Tuesday, March 31, 2015

How to use data in media planning

1.      What is big data?

Big data is a buzzword, or catch-phrase, used to describe a massive volume of both structured and unstructured data that is so large that it's difficult to process using traditional database and software techniques.
Big data is a popular term used to describe the exponential growth and availability of data, both structured and unstructured. And big data may be as important to business – and society – as the Internet has become. Why? More data may lead to more accurate analyses. More accurate analyses may lead to more confident decision making. And better decisions can mean greater operational efficiencies, cost reductions and reduced risk.

3 Vs of big data by Doug Laney, 2001

1.       Volume
Many factors contribute to the increase in data volume. Transaction-based data stored through the years. Unstructured data streaming in from social media. Increasing amounts of sensor and machine-to-machine data being collected. In the past, excessive data volume was a storage issue. But with decreasing storage costs, other issues emerge, including how to determine relevance within large data volumes and how to use analytics to create value from relevant data.
2.       Velocity
Data is streaming in at unprecedented speed and must be dealt with in a timely manner. RFID tags, sensors and smart metering are driving the need to deal with torrents of data in near-real time. Reacting quickly enough to deal with data velocity is a challenge for most organizations.
3.       Variety
Data today comes in all types of formats. Structured, numeric data in traditional databases. Information created from line-of-business applications. Unstructured text documents, email, video, audio, stock ticker data and financial transactions. Managing, merging and governing different varieties of data is something many organizations still grapple with.

2.      How and when a company should use media agencies?

·         What are the different media channels used by a company?

Traditional Media: broadcast and cable television, radio, movie and music studios, newspapers, magazines, books and most print publications.
Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, Tumblr, Pinterest.

The Internet of Things

The Internet of Things is a growing network of everyday objects – from industrial machines to consumer goods – that can share information and complete tasks while you are busy with other activities, like work, sleep or exercise.
Soon, our cars, our homes, our major appliances and even our city streets will be connected to the Internet – creating this network of objects that is called the Internet of Things, or IoT for short.
Made up of millions of sensors and devices that generate incessant streams of data, the IoT can be used to improve our lives and our businesses in many ways. But how does it work? And what are these things that are part of the network?
The Internet of Things consists of three main components:
·         The things (or assets) themselves.
·         The communication networks connecting them.
·         The computing systems that make use of the data flowing to and from our things.
Using this infrastructure, objects or assets can communicate with each other and even optimize activities between them based on the analysis of data streaming through the network.
·         Fifty billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020, predicts Cisco.
·         Seventy-five percent of global business leaders are exploring the economic opportunities of IoT, according to a report from The Economist.
·         Cities will spend $41 trillion in the next 20 years on infrastructure upgrades for IoT, according to Intel.
·         The UK government recently approved 45 million pounds (US$76.26 million) in research funding for Internet of Things technologies.
Businesses are actively looking for opportunities where streaming data will create new markets, inspire positive change or improve existing services. Let’s look at some examples from industries at the forefront of this revolution:
·         Intelligent transport solutions speed up traffic flows, reduce fuel consumption, prioritize vehicle repair schedules, and save lives.
·         Smart electric grids more efficiently connect renewable resources, improve system reliability and charge consumers based on smaller usage increments.
·         Remote health care monitoring provides convenient access to health care, raising its quality and reach, and saving money.
·         Sensors in homes and airports, or even shoes and doors, improve security by sending signals when they are unused for a certain period of time – or if they are used at the wrong time.
·         Machine monitoring sensors diagnose – and predict – pending maintenance issues, near-term part stockouts, and even prioritize maintenance crew schedules for repair equipment and regional needs.
Connected devices are making their way from business and industry to the mass market. We’ll be seeing more and more compact, connected sensors and actuators in everyday consumer electronics, household appliances and city infrastructures. So, if you’re low on milk, you can get an alert from your refrigerator as you travel by the store on the way home and before lifting a nearly empty carton at dinner. If you’re a loyal customer when you pick up that carton of milk at the store, you might not even need to check out. Sensors will identify what you have taken from the shelf and automatically charge your account when you leave the store with the item.
If you work in manufacturing or telecommunications, you are already seeing the effects of the Internet of Things. Clearly, the IoT is not just a convenience for consumers. It offers new sources of data and business operating models that can revitalize productivity and success.
As more and more devices, machines and industrial assets become connected to the Internet, the ecosystems connecting businesses will change the way we function and make decisions. There’s a tremendous amount of data being generated, and it offers great potential to the companies that can extract the meaning from streaming data.
In IoT discussions, it’s recognized from the onset that analytics technologies are critical for turning this tide of streaming source data into informative, aware and useful knowledge.
But how do we analyze data as it streams nonstop from sensors and devices? And how does the process differ from other analytical methods that are common today?
In traditional analysis, data is stored and then analyzed. However, with streaming data, the models and algorithms are stored and the data passes through them for analysis. This type of analysis makes it possible to identify and examine patterns of interest as the data is being created – in real time.
So before the data is stored, in the cloud or in any high-performance repository, you process it automatically. Then, you use analytics to decipher the data, all while your devices continue to emit and receive data.
With advanced analytics techniques, data stream analytics can move beyond monitoring existing conditions and evaluating thresholds to predicting future scenarios and examining complex questions.
To assess the future using these data streams, you need high-performance technologies that identify patterns in your data as they occur. Once a pattern is recognized, metrics embedded into the data stream drive automatic adjustments in connected systems or initiate alerts for immediate actions and better decisions.

3.      How to collect and analyze media habits?

·         What are the ethical and legal issues related to data collection?

There are several ethical issues which must always be considered when planning any type of data collection. Data collection always costs someone something. It may cost health workers' time and energy to complete surveillance forms. It certainly costs the health coordinating organization money and time to collect, analyze, interpret, and disseminate surveillance data and results. Surveys are even more resource intensive. Data collection also costs the people in the population from which the data are collected a certain amount of time, discomfort, and potential harm.
In addition, implementing or revising programs in response to the conclusions drawn from data collected always cost manpower, time, money, and other resources. And if the conclusions are wrong because the data were poorly collected, these resources, which could have been used otherwise, may be wasted or inefficiently employed.
Therefore, before beginning the planning process, be sure that the results of the data collection will:
·         Truly be needed,
·         Be disseminated widely,
·         Be used to implement or revise a program, and
·         Use the least intrusive and costly data collection method possible
Nonetheless, keep in mind that data collection in emergency situations is necessary to guide program decisions. Collection of data necessary for this purpose should not be delayed if the data collection poses only minimal risk to individuals or groups.
Regardless of the type of data collection, it is absolutely necessary to gain the approval of the community from which the data will collected. This is nice to state in theory, and everyone always agrees with it, but it is also true on a very practical level.
Most placed in the world require some sort of official approval for research activities involving contact with human subjects. The World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki outlines general principles of ethics in human research which are almost universally accepted. However, because specific regulations still differ substantially between countries and even between institutions, you must investigate the local regulations before embarking on data collection.
Security for those who collect data and for those from whom data are collected is yet another ethical issue. There are many issues concerning security which managers must consider before implementing a data collection:
·         Managers must judge whether or not the benefit derived from the data collection outweighs the potential injury or death to those directly involved in data collection.
·         Managers must decide how valid conclusions may be from a data collection which is incomplete due to insecurity. In some emergency situations, large geographic areas or large portions of the emergency-affected population are inaccessible because of security concerns. Is it worth collecting data from only secure areas when you already know that secure areas will be better off and a lower priority for interventions than the insecure areas?
·         Managers must try to anticipate the consequences of data collection for those from whom data are collected. In some situations, providing information to strangers may not be a socially acceptable thing to do.
·         Managers must provide the best possible protection for all concerned with a data collection.
·         Managers must determine how to provide adequate supervision of and communication with data collection personnel in the face of insecurity.

4.      How to make a media plan? (different steps)

·         Examples of a media plan

5 Strategic Media Planning Steps

Step 1: Capture the market share you "should own"
Insert yourself into the marketplace by being present. To be included in the consideration set within a product category, a product needs to be adequately present. This is the same thing as, in a grocery store, sitting on same shelf as competing products. Ideally, you want to be at eye-level, which is the same as being returned as one of the top results in a search engine, as well as sitting in the mix of product reviews on any number of websites.
To accomplish this, a marketer need to build a search engine optimized website and work diligently to show up in all the places where your target would look for a category of products. To show up on the brand or product name is not enough; the product should show up on a general search because with a new product prospects will not likely know the product name on which to search.
A quick way to "show up" is to use paid listings (aka, pay-per-click for Google, Yahoo! and other search engines) under the appropriate key phrases. Track the ones that are driving converting traffic and use some of that information to support search engine optimization efforts.
If the product is present, is priced reasonably and the differentiating features are basically communicated, the company will naturally capture a set of customers that firmly believe in those differentiating factors. Marketers will have to work harder in this step of the webcentric marketing process to capture those customers than later in this process, but the company will at least acquire most of the customers that are aching for your solution.
Tactics to employ in this step:
·         Site analytics
·         Search marketing
·         Sales-driven, contextually placed ads
·         Froogle API (for e-commerce)
·         Public relations (placed product reviews, for example)
Step 2: Merchandise the product or service
Make sure that your prospective customer clearly understands what your product has to offer by manipulating its features and benefits to position against those of your competitors.
Once the product is present where its prospective customer is looking for a solution, a marketer will have to begin working on merchandising the product or service on the site. In this case, one must think like a retailer. The product needs to be accurately described and positioned, and then the company can encourage sales through special offers or partnerships.
At this step, it is imperative that the features and benefit of the product or service are established in extreme clarity. This is not intended to inundate the user, but give them every reason to consider this product; no bases should be left uncovered. Then, grease the skids through special offers, incentives and validating partnerships.
Tactics to employ in this step:
·         Flash product demos
·         Comparison tools
·         Partnerships
·         Promotion codes
·         Public relations (to highlight marquee customers and exclusive product features)
Step 3: Capture incremental revenue by eliminating "confused customers" through usability testing and site optimization.
Now that customers are able to answer their questions about the product, it is important to understand where they become confused in the sales process. For example, button placement may be confusing, or certain verbiage may turn the user off.  With each change made in this step, results should be carefully tracked and measured.
The magnifying glass should not only be on aspects of the site, but also in advertising programs and internal processes. This oftentimes is where one can capture incremental revenue as little things are cleaned up as they're uncovered. By this step focusing on learning details about the consumer, this step can often segue to the next through the discovery of "the big idea" that leads to a brand strategy.
Tactics to employ in this step:
·         Advanced site analytics
·         Marketing dashboards
·         Site-wide usability testing
·         Feedback tools
·         Enhanced or improved site software, such as an improved shopping cart, store locator, etc.
Step 4: Create intangible benefits through branding
Create perceived value, brand personality and other intangible benefits.
People want to feel good about the products they buy and the companies they support. When people sit on the fence between purchasing one product over another, the product that wins that battle is the brand with which a customer best aligns. Winning this battle consistently is when a product's market share can really explode.
The customer may often create "an excuse" to tell people why they selected the product, such as price or convenience; however, underlying that excuse may be the reality that they liked the color orange, the guy in the commercial was funny, or a neighbor will covet this product. By digging into the psychographics of the consumer and understanding the real motivation for purchasing a product, a marketer can play to the buyer's id while providing "an excuse" through one of the other marketing Ps.
Tactics to employ in this step:
·         Qualitative research
·         Brand-oriented banner ads
·         Broadcast
·         Print media
·         Viral or guerilla tactics
·         Blogs, podcasts
Step 5: Retain customers and create fans by crafting the experience
Get to know your customer and their friends by supporting their needs and facilitating their experience with your product or service.
Now that you understand your brand and what truly drives people to purchase your product, you can begin to craft "the experience." That experience should permeate throughout the organization and into every consumer touch-point. It should be consistent and measurable.
There are a number of notable brands that have effectively created a customer experience enhanced by the web. Each of those brands experience a vibrant community of followers and promoters who carry the experience torch for the company and their products. They deal with support issues on behalf of the company, they forward information on to friends and they provide a constant flow of information to the company.
In this step, the marketing strategy has become much more complex and influences all aspects of the company, internal and external. At this point, the company should be not only marketing products, but managing a brand, as well. However, because of today's web, there is a third skill required: reputation management. Consumers now have a heightened ability to manipulate your brand image through such an open and immediate forum.
This is an era where users can easily create their own commercials (good or bad) for your product, blog about experiences with your company or develop websites to associate themselves with your company. The best thing you can do if you reach this step is to cultivate the good and monitor the bad.
Tactics to employ in this step:
·         Customer lifecycle management
·         Affinity and loyalty programs
·         Customer forums
·         Brand reputation management monitoring
·         Branding guidelines
Media Planning, in advertising, is a series of decisions involving the delivery of message to the targeted audience. Media Plan, is the plan that details the usage of media in an advertising campaign including costs, running dates, markets, reach, frequency, rationales, and strategies.

Steps in Development of Media Plan

1. Market Analysis
Every media plan begins with the market analysis or environmental analysis. Complete review of internal and external factors is required to be done. At this stage media planner try to identify answers of the following questions:
Who is the target audience?
What internal and external factors may influence the media plan?
Where and when to focus the advertising efforts?
The target audience can be classified in terms of age, sex, income, occupation, and other variables. The classification of target audience helps media planner to understand the media consumption habit, and accordingly choose the most appropriate media or media mix.

2. Establishing Media Objective
Media objectives describes what you want the media plan to accomplish. There are five key media objectives that an advertiser or media planner has to consider - reach, frequency, continuity, cost, and weight.
Reach - Reach refers to the number of people that will be exposed to to a media vehicle at least once during a given period of time.
Frequency - Frequency refers to the average number of times an individual within target audience is exposed to a media vehicle during a given period of time.
Continuity - It refers to the pattern of advertisements in a media schedule. Continuity alternatives are as follows:
Continuous: Strategy of running campaign evenly over a period of time.
Pulsing: Strategy of running campaign steadily over a period of time with intermittent increase in advertising at certain intervals, as during festivals or special occasions like Olympics or World-Cup.
Discontinuous: Strategy of advertising heavily only at certain intervals, and no advertising in the interim period, as in case of seasonal products.
Cost - It refers to the cost of different media
Weight - Weight refers to total advertising required during a particular period.
3. Determining Media Strategies
Media strategy is determined considering the following:
Media Mix - From the wide variety of media vehicles, the advertiser can employ one vehicle or a mix suitable vehicles.
Target Market
Scheduling - It shows the number of advertisements, size of advertisements, and time on which advertisements to appear.
Seasonal Pulse: Seasonal products like cold creams follows this scheduling.
Steady Pulse: According to this scheduling one ad is shown over a period of time, say one ad per week or one ad per month.
Periodic Pulse: A regular pattern is followed in such scheduling, as in case of consumer durable, and non-durable.
Erratic Pulse: No regular pattern is followed in such scheduling.
Start-up Pulse: Such scheduling is followed during a new campaign or a launch of a new product.
Promotional Pulse: It is for short time, only for a promotional period.
Reach and frequency
Creative Aspects - Creativity in ad campaigns decides the success of the product, but to implement this creativity firm must employ a media that supports such a strategy.
Flexibility - An effective media strategy requires a degree of flexibility.
Budget Considerations - In determining media strategy cost must be estimated and budget must be considered.
Media Selection - It covers two broad decisions - selection of media class, and selection of media vehicle within media class.
4. Implementation of Media Plan
The implementation of media plan requires media buying. Media Buying refers to buying time and space in the selected media. Following are the steps in media buying:
Collection of information: Media buying requires sufficient information regarding nature of target audience, nature of target market, etc.
Selection of Media/Media Mix: Considering the collected information and ad-budget, media or media mix is selected which suits the requirements of both - target audience and advertiser.
Negotiation: Price of media is negotiated to procure media at the lowest possible price.
Issuing Ad - copy to media: Ad-copy is issued to the media for broadcast or telecast
Monitoring performance of Media: Advertiser has to monitor whether the telecast or broadcast of ad is done properly as decided.
Payment - Finally, it is the responsibility of advertiser to make payment of media bills on time.
5. Evaluation and Follow-up
Evaluation is essential to assess the performance of any activity. Two factors are important in evaluation of media plan:
How successful were the strategies in achieving media objectives?
Was the media plan successful in accomplishing advertising objective?
Successful strategies help build confidence and serve as reference for developing media strategies in future, and failure is thoroughly analyzed to avoid mistakes in future.

Sources

·         SAS Institute Inc. Big data. What it is & why it matters. 2015. (http://www.sas.com/en_us/insights/big-data/what-is-big-data.html)
·         SAS Institute Inc. Internet of Things (IoT). 2015. (http://www.sas.com/en_us/insights/big-data/internet-of-things.html)
·         Patidar, M. MBA Notes - Media Planning Process. 2012. (http://www.enotesmba.com/2012/07/mba-notes-media-planning-process.html)
·         Carr, R. 5 Strategic Media Planning Steps. 2006. (http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/11160.asp#multiview)
·         London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Ethical issues in data collection. 2009. (http://conflict.lshtm.ac.uk/page_12.htm)


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