Abstract:

This paper presents a new approach to media strategy, based on the use of the "Temps Media" studies carried out by TMPR 1 on the basis of the CESP Time- Budget Multimedia Study. The guiding principle of our approach is that of basing the media strategy on the reality of individual media behavior patterns.Beyond generalizing approaches, classical approaches based on the role of the media and their audience, media- market approaches, approaches by socio-demographic targets or life-stvles. it is the individual consumer of media, the reader, the listener, theviewer. who is the heart to the means of choice of media strategies. Starting from the observation of a simple fact  the heterogeneousness of media behavior of marketing target groups - TMPR has designed and set up a tool to assist in preparing media strategies, SOMETIME, which takes into account simultaneously the media frequentation of individuals, their activities, the corresponding moments and places. SOMETIME is an operational tool, intended for very concrete help to the media strategists of our partner agencies in their search for optimal strategies. SOMETIME is not a pure research tool, even if it does offer numerous facilities for better understanding of the Time-Budget study in all its wealth and complexity. Nor is SOMETIME a multi-media media planning tool: in accordance with the charter for use of the Time-Budget study, it does not deal with isolated media, but with statistically valid clusters of media. 1 Readership Research Symposium 1993 San Francisco, presentation by Dina Raimondi and Franfoise Dupont. The first part of this paper rapidly describes the Time-Budget Study, and the new lessons it has provided. It recalls the major structuring of this data carried out by TMPR: classifying vehicles, structuring individuals into consistent media behavior types, thanks to an exclusive typology, and structuring moments of media frequentation according to the daily rhythm proper to each type. As concerns advertising strategy, we owed it to ourselves to go beyond the frequentation of media to manage to grasp the concept of exposure to advertising. We thus henceforth work both on the time of exposure to media and on the "potentially effective advertising time". The second part of the report goes into the detail of our approach. It introduces the new concepts that we have, in close collaboration with our computer expert imagined and set up. It brings its contribution to the search for pertinent media strategies. The description of the various stages adopted for drawing up a media strategy will be illustrated by a concrete example.