Courses - Communication Planning

WEEK 1: Media 101 What is media planning? Review basic media concepts and principles. Discuss the role of media planning in relation to account planning and creative development. Highlight the differences between the traditional media-first planning model versus the engagement-based, idea driven planning process.

WEEK 2: From Efficiency to Engagement When planning where to run advertising, media planners have typically utilized traditional media channels like television, print, radio, newspapers, out-of-home and online. However, the role of today’s media departments is evolving with the emergence of new media that consumers engage with in new ways.

WEEK 3: The Issue that the Brand Faces Brands can succeed or fail for a multitude of reasons. Before you begin to work, examine the issue the brand faces and determine if it is something that can be solved through advertising, search, reputation management, PR or something totally unrelated.

WEEK 4: Today the Idea is What Really Matters The fact that nearly everyone has a cell phone shouldn’t, by default, lead to the concepting of creative ideas for the mobile space. All too often, past executions, the birth of new mediums, and technological advancements drive idea generation. People will continue to have evolving consumption habits. The constant is that engaging creative content will always be King, regardless of the source of its distribution (TV commercial, YouTube spot, POP in-store materials). Thus, plan development and execution is increasingly becoming contingent on creative concepts. Technology and WOM no doubt can help successfully distribute great creative content, but if we don’t get the “what” (i.e. the ideas) right, the “who, when, where, and how” doesn’t matter as much.

WEEK 5: The Media Landscape is Changing There once was a time, not too long ago, when advertisers relied solely on the 30 second commercial. People gathered in their living rooms on a nightly basis to watch television. Through the years, Taxi, Cheers and Seinfeld dominated the airwaves. Television created pop culture phenomena. Remember the last episode of M.A.S.H.? Who shot J.R.? Clearly, this is no longer the case. Today, media choices are fragmented. With hundreds of TV channels, an infinite number of web sites, thousands of video games and more, control has shifted from content providers to consumers. Why are things changing now?

WEEK 6: Digital Immersion (Buzz Pocket Mining) Today’s social media landscape is growing exponentially and understanding the vast potential is essential when evaluating “conversational marketing” for inclusion in the marketing mix. It’s possible to influence millions of potential brand-evangelists from the comfort of one’s keyboard and mouse. Also, some communities have a serious aversion to any user who is suspected of commercialism. The secret to effectiveness is immersion in common community models as well as learning the ways and means, which define idiosyncratic social systems in various communities. Mainstream sites like StumbleUpon, Reddit, Delicious, Digg, Propeller, Mixx, LinkedIn, YouTube and micro-communities like SportsShooter, Threadless, Corkd and imbee are important to understand from both anthropological and marketing points of view in order to fully exploit the medium. In this session, students will learn how to identify and influence authority figures in any given social media space by total social media immersion.

WEEK 7: The Role of Research Working in conjunction with account planners to research the target audience and understand their media consumption habits plays a crucial role in the creative development and media planning process. However, it is important to keep in mind that research can also stifle creativity by leading us to duplicate past efforts rather than to invent something new. Instead of dubbing the unknown variables associated with creating something completely new as “too risky,” it is more about finding alternative ways to evaluate the uncharted waters so to speak.

WEEK 8: How to Create Innovative Media Plans and Advertising Campaigns The media planning process should start with the philosophy that “everything is media.” First, dig into the brand, the category, and consumers to identify areas of opportunity that can be tapped into. From this analysis, the media planners and their creative groups develop ideas for capitalizing on those insights—ranging from the product itself out to broad traditional advertising. These ideas are then woven into a coherent strategy for impacting the right consumers at the right times based on the client’s business objectives.

WEEK 9: Overcoming Obstacles to Innovation Having a narrow-minded view of what can be advertising, staying within the confines of traditional media, and using bribery as a means of reaching consumers are all examples of obstacles to innovation. Figuring out how to strategically implement crazier, non-traditional ideas, justify increased production spends and the like, are challenges that content distributors are welcoming as we move forward.

WEEK 10: Efficiency and Effectiveness are Different Things and Require Different Kinds of Measurement Efficiency measures look at media delivery establishing the total reach and frequency. Ratings are derived from these measurements of media efficiency and used as the trading currency for media. Measuring the efficiency of cross-media campaigns requires new models for understanding how media works synergistically. The function of measurements is to understand whether or not objectives are being achieved and to provide inputs into strategy. Ultimately, effectiveness measures need to be financial - media investment is exactly that: an investment intended to garner financial return. Digital opens up the possibility of very granular media measurement; the question here is often what is the important metric to be looking at, based on what the objectives are. Online, measurements have begun to move from media impressions towards measures of engagement, beginning with the click-through and evolving to measures of duration or search volumes and blog mentions.

WEEK 11: FINAL REVIEW The communication planning students are required to present their body of work from the program to a leading communication planner. This final review is a pass or fail crucible for the communication planning program.

WEEK 12: AGENCY EXPOSURE During the final week of the Boot Camp, students have the opportunity to meet with planning professionals.