Study Room - Marketing

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Exam Hall

Multiple Choice
	Advertising Test
Exam Questions
	AVCE, Edexcel, Spec 2000

	AVCE, OCR, Spec 2000

	AVCE, Edexcel, Spec 2000

	AS, AQA, Unit 3, Jan 2005

5 Selecting Advertising Media

In addition to deciding upon the content, style and tone of the advertising message, the media through which the message will be communicated to the target audience must also be selected, be it television, newspaper, magazine, radio or other.

In order to select the most appropriate media, consideration should be given to the advantages and disadvantages of each of the available types of media. In the table below we have identified commonly accepted advantages and disadvantages of each of the major media. This is followed by more detailed consideration of each of these media in later sections of the article.

Media Strengths and Weaknesses

Media	Strengths	Weaknesses

Television	Dynamic attention getting media, combining visual, sound and animated stimulus Strong potential Impact & High market coverage Good at demonstrating products Enabling targeting through selection of viewing channels and slots between specific programmes	High level of initial expenditure required �Now you see it, Now you don�t� media, in that commercials are on the screen and gone within seconds Poor at communicating lengthy technical information

Newspapers	The coffee table effect � advert can be referred back to several times Targeting is possible through profiling readership Good level of market coverage	Static media, not suitable for product demonstration Potential for poor reproduction, sometimes limited to black and white print Possibility of an individual advert being lost on a page of adverts Short-life span, i.e. todays newspapers become tomorrows rubbish

Radio	Mass use of radio by audience, particularly in cars on the way to work and home High geographic and demographic reach Targeting is possible through selection of channel and programme	Audio communication only Now you hear it, Now you don�t Lower attention levels than television from the audience

Magazines	High quality reproduction, of colour images Targeting is possible through specialist publications Coffee table effect � advert can be referred back to Good pass on readership	Static media, not suitable for product demonstration Control of the positioning of adverts is often under the control of magazine editor, rather than the sponsor Lengthy lead-time between advert being placed and magazine being published

Outdoor	High repeat exposure to advert Relatively low cost Low levels of competition, in terms of advertising clutter	Limited audience selectivity / targeting possible Static media, not suitable for product demonstrations Difficult to monitor effectiveness Potential for damage, via weather and graffiti

Note

All of the above media share one common characteristic, and as a result one common weakness, in that they are one-way communication, not requiring the audience to respond and thus not motivating the audience to pay attention in the same way that is required in two-way communication.

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