Media Plan Assignment

Written Portion - due 4/28 (Friday of week 13)
Possible project choices

Some interesting foodie resources

Your final project should contain at least the following pieces:

  • Executive summary - a one page bullet list overview of the plan - what are the most important bits that you wnat to be sure we get
  • Product Analysis - company info, sales info, product history, current news, where sales strongest, timing (when do people buy your product)
  • Competition Analysis - substitute products, similar products
  • Company Current Marketing - what are they doing now - nationally, regionally, locally
  • Competition Current Marketing - what are they doing now (and how is it different from what you're doing currently)
  • Audience Analysis - what audience has the company identified already - demographics, size, geographic location, lifestyle analysis, their media habits
  • Marketing Objectives - what do you think your proposed media plan will accomplish - be specific, have some varied goals (sales, brand awareness, satisfaction with past purchase - these drive the plan
  • Overall Rationale for Media Spending - need rationale for every decision somewhere inthe paper - this should be a high level rationale for the plan as a whole
  • Actual plan - break down by media, by calendar time, by audience demo, by geographic sector (I don't care - just have some organization, could be all of the above) - how much you're going to spend, when you're going to spend it, why you're going to spend it (here's the rationale and the why includes why this much, why this media, why this many ads, why these months), what you hope to get out of spending it (tie back to the objectives) - this is the charts, tables, spreadsheets come into play - use the math we've been learning in class - talk costs, CPM, ratings, reach & frequency, be specific about media spending - don't just say national tv - say what networks, what dayparts, maybe even what show -- and the plan HAS to include something different (some alternative/guerrila kind of marketing)
  • Rationale for not using certain media (for example one year Tivo didn't run ads on tv since that's what their product was all about - skipping ads)
  • Flowchart - organized by time - show when you're spending the money in all the different media - shows when campaign launches, peak spending periods, overlap between media vehicles
  • How you're going to measure the success or failure of your plan - tie back into your objectives
  • Alternative plans at varying budget levels above and below the established level
  • If your plan has something special - or a theme thru out - play it up - in the intro, in the rationale, all the way thru the plan - help me see it and know why it's important - don't just stick it in in the end or (even worse) assume that I will figure out your cool idea
  • Bibliography (for your product analysis, audience analysis, competiition analysis, current marketing practices of your company and competition, proposed audience) - I expect this to be more than one or two pages - you have to read a lot to do this right , you need to include your data sources - so keep track of these things during the semester. I'm looking for goood quality sources - trade journals, industry blogs, company web pages.

Grading Criteria

  • Good writing - no typos, good grammar, edited text - no run on sentences, no overly long paragraphs, no awkward phrases
  • Good bibliography - both quality of sources and organization of the references
  • Connections in plan to the marketing objectives
  • Completeness - are all the bits there, can i easily find stuff in the written report, table of contents maybe or section tabs, is the audience analysis complete
  • Is the math done correctly (is the right formula used for the different media)
  • Is there something innovative about the plan or is it just same old same old? does the advertising/promotion hang together - make sense together - act as more than just a series of individual ads?
  • Is the statistical info/math output easy to read/interpret?
  • Is there rationale for each choice - and is it appropriate for the marketing objectives
  • Is there some reason for the timing of the plan or does it just start in January because that's the first month?
  • Does the plan look nice - cover, graphics, not too much text on a page - doesn't have to be bound - don't spend a lot of money on making the final output - you can staple it/big clip it, you can have black and white images, you can print it on an ink jet printer. The content is what's important - it's organization, completeness. But it should look good on the page.

Group Presentation - due during final exam time on 5/8
Each group has to present their plan. More specifically - present a summary/overview of the plan. Think highlights, not in-depth. Be sure to highlight the things you think are most innovative in your plan, things that will make it stand out from other presentations.

Don't bore us. Be creative! Show us videos - one group did that earlier. They took short videos of members of the typical target audience talking about their media use - made good evidence to support the group's media choices. And they just shot the video with their still camera. You could make a slide show of images to illustrate parts of the talk. Give a pop quiz. One group earlier mocked up a decorate your dorm room contest and we all put together pictures of what our dorm room would look like using the company's furniture and accessories. It was fun, got us involved with the product, and showed what our customers would be doing. It was a big hit.

Do not just talk at us and show us a seemingly endless series of graphs/charts - I hate that. Think about the best way to present the info. Maybe you give the audience handouts. Maybe you have some theme to organize the info around - channels on a tv, letters in your company name. Earlier someone did target - they organized their plan around the bulls eye rings on the target logo. Maybe you sing & dance (just kidding). One group put on a fashion show (pretending to be kids for The Children's Place). But put some creative energy into the presentation - give the customer a reason to look at your printed plan. And be ready to answer questions - to clarify things you've covered, about topics you didn't include in the presentation/report, strange off-the-wall questions (not too many of those hopefully) But be prepared to answer what if questions - what if we suddenly had only 10% of the money available, what if we wanted to especially target college students or retired people in Florida, then what would you do differently. The report is kind of your bible - it should prepare you to answer anything they come up with at the presentation

Each group can have 15-20 minutes. If you think your group needs more time, let me know and we'll adjust the schedule. The presentations will be in our regular classroom with the computer, projector, overhead transparency projector, VCR, DVD player, CD in the computer. If you need something else - let me know. If you need transparency slides, let me know. You can use powerpoint, webpages, etc.

Grading Criteria

  • Is the presentation organized, practiced
  • Does everyone in the group participate in some way in the presentation
  • Is the group able to answer questions
  • Does presentation hold audience attention
  • Does presentation have something innovative

General Stuff A media plan is only as strong as its data. So collect all kinds of data. Trade journals, like MediaWeek, Broadcasting&Cable, AdAge, and AdWeek run special reports. Look thru issues of American Demographic. Check out the book TV Dimensions in the reference section of the library - lots of good stuff in that book. There is a book with info on lifestyles and household income organized by zipcode in the library. We haveSRDS and MRI+ data. There is census data available on the library website. Go to trade organizations, like the OAAA for outdoor advertising or the DMA for direct marketing. The library has a book called Demographics USA that has buying power indices for geographic areas - its in the reference section. Check the links on our class website, including a list of sites with data. I will stick new things there as I find them.

This page last updated 2 February 2007 by Kim Gregson


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