Media Planning by Time of Day
In a previous note, we discussed how to define target groups for a media campaign. The reason of that exercise was that not everybody would buy a product or service. Rather, the potential buyers of the product or service may be limited to a segment of the population. To the extent that these potential buyers may be different from the total population in terms of their use of advertising media, this creates opportunities to be more 'efficient' in the placement of ads.
There are many ways of defining efficiencies. A typical way is to define an efficient relative to the general population in terms of audience delivery. For example, let us assume that a certain television program has a rating of 10%. If the rating for this program among the target group is 15%, then it is more efficient to buy into this program, which is overdelivering the target group. If the rating among the target group is 5%, then it is inefficient to buy into this program, which is underdelivering the target group. Quantitatively, the efficiency is defined as the ratio of the rating in the target group to the rating in the general population. This ratio is called the index.
To illustrate how this works, we will use some data from the TGI Argentina study. This is a consumer survey of 6,351 persons in Argentina conducted by IBOPE Argentina during 1999. For this example, the target group is the set of people who have made one or more airplane trips for business reasons. This is a very important segment of the traveling population, who account for a significant proportion of the travel volume and who also have unique requirements.
In the first graph, we have charted the indices of the business travelers versus the general population for television viewing in general by the half-hour during the weekday (Monday through Friday). An index of 100 would imply the same viewing rates. An index greater than 100 would imply that the percentage of business travelers watching television is greater than the percentage among the general population, thus conferring greater efficiency. From this graph, as one might have guessed for this group, the working hours are the most inefficient for reaching business travelers; in fact, the best opportunities during the weekday is when they get up in the morning and after they reach home at night.
(Source: TGI Argentina Study, IBOPE Argentina)
In the second graph, we have charted the indices of the business travelers versus the general population for radio listening in general by the half-hour during the weekday (Monday through Friday). As with television viewing, the working hours are the most inefficient for reaching business travelers. Again, the early morning and late evening give the best opportunities. Comparing the two graphs, we note that there is a phase difference in the morning. More specifically, 6am-7am is a good time to reach them as they wake up, eat breakfast and get dressed, while watching television; 7am-8am is a good time to reach them as they travel to work with the radio on.
(Source: TGI Argentina Study, IBOPE Argentina)
These two graphs serve to illustrate how media planning may work. In practice, the process extends to many more media types and vehicles, including (and not limited to) television dayparts, television programs, broadcast television networks, cable/satellite television networks, radio dayparts, radio programs, radio stations, newspaper titles, newspaper sections, newspaper magazines, newspaper inserts, magazine titles, airline inflight magazines, Internet advertising and all sorts of outdoor advertising displays.
(posted by Roland Soong on 12/25/99)
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