Search THE READING ROOM

Showing posts with label advertising. Show all posts
Showing posts with label advertising. Show all posts

Friday, June 24, 2016

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A MEDIA PLANNER (THANK YOU, COMMITS!)

Poorvi Kothari (Class of 2014) wrote this piece for The Commits Chronicle in June 2016:

Before I joined Commits I had no idea that a role like media planning even existed. But thanks to our classes with Mala Ma’am (Malavika Harita, CEO of Saatchi Focus), I not only learnt a lot about advertising but I also got introduced to some great roles, like those of media planners.

And that’s the beauty of Commits. You can come in without even knowing what you want to do or what you are capable of, but one thing is for sure, you’ll leave with a vision, direction, and goal in life.

POORVI AT HER DESK AT THE GROUPM OFFICE IN BENGALURU.

So what exactly is media planning? When I say I work as a media planner, people usually get a little excited and ask, oh, so you are in the TV industry? To which I politely say no. Then they jump to the next possibility: Oh, so then you are a journalist? To which I again say no. As I start explaining how the advertising world works, they become impatient and ask, oh, so you make ads? I say no, I just plan them. By then, even though they haven’t understood what “plan” means in this context they give up and say, oh, okay, that sounds good. 

So, yes, “media planner” is not a profession that everyone gets right away, like “journalist” or “copywriter”. Let me, therefore, try to put it in simple terms: Imagine a mind-blowing advertisement that never reaches its target audience. What good is the ad then? Media planners ensure that a brand’s ad is served up to the right audience. We are like distributors.

After an ad is created, media planners think of the best ways to reach out to the brand’s target audience (be it print, TV, radio, or digital). This involves a lot of statistical analysis as well as number-crunching. Media budgets are huge, typically in crores of rupees. Using this money to effectively reach out to a million consumers in the target audience is a big challenge.

I could go on about everything that happens in media planning, or at work, or at client meetings where we are grilled for explanations about why we are spending this much on a particular medium/channel/programme/website/newspaper, etc., or what the rationale is behind a particular strategy. We are talking big bucks here so, often, we play the role of lawyers, accountants, strategists, and investment bankers.

POORVI WITH HER TEAM MEMBER, COMMITSCION REYA DUTTA (CLASS OF 2015).

To sum up, media planning is the business side of advertising. It is not all about numbers, though. To me, media planning is a good mix of creativity and ingenuity combined with a knack for identifying key insights about what we refer to as media consumption. What I really love is how beautifully numbers can tell us stories, and the best part is when you are trying to sell a story and your job becomes so much easier because you can do so on the back of some powerful data.

Creative agencies feel proud when their TV commercials are seen on air, but for us it’s satisfying when people say, Hey, did you see that ad? It’s all over the place, man! That’s when I know, okay, I did a decent job there.
  • Here are three ads whose media plans were prepared by Poorvi and her team:



Thursday, November 12, 2015

Why ad guru Piyush Pandey cried, along with his clients

An excerpt from a thoroughly entertaining and enlightening book I finished reading in just a few hours on Tuesday:

(THE CHAPTER IS TITLED "UDNA AATA HAI? DO YOU KNOW HOW TO FLY?")
It was in the early 2000s that Ogilvy's Thought Leader, Madhukar Sabnavis, and his team, along with the Asian Paints marketing team, came to me with a new insight. They said that the focus of the consumer is on pride in their house, and paint is only an expression of that. This ground reality gave me the licence to fly when I wrote, 'Har ghar kuch kehta hai' (Every home has something to say).

I still remember having written that emotional piece on my pad — one shot, no change of word or punctuation. I read it to myself and cried.

I called up the clients, K.B.S. Anand and Amit Singhal, and said, 'Drop everything you're doing and come straight to my office.'

They arrived within an hour. I read out that piece. And this time all three of us cried. We knew we were about to take a flight together.

There are a couple of other instances in the book when Piyush Pandey talks about tearing up over ad copy. And there are many, many examples he gives us of the terrrific concepts he has come up with over the years for ads that continue to be fresh in our memories. What a great learning experience this book is for anyone interested in media! Get hold of Pandeymonium now. Commitscions: A copy has been placed in the Commits library.

SACHIN TENDULKAR SPEAKS AT THE LAUNCH OF PANDEYMONIUM; AMITABH BACHCHAN, WHO HAS WORKED CLOSELY WITH PIYUSH PANDEY, HAS WRITTEN THE FOREWORD.

Thursday, January 29, 2015

An enlightening — and refreshing — piece in Brand Equity on what young people can teach their elders in the business

And it comes with a well-written and lively introduction, too.

Here's a sample:

"...whoever said the millennial is fickle or needs constant validation and expects 'Look maa, I drew within the line!' to be followed by a treat and a cuddle or that they are as loyal as a mercenary is nucking futs."


Read the article, by Delshad Irani, in its entirety here: "Back To School: What ad veterans have learnt from the younger lot".

What a contrast it is to an earlier post on this blog: "What's with the attitude, Gen-Y?"

Your feedback on both pieces is welcome.

Friday, May 23, 2014

The inspirational story of the ad guru who brought the world's No. 1 agency to India

By far the best book I have read about the advertising business in India, Konjo: Fighting Spirit is a great buy at almost any price. At only Rs.199 (on Amazon, at the time of writing), it is a steal.

Sandeep Goyal is the man who brought Dentsu, the world's No. 1 ad agency, headquartered in Tokyo, to India. His story is an inspirational one, and for media students and young ad professionals who crave industry insights from a consummate insider, this book will prove invaluable with its thrill-a-minute revelations about some of the country's most famous ad campaigns (to name a few: Tata Tea, Toyota Innova, HDFC Life) and the people behind them; about the ad pitches that worked and the ones that didn't; and about the strategies used by Dentsu India to win new clients.

MAVERICK: SANDEEP GOYAL

The story Goyal tells us in Konjo concerns only his seven-year association, in the form of a joint venture, with Dentsu. When he sold his stake to the parent company, he became richer by millions of dollars, leaving him free to pursue his many interests: according to the author bio in Konjo, Goyal is now writing his PhD thesis on "Human Brands". But I am hoping he will write at least two more books, one about the time he spent with Rediffusion, one of India's iconic ad agencies, and one more about his stint as Group CEO of Zee Telefilms. Going by the impressive insights gleaned from Konjo, can you imagine what a stimulating experience it would be to read these two books?

Sunday, April 27, 2014

PR, Advertising, and Journalism go to a party...

March 9, 2011 at 3:27pm
Samarpita Samaddar (Class of 2010)
Public Relations: At a party, you see a gorgeous girl. You get up n straighten your tie; you walk up to her, pour her a drink. You open the door for her,offer her a ride, and then say,"By the way, I'm rich. Will you marry me?"

Advertising: You're at a party with a bunch of friends and you see a gorgeous girl. One of your friends goes up to her, points at you and says, "He's rich. Marry him."

*

Ramesh Prabhu
Journalism: As you join the party, you see PR and Advertising quarrelling over the prettiest girl there. You swing by, give her the look, throw her a line (or your byline -- you're a journalist, after all!). And she says, "Marry me."
Like · ·