Another minefield. The finest creative advertising becomes pointless if it's on the wrong stage, in the wrong media talking to the wrong people, and there's a great deal of investigative and research work required before we can produce a strong, cost-effective media campaign.

YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE. Before the Planners can begin, it is essential that you, the advertiser, knows exactly who your Target Audience is in order to allow the Planner to direct your hard-earned advertising budget in the right direction, and it's amazing how many advertisers get this wrong - meaning that a large chunk of their budget is wasted.

MEDIA TYPE. The nature of the product often determines a specific media type to reach your Target Audience.
For example a music product naturally lends itself to TV, Radio or Cinema and trade suppliers (for builders or plumbers) cry out for Direct Mail.

MEDIA PLANNING. Once we know the Target Audience, the Planners use all the information available to identify the most efficient media to reach them. All media 'owners' (i.e. publications) provide statistics of their readership or viewing audience and a Planner will use this information, together with media tools (such as ACORN), to assess the most cost effective way to reach the maximum Target Audience.

MEDIA BUYING. Once the Planner has created the full media schedule, the Buyer (it's often the same person!) will then negotiate the rates with the media owners, often achieving figures far less than the Rate Card depending on various factors but particularly, naturally, volume.

THE CAMPAIGN. One-off ads rarely have much effect. It is important to build a campaign over a designated period, both in creative terms and in media frequency to produce a strong audience receptiveness and awareness.

MEDIA WASTE. Unfortunately, ALL media spend has a degree of wastage, from 1% to 100%, and if a publication claims that 45% of its readership is your Target Audience (sounds good!) then 55% of your spend is obviously a complete waste and it's therefore the Planners' job to keep that wastage to an absolute minimum.

LATE SPACE. All media has a Rate Card figure. The media's Sales Team has to clear a specific amount of space (or time) for a specific overall figure (i.e. 70% of total Rate Card) and as that sales period comes to an end there is often space or time that they need to clear at a greatly reduced rate. However, always ensure that firstly, the media is already on your considered schedule and that you are guaranteed a decent position (late space is notorious for poor positions).

RESPONSE MECHANISMS. The only way to understand fully the success (or failure) of your advertising is, if possible, to include some form of response mechanism or research. It is imperative that you know, in detail, what your advertising is doing.

POSITION. A good position is vital. An ad on page 3 can be 50 times more powerful than an ad on page 62!

WHAT CAN GO WRONG? Plenty. Getting the Target Audience wrong, misreading the market demographics, believing as 'gospel' the media demographics (which are often suspect), preparing an imbalanced schedule, using incorrect media, poor positions...

To succeed with your advertising - analyze, test, analyze, LEARN.