“Out of clutter find simplicity,” Albert Einstein states in one of his Three Rules of Work.

The easiest path to this clutter-free, simplified work existence—if such thing exists— usually involves getting organized, whether it’s making a list of priority tasks, putting together a project plan, or creating a calendar of deadlines and other important dates, such as events or project milestones.

Planning and buying media for an advertising campaign—or multiple campaigns for multiple clients, or whatever the scenario—results in a whole lot of information to organize and communicate, not only for the media buyer, but the client (and the AE if different from the media buyer, and so on).

It’s All in the Details

As with every communication, the level of detail that needs to be included depends on 1) the situation, and 2) the role of the person receiving the information.

With media buying as an example, the situation would be managing and communicating dates and deadlines related to a media plan.

Keeping a media plan organized could require up to three different “views” of the campaign and schedule information. (The good news—no more than three.)

• Internal Calendar for Agency
• Client-facing Campaign Calendar
• Campaign Calendar with Schedule Breakdown

Internal Campaign Calendar
This calendar is for agency eyes only, and its primary goal is to improve workflow and communicate deadlines internally. In addition to the overall campaign calendar with a schedule breakdown (a combination of the other two), the internal calendar includes

• List of media outlets and contact info
• Media types included in campaign
• Ad specifications
• Mechanical info for creative (ad sizes, file types, etc.)
• Traffic deadlines
• Internal notes, such as who needs to review the ad creative or whether the client has approved it

Client-facing Campaign Calendar
This calendar gives an executive-level overview of media campaign activities such as media used and run dates. The nitty gritty details of creative deadlines and date and whether to prepare a jpg or pdf don’t matter here.

What does matter is the ability to paint the picture of what ads are running when, in what mediums and through which media outlets on any given day or week or month during the campaign.

One way of categorizing this information into an executive overview for the client is by grouping it by medium, with the details below.

For fun, let’s say our example campaign uses a combination of print, radio, online, and television to promote a Christmas concert and silent auction, with a budget of $20,000 to reach 25-55-year-olds. Our Client-facing Campaign Calendar might be organized like…

• Radio Ads

- Media Outlet: Lite Rock 55.5
- Run Dates: November 10 – November 19, 2009
- Ads Per Week: 40
- Length: 30 seconds

- Media Outlet: Country Hits 77.7
- Run Dates: November 13 – November 29, 2009
- Ads Per Week: 50
- Length: 30 seconds

- Etc.

• Print Ads

- Media Outlet: Local Newspaper  (daily)
- Run Dates: November 9 – 15, 23 – 29
- Ads per week: 3
- Size & Format: 1/4 page, color

And so on, for each media type and schedule included in the campaign.

Some clients may be interested in seeing the estimated number of impressions by media type or schedule, too, for example when the “client” is the marketing budget decision maker of an in-house agency.

A nice touch is color-coding advertising schedules by medium or media outlets in a standard weekly or monthly calendar format. Charts that break down the campaign’s budget allocation by medium and/or the potential reach of each medium used in the campaign provide nice summary visuals as well.

Campaign Calendar with Schedule Breakdown
And finally, this particular calendar lies somewhere in the middle of the previous two, good for keeping track of all the details related to a campaign in a single spot. It provides a more detailed summary of the media schedules confirmed for a campaign, without the noise of traffic deadlines and creative specs for internal use.

So, it includes all the info in the Client-Facing Calendar, plus

• Placement-specific details

- For radio and television, daypart and program information
- For print and online, ad size and location on page or screen
- Estimated impressions
- Placement total

Campaign Summary
Somewhere along the way, these details should roll up into an overall campaign summary that provides a snapshot of

• Campaign Criteria
• Total Budget
• Run Dates
• Media Types Used
• Budget Allocation by Medium
• Overall Potential Reach

The categories required for each calendar will vary by agency, client, or campaign.

Nonetheless, a standardized approach to tracking and managing media schedules and their preceding deadlines will help you save time, stay organized, and improve communication among campaign stakeholders.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 5:29 am and is filed under Advertising, Media Buying, Multi-Channel, Planning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.