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Walker, Online Promotion, Assignment #3, Fall 2020…

Unit 4 Assignment: Media Planning & the Strategy Behind it

Magazine Media Revenue

Magazine media revenue is a more complex, yet very important part of marketing. When firms
are promoting their products through advertising, they must start off just buying the space to get their
product out there. This is considered absolute cost. This space can not only be found in magazines, but
little places like park benches. This space can become very costly for the firms buying the space for
their advertisements, yet the magazine company generates a multitude of revenue just by using the
advertisements within the pages.
The magazine that I have chosen is People Magazine. The generation that I have grown up in is
so technologically prone, so the information that I found is quite interesting. When I looked through
the magazine, I did not realize how many advertisements are actually included within the content of
the magazine. I counted 26 pages of just advertisement, with the majority equaling a full page. What
surprises me is how many advertisements are the full page. I know that buying the space for the
magazine becomes very costly, so I questioned why some advertisements do not use just a quarter of
the page or half. However, as a company promoting their brand it makes the most sense to use a whole
page, so individuals do not skip over what is being advertised and they really catch the attention of the
reader. To me, I find it hard to believe how costly just one page of advertisements can add up to.
Peoples Magazine earns over four-hundred thousand dollars for one full-page advertisement. By the
time the magazine takes the twenty-six pages times the dollar amount of $402,900, they are already
making around $10,475,400, as a rough estimate. As a result, the revenue is annually added up to
around a number of $544,720,800. In People Magazine, it is more of a popular magazine, too, so they
reach a lot of people with their advertisements. This being said, more companies are going to want
their products to be promoted through this magazine. The people behind the scenes of this magazine
must be smart while putting the magazine together in order to keep readers attention.
In addition to the amount of revenue generated, I find it particularly interesting because I did
not expect the amount to add up to such a high number. I thought to myself, “Why would a company
be willing to pay so much for their ad to be placed in a magazine, which people now do not buy as
much of?” Since the world is becoming a much more technological-savvy environment, investing so
much money in a magazine seems to be extreme. Nevertheless, the internet has a “relatively short”
time for exposure of the brand, meaning the time spent looking at the advertisement is slim-to-none. If
something does not interest an individual, they will simply scroll past it. On the other hand, readers of
a magazine focus more on the advertising because they can capture the pictures of it. When I looked
through People Magazine, I noticed so many more advertisements positioned in it than I would find on
the internet. I also paid more attention to them because I think they media planners used
advertisements that were relatable to the article they used before it.
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Magazine Environment

In addition to the media revenue, the environment which an advertisement is placed plays a role
in how effective the advertisement remains. I believe the target audience and demographic of People
Magazine is more towards middle-aged individuals, specifically women. The cover of the magazine
shows the “Battle of the Brothers” in the royal family. Also, Chrissy Teigen and John Legends loss of
their newborn baby. The magazine portrays on the cover the hardships that happen within families, no
matter how popular. Many adult women can relate to hardships in their families because they are
constantly trying to keep everyone happy, but sometimes it does not work out that way. The magazine
tries to portray that they are more of a heart-felt magazine for women to connect with. Furthermore,
another type of demographic audience the magazine targets is not just one culture. There are people
from different racial backgrounds just on the front cover. Within the magazine, they talk about
celebrities like Lin-Manuel Miranda, John legend, Alexa and Carlos PenaVega, Hoda Kotb, the Royal
Family, etc. Even though all these individuals are American, there are many Americans that come from
different backgrounds. Seeing these people in the magazine brings in more of a cultural background to
the magazine instead of just Caucasian individuals. The main demographic feature; however, is how
family orientation is stressed throughout the magazine. Every article talks about difficulties that a
person, or people, overcome within their families. Julie Bowen (the star of Modern Family) talks about
trying to take care of herself and her family while her children complete online schooling, Curtis
Nielsen overcomes anger with forgiveness of the distracted driver that killed his wife and four kids,
and Jeff Bridges talks about the special bonds between fathers and their daughters. All these lifestyle
variables target the middle-age group because they can relate to celebrities. The imperfections of
people with a higher status than most individuals are what many readers are interested in reading. They
need that extra support to show that they can be imperfect, as well.
Furthermore, the percentage of advertising in People Magazine is around 29% of the whole
magazine. The amount of color, spacing, and font type separates the advertisements from the material
within the magazine and it really sets the information apart from one another. The clutter problem
within the magazine is essentially not bad. I believe the magazine does a good job of spacing out the
advertisements and actual content of the magazine. The beginning of the magazine is probably the
most cluttered with pictures and different font styles on the pages. I do not see this a necessarily a bad
thing, though, because it is capturing the attention of the readers with the big lettering and multitude of
pictures to look at. Throughout the magazine it becomes clearer what the magazine is progressing
towards. Additionally, the editorial climate is more heart-felt in this magazine. Every article describes
the hardships that celebrities go through to show that each one is still a person and must go through
day-to-day problems just like everyone else. The article about “The Dude on Being a Dad” really
spoke to me because I have a great relationship with my dad, working with my dad would be amazing.
If this article reached me, think about all the other girls that have grown up with a loving family and
would love to be in the position that Jeff Bridges is in with his daughter. On the other hand, girls that
grew up without a father figure may become jealous of an article like this because they did not
experience the love that so many people try to achieve. This is just one example of the articles within
the magazine. Many are about celebrities and all the baggage they have gone through.
Moreover, the advertisements within the magazines help to separate the articles. The smartest
way to set up the magazine is using different advertisements after certain articles. At the end of the
magazine is the “People Food” portion. The different advertisements that they use in Coffee Mate
advertisements and a Hidden Valley Ranch advertisement. Readers process this advertisement in a
more positive fashion because they are relating the food to the advertisement and it is not just some
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random ad in the middle of what they are reading. One of the better advertisement placements in this
magazine comes right after the coffee section and food section. They have the Colgate toothpaste
advertisement. When people eat food, some automatically pay attention to if it affects their teeth. The
position of this advertisement not only helps the magazine make sales from the food section, but helps
Colgate succeed in their sales.
Throughout a lot of the magazine, there are many advertisements of beauty products. This is
more than likely a reoccurring thing because the main people the magazine targets is middle-aged
women. As women get older, they try to remain as beautiful as they once were. The products
advertised in this magazine include Neutrogena, Skyrizi, ZzzQuil, Dove, creams, etc. All these
products help with skin care and beauty – something that older women are more concerned about.
Furthermore, positioning these products throughout the magazine is beneficial because it constantly
reminds the consumers that they can stay beautiful with these products. I believe the best place to
position an ad is in the middle of the magazine. Marketers would not want to have a ton of ads in the
beginning because the attention is more so about the content within the magazine. Meanwhile, at the
end the advertisement would not be doing the magazine or company any good because if the readers
have gone through all the content in the magazine, they will ignore the message of the advertisement.

Media Planning Considerations

Furthermore, a media planner has many other considerations as to how they will accomplish
their media objectives. There are eight things to ponder: the media mix, target market coverage,
geographic coverage, scheduling, reach and frequency, recency, creative aspects and mood, flexibility,
and budget considerations. Moreover, planners start out with a great media mix. What this means is
they use different topics within their content in order to fully satisfy their customers. I think this is
especially important because when I read, I tend to get very bored if it is the same thing over and over.
It is just like a TV show, if the plot never changes, people will not stay interested. After that, media
planners tend to pay more attention to a specific target market to cover. Planners must beware of
overexposure of the media to their target audience because if the media reaches people that are
unwilling to pay for the product, it is a “waste.” Likewise, geographic coverage is important in media
planning. For instance, if a seller is promoting sunscreen in an area like Alaska, they will not sell as
many products as someone in Florida where the sun is constantly beating down.
As we keep going through these considerations, scheduling takes part in media planning
because one must keep up with the times and what is going on in the world. According to the book,
there are three scheduling periods available for planners (continuity, flighting, and pulsing).
Additionally, continuity is a “continuous patter of advertising,” while flighting “employs a less regular
schedule.” The difference between these two methods reminds me of seasonal events. If a company is
selling products like food and toothpaste, they will constantly be advertising their product, but if a
company is promoting fall or winter products, they are more than likely going to heavily push for
advertisements in the winter season. Lastly, pulsing combines the two methods. A company that
constantly needs sales will advertise continuously, but if there are certain holidays coming up, they
will promote and advertise as much as they can.
One very important factor to put into consideration is frequency and reach. This means that
media planners must decide between “reaching” more people or being seen by less people of a target
market more often. Some people believe that reach is transitioning into “opportunities to see” rather
than how many times one actually sees the advertisement. If an individual is exposed to an
advertisement more than once (placing the ad in more than one magazine) it is known to be called
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duplicated reach. The magazines would be reaching more than one individual. The difference between
this and frequency is that frequency would do something like putting the same two advertisements in
the same magazine, exposing the brand to the same individual more than once to help get the message
across to that one specific individual. There are many factors that go into deciding how effective
frequency is such as the complexity of the message, variation, creativity, purchase and usage cycles,
attentiveness, etc. In this case, each has a different effect on how the product is delivered to consumers.
Overall, the decision the media planner makes is considered more of an “art than a science.”
As we approach the final few media planning considerations, promoters must set up a plan to
implement emotions and be willing to modify the plan to these specific emotions. Creativity and mood
of an advertisement can either attach or detach the consumer. A person that relates to an advertisement
will be more willing to buy the product than one that has no relation to what is happening in the ad. For
instance, one of my favorite advertisements was the Extra Gum commercials. They used the song
“Falling in Love” by Elvis Presley to set a certain mood in the advertisement, then they got very
creative and had the boy that was attempting to get the girl make illustrations on gum wrappers. If the
commercial would have used a punk rock song, the mood would not agree with how the advertisement
was trying to reach its target audience, and it may have turned the attention elsewhere. Lastly,
flexibility ties in with creative aspects and mood because considering the markets are constantly
changing, companies must be willing to modify the message they send.
In the end, there are many things to consider when planning how to accomplish the media
objectives. Communication with consumers is crucial in today’s world with the number of competitors
and new ideas that arise every day. Social media makes it specifically easy to reach a target market.
Each criterium is important within itself and planning out the media has become important in getting
the message across to consumers in order to generate sales.