The Ad Man Answers #56

Thursday + Gregory Huffstutter = The Ad Man Answers

Q:  I came across your post “The Ad Man Answers #4” and found it very informative for someone who doesn't know much about advertising.  I'm hoping you can help me decide what to charge for advertising space in a print medium that I’m producing.  The problem I’m having is determining the value of each ad impression.  Each of 13 ads will be viewed by the same person 90 times over the course of 6 months.  As well, the demographic viewing the ads will be exclusively 18-25 year olds.  Is 100,000 people viewing an ad 90 times (so 9million impressions) worth more or less than 9million people viewing an ad once (also 9million impressions)? 

-- Greg “thecrusher213”

 

 

A:  To be honest, neither of the above options would be particularly attractive to advertisers. 

9million people viewing an ad once does not give enough frequency to have that message stick in the minds of consumers.  But 100,000 people viewing an ad 90 times would be overkill – where you’re gone from informing people to pissing them off.  If you listen to AM radio – particularly regular-season baseball – you know what I’m talking about.  “If those cockroaches sing 1-800-TERMINIX one more time, I’m pouring Drano in my ears!!”

Even accounting for a 6-month timeframe, those frequency levels are beyond wear out.  For advertisers, more common communication goals might be in the neighborhood of 3-10 advertising exposures at a 50% reach level during a campaign. 

Let’s use a different example to break this down for authors and non-media planners.  Before embarking on any marketing effort, you need to first identify your target audience.  So if you’ve written a biography of Thomas Morton, your target might be heavy book readers older than 55 who live near Boston.  And let’s say you were able to figure out there were approximately 10,000 of these senior Bostonian bibliophiles.

During your Thomas Morton media campaign, if you use the above benchmark, your goal would be to make sure that at least 5,000 of your target audience (50% of 10,000) views your ad at least three times.    [See “The Ad Man Answers #6” for more on the “three time rule of thumb”]

That benchmark (which isn’t written in stone, and can vary by client and sales goals) helps one decide how much advertising to place on any one source.   For this example, let’s say you luckily find a magazine – Chapters & Chowder Weekly – that specifically targets senior Bostonian bibliophiles, and has newsstand sales of 5,000 copies per issue.

“Perfect!” you say.  “I’ll buy three issues, and half my target audience will have seen my ad three times, which hits my minimum frequency level.” 

Not so fast.  

Looking over the magazine’s media kit, you find that the average reader of Chapters & Chowder Weekly only reads one issue a month (too busy going to clam-bakes the other weeks, one could assume).

So buying three issues would not reach 5,000 individuals equally.  A percentage of readers will read all three issues.  Another percentage will only read one of the three issues.  It might take seven advertising insertions over several months to make sure that at least 50% of your target audience receives at least three advertising exposures.

But it wouldn’t take 90 insertions to hit your communication goals.  And that’s the problem with the 9million impression advertising platform referenced in today’s question. 

There are three things Greg “thecrusher213” could do when pricing his print vehicle, to help interest potential advertisers:

1)      Make sure that advertisers are able to regularly rotate creative during the 6-months.  That would help alleviate wear-out, and allow advertisers to feature multiple products or different executions of the same product.

2)      Break up the advertising sponsorships into smaller packages, so advertisers can just run for a month or two, instead of the full 6-month period

3)      Only charge for the initial impressions until you hit the maximum reach threshold within your subscriber base (hard to know that number unless you commission a study on your reader profile).  The reach threshold is when you’ve run out of new people viewing the ad, and are only driving frequency against the same audience.  Once you pass an average frequency of 10-20 against the same ad, you’re starting down the slippery slope to wear-out. So why not price it in a way that those impressions are considered bonus.

Good luck!

 

Gregory Huffstutter has been punching Ad Agency timecards for the past dozen years, working on accounts like McDonald's, KIA Motors, Suzuki Automotive, and the San Diego Padres. His first mystery, KATZ CRADLE is on submission while he's working on the sequel. The first 100 pages of his novel are linked here. For general advertising questions, leave a comment or send e-mail to katz @ gregoryhuffstutter dot com with 'Ask The Ad Man' in the subject line.

Comments

[Greg]

Hi Greg,
I just read your post and wanted to thank you again for your input. While your points make a lot of sense, unfortunately it is going to be difficult or even impossible to implement into my print vehicle. I wish I could discuss with you and explain what I'm doing but at this point, I can't talk about it. But this is a new form of print advertising, unlike a magazine or newspaper. The person in possession of the print product will have it in his/her possession for 6 months and will have/want to look through it roughly 90 times over the 6 months. So once it is in the consumers hands, ads can't be changed. I agree that after a certain point, people get sick of seeing the same ad and it may actually have an opposite effect where people will turn away from the advertised message. I'm not quite sure how to deal with that yet. However, this new print marketing vehicle has been meet with success over the past 2 years in parts of the US and England. Thanks again and I look forward to reading your upcoming posts on various advertising issues.

[gregory huffstutter]

If creative change-outs aren't possible, it will limit your pool of potential advertisers.

You should pitch companies that regularly produce general brand advertising -- Mountain Dew, Quiksilver, Nike -- print ads that are more fuzzy and emotional, without specific product offers.

Automotive, fast food, and other industries with regular price changes, will generally avoid long-term advertising placements if they can't rotate copy.

For someone like McDonald's, they wouldn't risk advertising $2 Big Macs with you if there's a chance a reader will go into their restarant 3 months after the offer expired, and create a stink at the counter.

Something to keep in mind as you develop your wish list of advertisers.

[Greg]

What about if a company like McDonald's just wanted to put an image of their logo on the ad? So they are not advertising a particular product, but rather maintaining brand awareness? Or take a car company. What if Ford just wanted to put a generic ad that advertising their company rather than a specific car model? Do you think they would show some interest?

[gregory huffstutter]

Global companies like McDonald's and Ford have such high brand-awareness, that they don't do a ton of generic advertising any more. Most of their budgets are spent pushing a specific product offering ("$1.99 Fish Fridays" or "0% APR on a Taurus").

If they do brand-only campaigns, it's usually around a big event (like the Olympics) or around a key demographic target (like McDonald's sponsoring "Sesame Street" on PBS).

I think your best bet is to try to sell to people like Dr. Pepper, where the brand is the product, and they don't do price-point, time-sensitive advertising. Fashion, video games, cell phones... you're going to want to find companies in those categories, because for them, name recognition is paramount, and they don't frequency change product offerings.