GB531 Unit 6 Media Plan Example

Counting Cost Only Against the Homeowners Who Matter: A Unit 6 Media Plan for a Gulf Coast Battery Brand

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

GB531: Advertising

Unit 6 Media Plan

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The battery brand, its media prices and every figure are composite and illustrative; the sources cited are real.

The Target and the Universe

The audience profile in Unit 4 defined the media universe as adults from 35 through 64 who own and live in detached homes, about 1.76 million across the three markets and about 980,000 in Houston. Media is bought and measured against that universe. A target rating point is one percent of the universe reached once.

Table 1: Cost per Thousand Target Adults

Each vehicle's price per thousand impressions is divided by the share of its audience that falls in the universe.

Local TV news and weather: $24 per thousand impressions; about 30 percent on target; about $80 per thousand target adults.

Connected TV bought on household data: $42; about 80 percent on target; about $52.50.

Streaming audio: $16; about 32 percent on target; about $50.

Weather pages on local news sites: $12; about 22 percent on target; about $54.55.

Connected TV costs nearly twice as much per impression as local TV and about a third less per homeowner reached, because four in five of its viewers are in the universe.

Belch and Belch (2021) describe cost per thousand as a basic efficiency measure but caution that it means little until it is calculated against the target audience. Buying on raw cost per thousand would have put most of the budget into local news websites and the least into connected TV, the opposite of what the target-adjusted figures show.

Why Not Buy Only the Cheapest Vehicle

Streaming audio is the cheapest per target adult, but it cannot show the empty gas can or the house where nothing needs doing. Local TV news and weather is the most expensive per target adult, but in hurricane season it reaches homeowners at the moment they are watching storm tracks. The plan uses each vehicle for what it does best: television and connected TV for the core story, audio for frequency during commutes, and weather pages for reach when storms approach.

Table 2: The Houston Flight

The Houston flight runs six weeks, from late May into early July, the period before and early in hurricane season. A cost per target rating point in Houston equals the cost per thousand target adults times 980, the number of thousands in the universe, divided by 100.

Local TV news and weather: 180 target rating points at about $784 a point, about $141,100.

Connected TV: 160 points at about $515, about $82,300.

Streaming audio: 79 points at about $490, about $38,700.

Weather pages: 40 points at about $535, about $21,400.

Total: 459 target rating points for about $283,500.

Reach and Frequency

Across six weeks, 459 target rating points should reach about 80 percent of the Houston universe at least once, with an average frequency of about 5.7. More important for a new message, about half should be reached three or more times. Krugman (1972) argued that three exposures may be enough for an advertisement to register, be understood and be acted on, and later practice has often used three as a working threshold for effective frequency.

Reach Over Frequency Beyond Three

Once about half the universe has seen the message three times, the plan favors adding new viewers over adding a fourth or fifth exposure for the same ones. Sharp (2010) argues that brands grow mostly by reaching more of a category's buyers, including those who buy rarely, rather than by deepening contact with a loyal few. For a home battery, nearly every homeowner in the universe is a potential first-time buyer, so reach beyond the core message audience has value even though the creative is written for generator owners.

The Flowchart

Weeks 1 to 6, late May to early July: local TV news and weather at about 30 points a week, connected TV at about 27, streaming audio at about 13 and weather pages at about 7, with weather pages increased automatically when a named storm enters the Gulf.

Weeks 7 to 10, mid-July to early August: off air, except search and the second mail drop.

Weeks 11 and 12, August: a pulse of connected TV and streaming audio at the peak of hurricane season, sized in the budget allocation model.

Fit With the Budget

Houston's share of working media, set in the allocation model, is about $433,000. With 10 percent held for mail and 10 percent for search, about $346,000 is available for the vehicles above. The six-week flight uses about $283,500, leaving about $62,500 for the August pulse.

Tampa-St. Petersburg and New Orleans

The same method applies in the other two markets, with each market's universe used to compute cost per point. New Orleans, where outages last longest, receives the highest spending per target adult, as the allocation model explains.

Risks

Target-adjusted figures depend on the on-target shares, which are estimates from audience data and should be checked with post-campaign delivery reports. A major storm during the flight could make local news inventory scarce and more expensive, and might make advertising during an emergency seem insensitive; the plan pauses television spots while a storm is actively affecting a market and resumes once it passes.

References

Belch, G. E., & Belch, M. A. (2021). Advertising and promotion: An integrated marketing communications perspective (12th ed.). McGraw Hill.

Krugman, H. E. (1972). Why three exposures may be enough. Journal of Advertising Research, 12(6), 11-14.

Sharp, B. (2010). How brands grow: What marketers don't know. Oxford University Press.