As our media planning teams strategically work with our clients to most effectively stretch budget dollars to reach the right target at the right time, flighting a campaign is a crucial part of the success path to achieving specific business goals.
The old school approach of ‘going dark’? during the summer mapped well to how most people consumed and interacted with traditional media channels ‘ vacations and quiet customers meant less TV and less print ad presence in market during July and August.
Well hello, it’s 2012 and today’s consumers are connected 24/7! Our cell phones, tablets, laptops, etc., go everywhere we do. So, what a great opportunity to message directly to your target audience, no matter where they are and what device is their preferred method of interacting with news, entertainment, business information, sports, etc.
Here at AMP, we do see different seasonality factor into our planning based on our clients’ specific category and audience. Because the traditional approach of a dark July and August still prevails for many companies, some clients view this as a way to save budget dollars in prepping for a more powerful back-to-school or holiday campaign. While most will make a decision to run very lean, if at all, in the summer due to budget considerations, other factors do play an important role. In the B2B space, some of our technology and service-based clients who advertise on a global level do face a real dip in response/interest via RFP requests during the summer due to the prolonged vacation season that regions like Europe, the Middle East and Africa experience. We also see that the decrease in event-based efforts like trade shows and industry conferences affect the energy and urgency quotient around products and services.
Our mobile partners see spikes in categories like sports and entertainment events in spring and fall while shopping and comparison searches are huge for holiday. Again, the mobile-based advertisers are using budget constraints to maximize their seasonal business shifts.
For our retail and CPG clients, we see less seasonality issues and the strong need to have consistent presence in market, challenging us to spend wisely over an extended time frame that also allows for burst media activity around specific activation occasions (like Thanksgiving and Christmas).
But let’s be smart. Your audience is engaging with media 24/7, so why not take advantage of the decrease in demand that many of our media partners face, which can mean the following:
- More digital and mobile inventory
- A larger share of voice opportunity
- Potentially stronger negotiating power for robust added value presence
- Lower costs
Enjoy the summer and continue to drive your clients’ business forward! And don’t forget the sunscreen’?¬¶
