Abstract:

The first part of this paper is concerned to describe the changes that are taking place in the organisational structure of companies operating across Europe. These changes give rise to the central control of marketing and communication resources, and the rise of what we can call the Europlanner’ whose task it is to determine and allocate these resources to markets and media across Europe. The second part of the paper examines the role of the Europlanner, and how this is likely to evolve from the initial strategic budgeting and broad media mix decisions into the detailed planning and execution of European branding campaigns. The impact of these strategic decisions is largely unseen by national media owners at present, but the Europlanner will increasingly circumscribe the decisions of media buyers in local markets on individual title choice. As this happens, media owners will have an increasing need to influence the Europlanner. The primary means of that influence will be media and market research which will need to be presented in a comparable form across Europe. The third part of the paper evaluates the currently available data on a national level and the possibilities of harmonising’ this for Europlanning purposes. It also examines the Pan European Survey in this context. On the basis that current data fails to meet the needs of the Europlanner and those selling to him, the fourth part of the paper is concerned to outline a European-wide media and market study that would do so.