What is Media Buying?
By Kevin MarshallPresident, Marshall Advertising
I own an advertising agency, more specifically a 'media buying' company. I always get the question from family, friends and the occasional stranger on the street, "What IS media buying?" I always blurt out in an excited, rushed manner . "Media-buying-is-the-planning-negotiating-and-purchasing-of-media-for-delivery-of-an-advertising-message!" I usually smile when I am done giving them the definition and try to catch my breath . while eagerly awaiting validation that they now understand the definition of media buying. The general response is "Ohhhhhh, Ohhhh-K, now I get it". It is accompanied by a fake smile and raised eyebrows which clearly tells me they don't get it! Quite frankly, media buying is a somewhat complex discipline to describe. It is more sophisticated than brain surgery, requires more planning than a wedding coordinator (remember "Fronk" from "Father of the Bride?") and takes tenacity and savvy only seen in movies!
Recently, during "career week" at Christ the King School in Tampa, I was asked to come in and speak to my daughter's 4th grade class and my son's 2nd grade class about what it is I do for a living. I assumed that they already went through the list of the obvious cool careers (football player, fireman, dog walker, librarian, bus driver, etc.) before they got around to inviting the 'media buyer'. The obvious flashback to Billy Crystal's character in "City Slickers" (when he tries to explain to his son's class that he "sells air" for a living) ran through my head as I tried to come up with a plan. I have a hard enough time getting my family, friends and the occasional stranger on the street to understand what it is I do.
I went in to the first class armed with examples of some of our clients' ads AND (maybe more importantly) 'cool' things to pass out. Luckily my children gave me the heads-up that it would be a good idea, no, make that "mandatory", that I bring in some stuff to pass out. I went in to the class, set up my ad display and was greeted with the standard "Good MORning MISter MARshall." I started off by asking the kids where they see advertising. They came up with the obvious choices; radio, TV, etc. I explained to them that advertising could be found everywhere even in their class room . right down to the school logo on their uniform shirts. I am fortunate to have some clients that the kids know very well such as the Tampa Bay Lightning, The Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, Tampa Bay Storm and others. They saw the print ads and pictures of billboards that I brought in and quickly understood the concept of the creative part of advertising.
Now came the tricky part; getting them to understand the media buying part of the process . how we go about putting the ads in the newspaper, on the radio or on/in any of the other 7,834,212 mediums now available to advertisers. I decided to explain this by way of example with radio. I told the kids to pretend we were doing a radio advertising campaign for the Tampa Bay Lightning and we wanted kids their age to know about the promotion. The first thing we need to know is what radio stations are best at reaching kids their age. I asked the kids to raise their hands and tell me what radio station they listen to. Forget about raising hands or even answering one at a time. Forget even doing any of this quietly! Above the all-at-once screams, Radio Disney was the first one that I could make out. Once the teacher sprayed them down with water cannons and restored order, I kept asking until I got a list of 6-8 stations. On a side note, I didn't know that 2nd grade kids listen to Classic Rock, Jazz or the Elvis Channel on Satellite Radio.
Once we had the list I explained to them that we need to figure out which station was most popular with this group. I went down the list and asked for a show of hands for each station. Radio Disney was the overwhelming choice for this group - turns out the Jazz and Classic Rock were isolated cases! Once we determined that Radio Disney was the best radio station to reach kids their age we then had to determine the best times of the day to advertise on that station. I once again went to the scientific method of research, raising hands, to determine the most-listened parts of the day. It turns out that morning, afternoons and weekends were the biggest winners. I told the kids that we now know that we are going to advertise on Radio Disney during the morning, afternoons and weekends in order to promote the Tampa Bay Lightning's kid campaign! VOILA!! Amazingly enough they seemed to get it. This was a momentous breakthrough for me!! I did decide to leave out how we tenaciously negotiate down the advertising rates with the radio stations and how we try to buy advertising in a synergistic fashion so that our message is ubiquitous in the marketplace! I did close strong by handing out hockey cards and Styrofoam hockey pucks! I think I even outdid the dentist that handed out toothbrushes and the jeweler who handed out birthstones! Media buying rules!!
Now, just so we are all clear here, we don't really use a show of hands to determine how we are going to execute our advertising plans. We subscribe to quite a bit of research and audience measurement information that we utilize in place of the hand-raising technique. My wife thought I needed to mention that!
Career day was fun. All and all I was pretty pleased with the fact that I was able to explain media buying to 2nd and 4th graders. Now, if I could just explain it to my family, friends, the occasional stranger on the street!!
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