are all familiar with from newspapers. You can search for homes, cars, jobs, computer equipment, business opportunities, and so on. More- over, the search can be narrowed to your city or expanded nationwide. Many of these sites are sponsored by the search engines themselves or by local newspapers around the country. E-Mail Advertising According to Forbes's "2009 Ad Effectivness Study," 74 percent of marketers send e-mail advertising to customers who have asked for it. Marketers have always known that direct-mail advertising (discussed in Chapter 18) is the most effective medium for generating inquiries and leads and for closing a sale. It's also been the most expensive medium on a cost-per-exposure basis. Now, thanks to the Internet, the power of direct mail is increased even more, and the cost is reduced dramatically. A word of caution, though: It's important to differentiate respon- sible e-mail advertising from spam, which is really just electronic junk mail. Spam generally refers to unsolicited, mass e-mail advertising for a product or service that is sent by an unknown entity to a purchased mailing list or newsgroup. Legitimate e-mail advertisers are required to (1) clearly mark the e-mail as advertising, (2) provide a valid reply-to e-mail address, and (3) allow recipients to opt out of future mailings. With this in mind, wary mar- Source:Virgin Atlantic Airways keters are focusing their e-mail efforts on customer retention and relationship management (CRM) rather than on prospecting. One of the hottest trends on the Internet today actually started as an application of e-mail, but has been enhanced by social media. Thanks to viral marketing, Amazon.com, Napster, eBay, Blue Mountain Arts, and Hotmail all made it big on the web, reaching unexpected heights in short time spans, most with surprisingly low marketing budgets. Viral marketing is the Internet version of word-of-mouth advertising. One of the keys to viral marketing success is to present an offer with real perceived value—one that people will want to share with one another.

Application of Social Media

Social media are not one-size-fits-all marketing tools. So much is predicated on the type of company, the audience, and objectives for using the medium. Blogs One of the easiest and best ways to get started in social media is to be a practitioner. Blogs are simple, reverse chronological order web pages that are typically opinionated in nature. Many brands deploy blogs as a way for customers to hear the voice of the brand and get to know the brand on a deeper, more personal level. Brand Monitoring and Social Listening We've talked briefly in this chapter about listening tools such as Nielsen's BuzzMetrics. These tools allow brands to aggregate all of the commentary, positive, negative or otherwise, into a user-friendly dashboard with robust analytics and trend analysis of how conversations are growing and sentiment is changing over time. These tools are great for learning how people are actively talking about your brand. There are many different ways you can use these data. A very common way is to track new product launches and gauge the receptiveness from the customer base. Remarketing Nowadays these customer data- bases have moved to the social web, where likes and followers dominate the way in which most brands remarket to their customers. There are efficiencies to this replacing e-mail as the main form of remarketing, mostly around scale—it is much easier to follow or friend a brand than to fill in a lead form. Also, the message is distributed in multimedia formats where a customer wants to interact with the brand or company, and not necessarily in his or her inbox. A brand can create a channel on YouTube.com or Vimeo.com, have a Twitter page and Facebook page, and even have a LinkedIn group or Slideshare.net or Flickr channel—all of which allow the brand to distribute communications to its own network. Marketing Research Online Communities (MROCs) Communispace and Passenger are the largest suppliers of online communities for mar- keting research purposes. Imagine that you were a brand and you had what you thought was the next big idea. Well, if you had a marketing research online community (MROC), you could ask your loyal customer advocates what they thought of the idea or the. communications or all of it. Communispace and Passenger recruit and manage these small communities on behalf of the brands, giving them valuable feedback prior to spending large sums of media dollars only to find that the new product would ultimately flop. Starbucks is a good example of an online community that works. The community allows users to submit to Starbucks their ideas and suggestions, which are then voted on. Starbucks promotes the ideas that make it into actual products or services in its blog Ideas in Action. Customer Service hat started out as one "guy" behind the @Comcastcares Twitter account has become a team of support personnel answering ques- tions about everything from what channel is my regional Fox Sports network, to how do I program my remote, to even managing complaints about billing issues. This allows the company to distribute its already legendary customer service to nearly every tweeter in the United States. Social Ads Advertising in social media requires a strategy and set of objectives in the same way that ad- vertising in other media does. A firm should have a clear sense of who they want to reach and what they hope to accomplish. Is the purpose of the advertising to grow contacts for a list, grow a group of followers, increase knowledge of the product or brand, drive people to a Website, or make a sale? Who is the market and how can social media tools ensure the cam- paign targets only prospects? Facebook A boosted post gives a company the opportunity to make a post more prominent in the News Feeds of individuals who are fans of the company. This increases the chance more fans will see the post, like or share it, or engage in some other way. Ads called click to website operate much as Google search ads do, they bring the user to the firm's site outside of Facebook. Page likes ads are intended to grow the fans of a company or brand. The ads feature the like button right in the ad, which makes it easy for a user to become a fan. Mobile App Installs are another category of ads on Facebook that, as the name suggests, ask users to install apps on their smartphones or other devices. Examples of apps include "Band Profile," which allows musicians to share music with fans, "Causes," an app that helps nonprofits raise money, and "Where I've Been," an app sponsored by social media company TripAdvisor that allows users to share their journeys with others. Twitter Twitter offers a similar menu of choices for advertising, beginning with the Promoted Tweet. Promoted Tweets help to raise the prominence of a tweet to the top of follower's feeds, the Twitter equivalent of Facebook's news wall. Another option for Twitter advertisers is the Promoted Account. These appear in a user's "Who to Follow" tab and are an even better choice for increasing followers as the pri- mary audience is not current followers of the brand. A third Twitter opportunity is Promoted Trends. These are an expensive option; Twitter charges companies $200,000 a day to purchase a Promoted Trend. In exchange, companies get their hashtag near the list of trending topics on Twitter, which can be seen by all users. Other Social Media Advertising is now a part of almost every popular social media platform, including Instagram, Google+, Snapchat, and Pinterest. These companies have built loyal, active audiences that are immensely attractive to advertisers. They are also proving effective in mobile, which advertis- ers like because people are accessing the web more and more from phones and tablets. Crowdsourcing To come up with a new logo or a Website redesign, companies can spend tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Or, they could go to 99designs.com or Crowdspring, create a brief, and allow people to showcase how they might produce your logo. People from all over the world congregate on these sites looking for new projects. Next they create mockups of designs for you to peruse and decide which ones you like best. Then you can work with the designers to tweak the logo or advertisement to get it to your liking. The final price tag? Just under $800. This can save companies lots of money that they can use in other ways. Entertainment Social media platforms aren't always about being serious; some brands utilize social media to breathe life into their company culture, like Zappos.com, or bring entertainment in unique ways to their fan base. Take these two companies as examples: Burger King and Blendtec. Burger King created a Facebook application that asked people to sacrifice 10 friends by de- friending them. For sacrificing those 10 friends they earned a free Whopper. After 20,000 users defriended over 200,000 "friends," Facebook shut down the application for privacy concerns. Sometimes bad news is actually good for a brand image. Games and Gamification Games have had an appeal, whether through a console like Xbox and PlayStation or on the PC, for quite some time now. Earning points and advancing to levels has also been a mas- sively addictive rewards system. And their leveling and badging system has been adopted for other more utilitarian applications like Foursquare, creating a whole new way of engaging consumers called gamifi- cation. And it works. People crave the immediate rewards and feedback mechanism. So apply this gamification with branded online communities and you have a recipe for a long-term engagement with consum- ers around your brand, quite possibly without having to sell that person anything. Reviews and Opinions Through reviews, everyday people can let the world know what they think of certain products or services. Imagine that you are about to be one of the first to buy the latest shiny new toy, and you look it up online only to find that the three people who bought it before you have commented about how disappointed they were in the product and that they are going to return it. That type of information is invaluable to the con- sumer and a product killer to brands. CNet.com was one of the first Websites to build around the user-generated content of reviews and opinions.

Types of Social Media

Social media include any web- or mobile-based technology that is used for interactive com- munication between groups, communities, companies, and individuals Forums Forums are typically sections of sites that connect individuals around a specific topic. Weblogs (Blogs) A blog is a reverse chronological journaling site. Typically blogs are personal in nature; however, they have become so pervasive that some Websites use a blog format as their main page. Word- Press and Blogger (owned by Google) are two of the more common blog content management systems (CMSs). These CMSs are web-publishing tools that allow for nontechnical users to post content easily. Twenty-seven percent of global Internet users actively engage in blog-writing on a monthly basis. Blogs can also be multimedia in nature whereby the post is a photo or a video, like Flickr and YouTube. While some of the nomenclature describing the activities on these sites differs, in essence they feature the same easy-to-use web publishing format. Microblogs Much like blogs, microblog postings are organized in reverse chronological order, but users are allowed only 140 characters of text in their posts (or tweets). This allows for the transfer of small bits of information or content with many people at the same time, giving it a broadcast characteristic. Wikis A wiki is a user-collaborated content site, typically text in nature. Wikis allow the commu- nity to create, edit, or delete content. They are typically used to share knowledge across di- verse groups of individuals. Wikipedia is the most well-known wiki. RSS Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is an old technology, by web standards, but can be used in many different forms to distribute content. It is the backbone for things like podcasts, vod- casts, or vlogs, and text-based headlines. RSS feeds benefit publishers by automatically syndi- cating content. Social Bookmarking A once-popular form of sharing content on the web, social bookmarking has recently de- clined in popularity. Tagging is the act of self-classification with key words that make content easier to search for and therefore find. Tags are now used in every form of social media as a way to organize the information. Social Networking Social networking is the term used to describe Websites where people congregate based on some shared interest. The Data Explosion Companies like Turn, a media technology company, are building software as a service (SaaS) for marketers to truly harness the power of these data. Their tech- nology, and others like it, is so powerful that it will take data from the marketers' existing data- bases (CRM, Transactions/Sales, Newsletters, etc.) along with data from third-party data providers (BlueKai and Targus Info) and Website traffic to give a view of the makeup of the brand's customers. Then the marketers are able to use those data to target them and people like them on the Internet, all in real time while optimizing the campaign based on the actions people take on the ads and the effect on the sales or transactional data. This technology allows marketers to make split-second decisions on whom to send a message to, on what site, and with what execution to increase the probability of a desired action, such as a sale.

Defining TV Markets

Television rating services define geographic television markets to minimize the confusion of overlapping TV signals. The Nielsen station index uses the term DESIGNATED MARKET AREAS (DMAs) for geographic areas (cities, counties) in which the local TV stations attract the most viewing.

The Use of TV in IMC

Television today is very versatile. For many years it was strictly a mass medium, used to great advantage by the manufacturers of mass consumption goods: toiletries and cosmetics, food, appliances, and cars. But today, thanks to the narrowcasting ability of cable TV, television can also be a highly selective niche medium. While single programs don't deliver the mass audience they once did, television is still the most cost-effective way to deliver certain kinds of messages to large, well-defined audiences. When it comes to awareness and image advertising, for instance, television has no rival. The same is true for brand reinforcement messages. Since marketing integrators are looking to establish, nourish, and reinforce relation- ships with many groups of stakeholders, television serves another role quite efficiently. It can speak to many different kinds of stakeholders—not just customers—at the same time. Moreover, through its unique ability to deliver a creative big idea, television can impart BRAND MEANING (the symbolism or personality of the brand) to either attract people to the brand or reinforce their current relationship with it. Television is also a good leverage tool. That is, an advertiser might take advantage of the relatively low CPM of television to reach out to many prospects. Prospects can identify them- selves by responding to the commercial, and then the advertiser can follow up with less expensive, one-to-one or addressable media.

Specialty Advertising vs. Premium

The Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) defines an advertising specialty as a promotional product, usually imprinted with an advertiser's name, message, or logo, that is distributed free as part of a marketing communications program. Premiums are also promotional products; they are typically more valuable and usually bear no advertising message. How- ever, to get a premium, recipients must buy a product, send in a coupon, witness a demon- stration, or perform some other action advantageous to the advertiser. An advertising specialty, on the other hand, is always given free as a goodwill item. Some specialty items may be kept for years and serve as continuous, friendly reminders of the advertiser's busi- ness. Companies often spend substantial sums for goodwill items to promote their busi- nesses, and studies indicate that this investment pays off

Pros and Cons of Magazine Advertising

The Pros: -FLEXIBILITY in readership and advertising. Magazines cover the full range of prospects; they have a wide choice of regional and national coverage and a variety of lengths, approaches, and editorial tones. -COLOR gives readers visual pleasure, and color reproduction is best in slick magazines. Color enhances image and identifies the pack- age. In short, it sells. -AUTHORITY AND BELIEVABILITY enhance the commercial message. TV, radio, and newspapers offer lots of information but lack the depth needed for readers to gain knowledge or meaning; magazines often offer all three. -PERMANENCE, or long shelf life, gives the reader time to appraise ads in detail, allowing a more complete education/sales message and the opportunity to communicate the total corporate personality. -PRESTIGE for products advertised in upscale or specialty magazines such as Architectural Digest, Connoisseur, and Town and Country. -AUDIENCE SELECTIVITY is more efficient in magazines than any other medium except direct mail.The predictable, specialized editorial environment selects the audience and enables advertisers to pinpoint their sales campaigns. Examples: golfers (Golf Digest), businesspeople (Bloomberg Businessweek), 20-something males (Details), or teenage girls (Seventeen). -COST EFFICIENCY because wasted circulation is minimized. Print networks give advertisers reduced prices for advertising in two or more network publications. -SELLING POWER of magazines is proven, and results are usually measurable. -READER LOYALTY that sometimes borders on fanaticism. - EXTENSIVE PASS ALONG READERSHIP. Many people may read the magazine after the initial purchaser. -MERCHANDISING ASSISTANCE. Advertisers can generate reprints and merchandising materials that help them get more mileage out of their ad campaigns. The Cons: - LACK OF IMMEDIACY that advertisers can get with newspapers or radio. -SHALLOW GEOGRAPHIC COVERAGE. They don't offer the national reach of broadcast media. -INABILITY TO DELIVER MASS AUDIENCES AT A LOW PRICE. Magazines are very costly for reaching broad masses of people. -INABILITY TO DELIVER HIGH FREQUENCY .Since most magazines come out only monthly or weekly, the advertiser can build frequency faster than reach by adding numerous small-audience magazines to the schedule. -LONG LEAD TIME for ad insertion, sometimes two to three months. -HEAVY ADVERTISING COMPEITITION. The largest-circulation magazines have 52 percent advertising to 48 percent editorial content. -HIGH COST PER THOUSAND. Average black-and-white cost per thousand (CPM) in national consumer magazines is high; some trade publications with highly selective audiences have a CPM over $50 for a black-and-white page. -DECLINING CIRCULATIONS, especially in single-copy sales, is an industrywide trend that limits an advertiser's reach.

Pros and Cons: Newspaper Advertising

The Pros: -MASS MEDIUM penetrating every segment of society.Most consumers read the newspaper. -LOCAL MEDIUM with broad reach. Covers a specific geographic area that comprises both a market and a community of people sharing common concerns and interest. -COMPREHENSIVE IN SCOPE, covering an extraordinary variety of topics and interests. -GEOGRAPHIC SELECTIVITY is possible with zoned editions for specific neighborhoods or communities. -TIMELINESS. Papers primarily cover today's news and are read in one day. -CREDIBILITY. Studies show that newspaper ads rank highest in believability.TV commercials are a distant second. -SELECTIVE ATTENTION from the relatively small number of active prospects who, on any given day, are interested in what the advertiser is trying to tell them or sell them. -CREATIVE FLEXIBILITY. An ad's physical size and shape can be varied to give the degree of dominance or repetition that suits the advertiser's purpose.The advertiser can use black and white, color, Sunday magazines, or custom inserts. -AN ACTIVE MEDIUM rather than a passive one. Readers turn the pages, clip and save, write in the margins, and sort through the contents. -A PERMANENT RECORD, in contrast to the ephemeral nature of radio andTV. -REASONABLE COST. The Cons: -LACK OF SELECTIVITY of specific socioeconomic groups. Most newspapers reach broad, diverse groups of readers, which may not match the advertiser's objectives. -SHORT LIFE SPAN. Unless readers clip and save the ad or coupon, it may be lost forever. -LOW PRODUCTION QUALITY. Coarse newsprint generally produces a less impressive image than the slick, smooth paper stock of mag- azines, and some newspapers can't print color. -CLUTTER. Each ad competes with editorial content and with all the other ads on the same page or spread. -LACK OF CONTROL over where the ad will appear unless the advertiser pays extra for a preferred position. -OVERLAPPING CIRCULATION. Some people read more than one newspaper.Advertisers may be paying for readers they already reached in a different paper.

Pros and Cons of Cable Tv Advertising

The Pros: -Selectivity. Cable offers specialized programming aimed at par- ticular types of viewers. Narrowcasting allows advertisers to choose programming with the viewer demographics that best match their target customers. -Audience demographics. Cable subscribers are younger, better educated, and more affluent; have higher-level jobs; live in larger households; and are more likely to try new products and buy more high-ticket items, such as cars, appliances, and high-tech equipment. -Low cost. Many small companies get TV's immediacy and impact without the enormous expenditures of broadcast TV. Cable advertising can sometimes cost as little as radio. Many national advertisers find sponsorship attractive, since an entire cable series can cost less to produce than a single broadcast TV commercial. -Flexibility. BroadcastTV commercials need to be short because of the high costs of production and airtime, but cable ads can run up to two minutes and, in the case of infomercials, much longer. They can also be tailored to fit the programming environment. -Testability. Cable is a good place to experiment, testing both new products and various advertising approaches: ad frequency, copy impact, and different media mixes. The Cons: -Limited reach. About 23 percent of households don't have cable.This was cable's main weakness in the past, but it is less so today. - Fragmentation. With more than 50 channels at their disposal, cable viewers do not watch any one channel in enormous numbers.To reach the majority of the cable audience in a particular market, ads must run on many stations. -Quality. Cable, particularly local cable, sometimes has poorer production quality and less desirable programming than broadcast TV. -Zipping and zapping. Cable TV has some of the same drawbacks as broadcast TV, such as zipping and zapping.

Pros and Cons of Broadcast Tv Advertising

The Pros: Contemporary broadcast television offers advertisers many advantages over competing media. -Mass coverage. A full 98 percent of all U.S. homes have a TV (most have more than one), and viewing time for the average household increased from about five hours a day in 1960 to more than eight hours in 2004. -Relatively low cost. Despite the often huge initial outlays for commercial production and advertising time,TV's equally huge audiences bring the cost per exposure down to $2 to $10 per thousand viewers. -Some selectivity. Television audiences var y a great deal depending on the time of day, day of the week, and natureof the programming.Advertising messages can be presented when potential customers are watching, and advertisers can reach select geographic audiences by buying local and regional markets. -Impact. Television offers a kind of immediacy that other forms of advertising cannot achieve, displaying and demonstrating the product with sound, motion, and full color right before the customer's eyes. -Creativity. The various facets of the TV commercial—sight, sound, motion, and color—permit infinite original and imaginative appeals. -Prestige. Because the public considers TV the most author- itative and influential medium, it offers advertisers a prestigious image. Hallmark, Xerox, Coca-Cola, and IBM increase their prestige by regularly sponsoring cultural programs on net- workTV. -Social dominance. In North America, most people underage 35 grew up with TV as a window to their social environment. They continue to be stirred by TV screenings of the Olympics, space travel, assassinations, wars, and political scandals around the world. The Cons: Sometimes broadcast TV just doesn't "fit" the creative mix because of cost, lack of audience selectivity, inherent brevity, or the clutter of competitive messages. -High production cost. One of broadcast TV's greatest handicaps is the high cost of producing quality commercials. Depending on the creative approach, the cost of filming a national commercial today may run from $200,000 to more than $1 million. - High airtime cost. The average cost of a prime-time network commercial ranges from $200,000 to $400,000. A single 30-second commercial for a top-rated show in prime time may cost more than $500,000, and in special attractions like the Super Bowl more than $2 million.The cost of wide coverage, even at low rates, prices small and medium-size advertisers out of the market. -Limited selectivity. Broadcast TV is not cost-effective for advertisers seeking a very specific, small audience. And it is losing some of its selectivity because of changing audience trends. More women are working outside the home or watching cable TV, hurting advertisers on network soap operas. -Brevity. Studies show that most TV viewers can't remember the product or company in the most recent TV ad they watched— even if it was within the last five minutes. Recall improves with the length of the commercial; people remember 60-second spots better than 30-second spots. -Clutter. TV advertising is usually surrounded by station breaks, credits, and public service announcements, as well as six or seven other spots. All these messages compete for attention, so viewers become annoyed and confused and often misidentify the product. -Zipping and zapping. DVR users who skip through commercials when replaying recorded programs are zipping; remote-control users who change channels at the beginning of a commercial break are zapping.

Pros and Cons of Radio Advertising

The Pros: The principal advantages of radio are high reach and frequency, selectivity, and cost efficiency. -Reach and frequency. Radio offers an excellent combination of reach and frequency.The average adult listens more than three hours a day, radio builds a large audience quickly, and a normal ad- advertising schedule easily allows repeated impact on the listener. -Selectivity. Specialized radio formats, with prescribed audiences and coverage areas, enable advertisers to select the market they want to reach: a specific sex, age group, ethnic or religious back- ground, income group, employment category, educational level, or special interest. -Cost efficiency. Radio offers its reach, frequency, and selectivity at one of the lowest costs per thousand, and radio production is inexpensive. National spots can be produced for about one-tenth the cost of a TV commercial. And local stations often produce local spots for free. -Other advantages. Radio also offers timeliness, immediacy, local relevance, and creative flexibility. The Cons: -In spite of these advantages, radio has limitations: It's an aural medium only, its audience is highly segmented, the advertiser's commercials are short-lived and often only half-heard, and each ad must compete with the clutter of other advertising. -Limitations of sound. Radio is heard but not seen, a drawback if the product must be seen to be understood. Some agencies think radio restricts their creative options. -Segmented audiences. If a large number of radio stations compete for the same audience, advertisers that want to blanket the market have to buy at multiple stations, which may not be cost-effective. -Short-lived and half-heard commercials. Radio commercials are fleeting. They can't be kept like a newspaper or a magazine ad. Radio must compete with other activities for attention, and it doesn't always succeed. -Clutter. Stations with the greatest appeal for advertisers have more commercials. Advertisers must produce a commercial that stands out from the rest.

Types of Newspaper Advertising

The major classifications of newspaper advertising are display, classified, public notices, and preprinted inserts. Display Advertising Display advertising includes copy, illustrations or photos, headlines, coupons, and other visual components—such as the ads for the Village Voice discussed earlier. Display ads vary in size and appear in all sections of the newspaper except the first page of major sections, the editorial page, the obituary page, and the classified advertising section. One common variation of the display ad, the reading notice, looks like editorial matter and sometimes costs more than normal display advertising. To prevent readers from mistak- ing it for editorial matter, the word advertisement appears at the top. retailers often run newspaper ads through cooperative (or co-op) programs sponsored by the manufacturers whose products they sell. The manufacturer pays fully or partially to create and run the ad, which features the manu- facturer's product and logo along with the local retailer's name and address. Classified Advertising Classified ads provide a community marketplace for goods, services, and opportunities of every type, from real estate and new-car sales to employment and business opportunities. A newspaper's profitability often depends on a large and healthy classified section. Classified ads usually appear under subheads that describe the class of goods or the need the ads seek to satisfy. Most employment, housing, and car advertising is classified. Classified rates are typically based on how many lines the ad occupies and how many times the ad runs. Some newspapers accept classified display ads, which run in the classified section of the newspaper but feature larger type and/or photos, art borders, abundant white space, and sometimes even color. Public Notices For a nominal fee, newspapers carry legal public notices of changes in business and personal relationships, public governmental reports, notices by private citizens and organizations, and financial reports. These ads follow a preset format. Preprinted Inserts Like magazines, newspapers carry preprinted inserts. The advertiser prints the inserts and delivers them to the newspaper plant for insertion into a specific edition. Insert sizes range from a typical newspaper page to a double postcard; formats include catalogs, brochures, mail-back devices, and perforated coupons. Some large metropolitan dailies allow advertisers to limit their inserts to specific circula- tion zone

Pricing Methods

The most common means is the banner ad, typically billed on a cost-per-thousand basis determined by the number of ads displayed. On most web pages, the base banner rate pays for exposure on a rotating display that randomly selects which ads to show. In addition to general ban- ners, media buyers may opt to purchase more selective space. For example, ads may be pur- chased in a portal's information categories and subcategories, such as finance, news, travel, or games. Prices vary according to category and increase as the buyer targets a more selective audience. Costs are tiered according to thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of page requests per month. Another augmentation to the general banner purchase is the keyword purchase, avail- able on major search engines. Advertisers may buy specific keywords that bring up their ads when a user's search request contains these words. Keywords may be purchased individually or in packages that factor in the information categories and subcategories of a search engine site. Some publishers will charge their clients according to click-throughs—that is, when a user actually clicks on a banner ad to visit the advertiser's landing page. When an advertiser buys on a per-click basis, the publisher may expose many users to an advertiser's banner message without being able to charge for the service. For advertisers involved in e-commerce, some publishers offer an affiliate marketing program whereby they charge a percentage of the transaction cost.

The Role of the Print Media Buyer

The person in charge of negotiating and contracting with the media is called a MEDIA BUYER. Media buyers often specialize in one medium or another, so there are print media buyers, spot TV media buyers, network media buyers, and so on. The degree of specialization depends on the size of the advertiser or the agency or the independent media-buying firm the buyer works for. In small agencies, for example, media buyers frequently don't specialize. They do it all. Success as a print media buyer requires a range of knowledge and abilities. First, media buyers must have a broad understanding of all available print media and the terminology used in the field. They need to know, for example, how magazines and newspapers are categorized, the advertising possibilities each form offers, and the pros and cons of using various types of vehicles. They should also have an understanding of the impact of new technologies on the print media. Second, buyers need to know how to buy magazine and newspaper space. They must understand how to analyze circulation, read rate cards, get reliable information, and calculate and negotiate the most efficient media buys. Finally, media buyers require creativity for developing ingenious, sophisticated ways to integrate the advertiser's print media efforts into the whole creative mix.

Buying Television Time

The process of buying TV time can be lengthy and, depending on the number of stations in the buy, quite involved. Advertisers or media buyers must -Determine which programs are available at what cost. -Analyze the various programs for efficiency. -Negotiate price with station reps. -Determine what reach and frequency they are achieving. -Sign broadcast contracts. -Review affidavits of performance to be sure the commercials ran as agreed. These procedures are so complex that most large advertisers use ad agencies or media-buying services. Buying services have gained in popularity because they charge less and can save advertisers money by negotiating for desirable time slots at reduced rates. Local advertisers typically rely on station reps to determine the best buys for the money. To find out which programs are available, media buyers contact stations' sales reps—local station salespeople, national media rep organizations that sell for one station in each market, or network reps. The media buyer gives the rep information about the advertiser's media objectives and target audiences and asks the rep to supply a list of AVAILS (available time slots) along with prices and estimated ratings. Many media buyers ask for the information based on the last few Nielsen books to see whether a show's ratings are consistent, rising, or falling. The media buyer selects the most efficient programs in relation to the target audience using the CPP and the CPM for each program: CPP=Cost/Rating CPM= Cost/Thousands of people For example, assume CSI has a rating of 25, reaches 200,000 people in the primary tar- get audience, and costs $2,000 for a 30-second spot with a fixed guarantee on station WALB- TV in Albany, Georgia. Then, CPP=$2000/25=$80. CPM=$2000/(200,000/1000)=$10 By calculating CPP, the media buyer can compare the cost of a rating point from one program or network to another. That's good information for beginning negotiations. But rat- ing points relate to the whole market. The real important figure is the cost of reaching 1,000 prospects in the target market. That's why the CPM must be calculated against the size of the target audience, not the whole market. The lower the cost per 1,000/target audience (CPM- TA), the more efficient the show is at reaching real prospects. TV stations and cable companies publish rate cards to sell their airtime. However, since TV audiences are estimated at best, television reps will always negotiate prices. The media buyer contacts the rep and explains what efficiency the advertiser needs in terms of delivery and CPM to make the buy. The buyer has numerous ways to negotiate lower rates: work out a package deal, accept run-of-schedule positioning (the station chooses when to run the commercials), or take advantage of preemption rates. A PREEMPTION RATE is lower because the advertiser agrees to be "bumped" (preempted) if another advertiser pays the higher, nonpreemption rate. The media buyer must read the advertising contract carefully before signing it. The contract indicates the dates, times, and programs on which the advertiser's commercials will run, the length of each spot, the rate per spot, and the total amount. The reverse side of the contract defines payment terms and responsibilities of the advertiser, agency, and station. After the spots run, the station returns a signed and notarized AFFIDAVIT OF PERFORMANCE to the advertiser or agency, specifying when the spots aired and what makegoods are available. MAKEGOODS refer to free advertising time an advertiser receives to compensate for spots the station missed or ran incorrectly or because the program's ratings were substantially lower than guaranteed.

Dayparts

The radio day is divided into five dayparts: 6 a.m.-10 a.m. (morning drivea) 10 a.m.-3 p.m. (daytime) 3.pm.-7 p.m. (afternoon or evening drive) 7 p.m.-midnight (nighttime) Midnight-6 a.m. (all night) Rating services measure audiences for only the first four dayparts because all-night listening is very limited and not highly competitive. Heaviest radio use occurs during drive times (6-10 a.m. and 3-7 p.m.) during the week (Monday through Friday), when many listeners are commuting to or from work or school. Radio stations base their rates on the time of day the advertiser wants commercials aired, but the rates are negotiable according to supply and demand at any given time. For the lowest rate, an advertiser orders spots on a RUN OF STATION (ROS) basis, similar to ROP in newspaper advertising. How- ever, this leaves total control of spot placement up to the station. So most stations offer a TOTAL AUDIENCE PLAN (TAP) package rate, which guarantees a certain percentage of spots in the better dayparts if the advertiser buys a total package of time.

Buying Transit Advertising

The unit of purchase is a showing, also known as a run or service. A full showing (or No. 100 showing) means that one card will appear in each vehicle in the system. Space may also be purchased as a half (No. 50) or quarter (No. 25) showing. Rates are usually quoted for 30-day showings, with discounts for 3-, 6-, 9-, and 12-month contracts. Advertisers supply the cards at their own expense, but the transit com- pany can help with design and production. Cost depends on the length and saturation of the showing and the size of the space. Rates vary extensively, depending primarily on the size of the transit system. Advertisers get rates for specific markets from local transit companies. Special Inside Buys In some cities, advertisers gain complete domination by buying the basic bus—all the inside space on a group of buses. For an extra charge, pads of business reply cards or coupons (called take-ones) can be affixed to interior ads for passengers to request more detailed information, send in application blanks, or receive some other benefit. Special Outside Buys Some transit companies offer bus-o-rama signs, jumbo full-color transparencies backlighted by fluorescent tubes and running the length of the bus. A bus has two bus-o-rama positions, one on each side. A single advertiser may also buy a total bus—all the exterior space, includ- ing the front, rear, sides, and top. For years, New York subways have been running brand trains, which include all the subway cars in a particular corridor. However, with the July 2004 opening of its monorail system, the city of Las Vegas has taken the concept further. The glitz of the city's strip ex- tends to its public transportation: Each of the nine monorail trains and seven stations has a corporate sponsor, and many feature elaborate immersive advertising themes

Types of Transit Advertising

Transit Shelters In cities with mass-transit systems, advertisers can buy space on bus shelters and on the backs of bus-stop seats. Transit shelter advertising is a relatively new out-of-home form enjoying great success. It reaches virtually everyone who is outdoors: auto passengers, pedestrians, bus riders, motorcyclists, bicyclists, and more. It is extremely inexpensive and available in many communities that restrict billboard advertising in business or residential areas. Terminal Posters In many bus, subway, and commuter train stations, space is sold for one-, two-, and three- sheet terminal posters. Major train and airline terminals offer such special advertising forms as floor displays, island showcases, illuminated cards, dioramas (3-D scenes), and clocks with special lighting and moving messages. Inside and Outside Cards and Posters The inside card is placed above the seats and luggage area in a wall rack. Cost-conscious ad- vertisers print both sides of the card so it can be reversed to change the message, saving on paper and shipping charges. Inside car-end posters (in bulkhead positions) are usually larger than inside cards, but sizes vary. The end and side positions carry premium rates. Outside posters are printed on high-grade cardboard and often varnished for weather resistance. The most widely used outside posters are on the side, rear, and front of a bus. Advertisers may also buy space on taxicab exteriors, generally for periods of 30 days, to display internally illuminated, two-sided posters positioned on the roofs. Buying Transit Advertising

Types of OOH Advertising

Types of Outdoor Advertising there are five major kinds of out of home media: billboards, street furniture (bus shelters, store displays, urban furniture, kiosks), transit (buses, subway and rail, airports, truckside, taxi display, and wrapped vehicles), broadcast using place based TVs (stores, schools, bars), radio (drive time, in-office, in-store) and alternative (elevators, stadiums, airborne, shopping malls). Standardized structures come in three basic forms: bulletins, poster panels, and junior posters. For extra impact, some companies may use the nonstandard spectacular. Bulletins Where traffic is heavy and visibility is good, advertisers find that large bulletin structures work best, especially for long-term use. Bulletins measure 14 by 48 feet, plus any exten- sions, and may carry either painted or printed messages. Painted displays are normally lighted and are repainted several times each year (color is very important for readability; see Ad Lab 17-A). Some bulletins are three-dimensional or embellished by extensions (or cutouts) that stretch beyond the frames of the structure. Varia- tions include cutout letters, backlighting, moving messages, and electronic time and tempera- ture units called jump clocks. Painted bulletins are very costly, but some advertisers overcome this expense by rotating them to different choice locations in the market every 60 or 90 days. Poster Panels The poster panel (standard billboard) is less costly per unit and is the basic outdoor advertis- ing structure. A poster consists of blank panels with a standardized size and border. Poster sizes are referred to in terms of sheets. The poster sheets are mounted on a board with a total surface of 12 by 25 feet and usually change every 30 days. Some local advertisers get high-quality outdoor advertising at reduced cost by using stock posters. These ready-made posters are available in any quantity and often feature the work of first-class art- ists and lithographers. Junior Posters Manufacturers of grocery products, as well as many local advertis- ers, use smaller poster sizes. Called junior posters (or junior pan- els), these offer a 5- by 11-foot printing area on a panel surface 6 feet high by 12 feet wide. They are typically concentrated in urban areas, where they can reach pedestrian as well as vehicular traffic. Spectaculars Times Square in New York is well known for its spectaculars—giant electronic signs that incorporate movement, color, and flashy graphics to grab attention in high-traffic areas. Spectaculars are very expensive to produce and are found primarily in the world's largest cities, such as Tokyo, London, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and, of course, Las Vegas (see the Portfolio Review, "Out-of-Home Advertising").

Types of Internet Advertising

WebSites, Microsites, and Landing Pages The technical definition of a Website is a collection of web pages, images, videos, or data assets that is hosted on one or more web servers, usually accessible via the Internet. A corporate site is used to give background information about an organization, product, or service. A commerce site is used primarily to sell a product or service. Good marketers look at their Website as more than the above definitions. They understand that the Website is an extension of the brand and that the Website experience is synonymous with a brand experience. A microsite is used as a supplement to a Website. For advertisers it is typically singular in focus and delivers on the current advertising message. The microsite was able to identify how many pieces each user had found due to the ability to store and read data on cookies placed on the user's browser. Any web page can be a landing page—the term used to describe direct links to deeper areas of the Website that advertising drives consumers to beyond the homepage. Typically advertisers use landing pages to give consumers a more relevant experience as it relates to the message from the advertising. Advertisers use landing pages to streamline the selling or information-gathering process, as studies have found that people's attention spans are limited online.

Building Social Authority

When a company or a brand engages in social media, it must use people to administer their profiles in different communities. This means that the consumers know they can connect with actual people from a company in real time, not an anonymous Website. The effect is that a relationship is started between consumers and brand that, hopefully, ele- vates the perception of the company as an authority in the area where they are selling their products or services. Transparency and Authenticity The tenets that social media have encouraged such as openness, trans- parency, and authenticity have caused marketers to rethink their tradi- tional promotional messages. These companies need to figure out whether, if they do not make efforts to maintain a level of openness, it's worth their participation in the media: Do they walk away from social media as a viable marketing tactic? Or do they fundamen- tally change their business structure to be more open to the two-way dialogue of social media? Two-Way Brand Communication Understanding the perspective of the target audience has helped brands create better products, services, and communications. Now it can happen within seconds by just typing a few key words into a social listening tool and poof, you have information not only about the brand, but about the competition, the category, and the industry. Best of all, you can assess sentiment based on the syntax of the text. It has also been known that word of mouth (WOM)—for example, a friend's recommendation—is the most effective form of communication in persuading a future sale. In social media, WOM is replicated on sites that post user reviews. Here audiences can find detailed and helpful perspectives on businesses of all kinds This is why authenticity and transparency are important. If a consumer is engaged in a give-and-take conversation, the less authentic it feels, the more impatient he or she will grow with the brand. Customer Service in Social Media As we suggested in the last section, being helpful is a very powerful mechanism for a company to engender trust and loyalty within a customer base.

Types of TV Advertising

When buying cable TV, an advertiser can buy ads over the full schedule of a channel because cable networks typically aim their overall programming to relatively specific AUDIENCES. The Lifetime and Family channels heavily weigh programs toward women; Cable companies sell their network channels in bundles at a discount and offer discounts for RUN-OF SCHEDULE positioning—multiple ad purchases they can place throughout a channel's daily schedule. Advertisers can buy time on TV in several ways. They include sponsoring an entire program, participating in a program, purchasing spot announcements between programs, and purchasing spots from syndicators Historically, major U.S. advertisers purchased airtime from one of the national broadcast networks: ABC, CBS, NBC, or Fox. In 1995, relaxed FCC rules enabled two of the biggest producers of prime-time shows, Warner Bros. and Paramount, to launch their own broadcast networks—WB and UPN—giving them captive distribution outlets for programs they produce and buy. Cable has slowly eroded the audience of the broadcast networks. At one time the big three (ABC, CBS, and NBC) had more than 90 percent of the prime-time audience. Today their total share is about 38.3 percent, with ad-supported cable networks comprising 60 percent. Networks offer large advertisers convenience and efficiency be- cause they broadcast messages simultaneously across many affiliate stations throughout the country. Broadcast networks tend to reach masses of American consumers representing a cross section of the population, while cable networks tend to reach more selective niches. An advertiser who underwrites the cost of a program is engaging in SPONSORSHIP. In a sole sponsorship, the advertiser is responsible for both the program content and the total cost of production. Sponsorship is so costly that single sponsorships are usually limited to specials. Companies that sponsor programs (e.g., AT&T, Xerox, and Hallmark) gain two important advantages. First, the public more readily identifies with the product(s) due to the prestige of sponsoring first-rate entertainment. Second, the sponsor controls the placement and content of its commercials. The commercials can be fit to the program and run any length the sponsor desires so long as they remain within net- work or station regulations. Further, because networks are centralized, the advertiser gets only one bill. Most network TV advertising is sold on a PARTICIPATION BASIS, with several advertisers buying 30- or 60-second segments within a program. This enables them to spread their budgets and avoid long-term commitments to any one program. It also lets smaller advertisers buy a limited amount of time and still get the nationwide coverage they need. National SPOT ANNOUNCEMENTS run in clusters between programs. They are less ex- pensive than participations and more flexible than network advertising because they can be concentrated in specific regions of the country. An advertiser with a small budget or limited distribution may use spots to introduce a new product into one area at a time. Or an advertiser can vary its message for different markets to suit promotional needs. Spots may run 10, 15, 30, or 60 seconds and be sold nationally or locally. Spot advertising is more difficult to buy than network advertising because it involves contacting each station directly. For the broadcast stations, the NATIONAL REP SYSTEM, in which individuals act as sales and service representatives for a number of stations, alleviates this problem through the use of ELECTRONIC DATA INTERCHANGE(EDI).23 This technology enables agency buyers to electronically process orders, makegoods (free advertising time to compensate for problems), and revisions, and to maintain an electronic audit trail through the life of a schedule. Likewise, reps can transmit orders directly to their stations via satellite while keep- ing in day-to-day contact with agency buyers. Spot advertising is available only at network station breaks and when net- work advertisers purchase less than a full lineup, so spot ads may get lost in the clutter—which is why they tend to have fewer viewers and a smaller piece of the ad spending pie. Syndication is the sale of programs on a station-by-station, market-by-market basis. In other words, the producer (e.g., Warner Bros. or Disney) deals directly with the stations, often through a distribution company, rather than going through the networks. This efficient "direct-from-the-factory" approach gives local TV stations more programming control and greater profits. It also gives advertisers access to INVENTORY (commercial time) for their spots that they might not get on network programs—often at better prices.27 Syndication has become the largest source of programming in the United States Television syndication comes in three forms: off-network, first-run, and barter. In OFF-NETWORK SYNDICATION, former popular network programs (reruns) are sold to individual stations for rebroadcast. Examples include Seinfeld and Friends. FIRST-RUN SYNDICATION involves original shows, like Oprah, Inside Edition, and Extra, which are produced specifi- cally for the syndication market. One of the fastest-growing trends in television is BARTER SYNDICATION (also called advertiser-supported syndication). These are first-run programs offered free or for a reduced rate, but with some of the ad space (usually 50%) presold to national advertisers. Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, and Oprah, all distributed by King World Productions, are some of the most popular examples. Syndication is a powerful tool for building reach. Advertisers like it because they can affiliate with popular programs and maximize their use of broadcast TV, gaining back much of the audience they used to reach through the networks Perot made advertising history by catapulting the PROGRAM-LENGTH ADVERTISEMENT (PLA), or INFOMERCIAL, into the limelight. He also proved what companies that produce and sell infomercials have been saying for years: Long-form advertising can communicate a message in a way other forms can't. Infomercials aren't new, but their respectability is. Before Perot, most PLA users were off-Madison Avenue marketers of hand mixers, juicers, and car waxes. Today, major market- ers such as Pfizer, Microsoft's MSNTV2, and Voom have ventured into the infomercial arena.30 In Colorado, long-form ads were used as a negotiating tool in a labor dispute.31 And now even networks air some of these ads, which were once relegated to independents and cable channels. The reasons for this sudden growth are simple: 1. Consumers pay attention and can respond immediately. 2. Brand managers may be able to gain a competitive advantage by going where the competition is not. 3. PLAs can fulfill some message objectives, like product demonstration and brand differentiation, far better than 30-second commercials. 4. Results are both measurable and accountable. 5. The ad campaign can pay for itself while supporting the retail trade. 6. PLAs combine the power of advertising, direct response, and sales promotion In addition to infomercials, direct-response TV (DRTV) includes shorter ads (often 60 seconds to two minutes) that ask consumers to order a product, as well as cable networks (Home Shopping Network) that feature round-the-clock sales. The companies that measure the program audiences of TV and radio stations for advertisers and broadcasters are called RATING SERVICES. These firms attempt to pick a representative sample of the market and furnish data on the number and characteristics of the viewers or listeners. Several research organizations gather the data at their own expense and publish it. Companies subscribe to a service and use it as a basis for planning, buying, or selling media advertising. In the United States, Nielsen Media Research is the major rating service for television. Its flagship service, the Nielsen Television Index (NTI), uses a national sample of 5,100 households equipped with PEOPLE METERS to develop audience estimates for all national TV programming sources: 7 broadcast networks, 47 cable networks, 3 Spanish-language networks, and more than 200 syndicators.

The Use of Radio in IMC: Imagery Transfer

While television tends to be a passive medium that people simply watch, radio actively involves people. They listen intently to their favorite personalities; they call in to make requests, participate in a contest, or contribute to a discussion; they use their ears and imaginations to fill in what they cannot see. With radio, national companies can tie in to a local market and target the specific demo- graphic group they want to reach. Most important, radio enables advertisers to maintain strategic consistency and stretch their media dollars through imagery transfer. Research shows that when advertisers run a schedule on TV and then convert the audio portion to radio commercials, fully 75 percent of consumers replay the video in their minds when they hear the radio spot.44 That extends the life and builds the impact of a TV campaign at greatly reduced cost.45 In an IMC campaign, where message consistency is a primary objective, this is a very important feature of radio. Local retailers like the medium for the same reasons. Also, they can tailor it to their needs. It offers defined audiences; its recall characteristics are similar to TV's; and retailers can create an identity by doing their own ads. Finally, since radio is so mobile, retailers can reach prospects just before they purchase. Hence, recent years have seen major spending increases by local grocery stores, car dealers, banks, and home-improvement, furniture, and apparel stores.46