Media Buying Agencies

Media Buying Agencies

ThinkingJuice – Media Buying Agency - slogan
The advertising business has placed a control of knowledge on media planning, buying and research. Around 2000 of all the main London Advertising Agencies had separate media buying and planning functions. During past thirty years Media buying agencies took all the media-buying away from the traditional agencies and now they virtually conduct all the planning and researches. (Winston Fletcher, Powers of Persuasion: The inside story of British Advertising, 2008, p108)
Media buying agencies perform functions of media buyers, researchers and planners. Ability to receive all these services from one place had made them highly popular. Media Buying Agencies keep fingers on the pulse of all media institutions. They browse the space of TV, Social Media, billboards, newspapers and magazines, radio and directories.
To understand how Media agencies work on each campaign it is important to define roles of media researchers, buyers, planners and their integration with clients and media sellers. Media researchers are turning selling point of the Media Agencies. They collect information on who is using the brand and why; why others use the competitors brand, what is influencing the buying decision and so on. They use all these data to gauge effectiveness and scale for the client A massive part of Media Buyers is based on their intuitive understanding of the current situation in the media. Buyers have no study book which will tell how long to run an ideal advertising campaign, or how often should be shown advert on TV to be effective or commercials are advised to be shown three times in general guides – but will it work? They use established practice or case studies, psychology, sociology, econometrics and cultural studies to be effective at their decisions (S.Brierley, 2002, p121). Media Buyers are those in charge of advertising budget, they buy advertising space for variety of clients. Then they contact different media platforms and agree them a price and location of advert for each client. Buyers need to make sure that they choose correct media channel for the individual needs of each client and that it will reach target audience in right quantity and at perfect time. Therefore, their job is to spent as little budget as possible and reach as many people from target audience as possible. Money determines media availability and sets limits on coverage and campaign frequency. Coverage – is the number of the target audiences reached and frequency – is the quantity of times target market is reached (S.Brierley, 2002, The Advertising Handbook, p105). “Media planning is part of a matching exercise. It attempts to match media and advertising markets by matching the maps or texts of audiences, to the maps or texts of consumers as closely as possible.”
(S.Brierley, 2002) Media Planners work directly with the clients and their role is to convince them that the media buying strategy will reach the audience in the most cost-effective way. They need to balance coverage and frequency to achieve main aims and objectives of their client. Planners put together strategies and make the final decision of which advertising channels should be selected. They try to combine all research data (media, consumer, price) with knowledge of client’s communication issue. Media planners should take in account the technological possibilities of each medium and how target market uses them. For instance, some cases might be better suited to purely web based advertising, while others might only be perfect for children’s television shows. Their expertise is integral to choosing what types of advert are produced and where they are going to be consumed by the public.
Media sellers are working in the media institutions. They are given limited sectors and particular Media Agencies to work on. They go to agencies for presenting (read “selling”) their institution from best angle in order to increase own price. Classified professionals can do all their work over the mobile phone and the internet. If they make a good pitch, advertisers and media buyers can agree to buy space or time in number of similar issues.
When all work on a particular case will be done client will receive one-two executions, in average, of their campaign order which will be adapted by the size and length to different media institutions; and a media plan which is usually designed for a year long campaign. One of the most important consumptions that client can receive is how his advert will fit in public world of work and private world of home as there are totally different patterns.
Therefore, Media Buying Agencies are playing vital role in modern advertising and marketing world. Team is working as one complex organism, where each person depends on another and by providing each other bits of information they form a single puzzle, which than will be a successful campaign. Everything is based on a provided brief from the client (John Wilsmshurst, 1991,p 180) and data collected by the media researchers. “Media are bought and sold on the basis of data” (S.Brierley, 2002, p 135). Therefore the accurate data of a research has become a trading currency in a media world.

References:
Sean Brierley, The Advertising Handbook, 2002, 2nd edition, Routlidge press, London. Chapter 7 Advertising and the Media , Chapter 8 Media planning and buying, Chapter 9 Media Research, pp 81-137
John Wilsmshurst, The Fundamentals of Advertising, 5th edition, 1991, Redwood press, London. Chapter 14 Media Buying, Planning and Scheduling, pp178-187.
Winston Fletcher, Powers of Persuasion: The inside story of British Advertising, 2008, Oxford University Press, Oxford/

Carat – Media Buying Agency http://www.carat.com/about/services/ - last access 06/03/2013

MindShare – Media Buying Agency http://www.mindshareworld.com/what-we-do - last access 06/03/2013

ThinkingJuice – Media Buying Agency http://www.thinkingjuice.co.uk/media.html - last access 06/03/2013

References: Sean Brierley, The Advertising Handbook, 2002, 2nd edition, Routlidge press, London. Chapter 7 Advertising and the Media , Chapter 8 Media planning and buying, Chapter 9 Media Research, pp 81-137 John Wilsmshurst, The Fundamentals of Advertising, 5th edition, 1991, Redwood press, London. Chapter 14 Media Buying, Planning and Scheduling, pp178-187. Winston Fletcher, Powers of Persuasion: The inside story of British Advertising, 2008, Oxford University Press, Oxford/ Carat – Media Buying Agency http://www.carat.com/about/services/ - last access 06/03/2013 MindShare – Media Buying Agency http://www.mindshareworld.com/what-we-do - last access 06/03/2013 ThinkingJuice – Media Buying Agency http://www.thinkingjuice.co.uk/media.html - last access 06/03/2013