Abstract:

More and more we seem to understand that the aim of media planning cannot alone mean to select the best bargain within the advertising vehicles available. An optimum use of media requires the integration of media planning along with the actual marketing planning. Thus, media decisions nowadays turn into strategic decisions. Questions regarding budget allocation or media mix in "the" saturated markets of today cannot be answered by the classic media selection programmes. Moreover, the classic programmes cannot give any realistic recommendation in view of market share developments of competitive brands. Saturated markets require a special planning programme, we call it SOM-Share of Mind, which takes into account, simultaneously, the advertiser's own advertising activties and those of the competition. The results of the enhanced evaluation, the SOM- scores, reveal the impact of "own" versus the competitive advertising contacts per target person against the background of the whole spectrum of the advertising exposures in the product field. This way, the question can be answered whether it is better to avoid competitive advertising by using different vehicles, or meet the competitor head-on.