Size and Frequency

Many campaign plans involve a choice between size, frequency, and coverage. The budget is fixed; it will permit so-many insertions of such-and such size; or twice as many insertions of half-size; or twice as many insertions of full size if range of media is reduced. On what basis should these conflicting claims be reconciled?

The basis, which will be examined in this chapter, consists of the following sequence of considerations.

1. In the light of the circumstances and objectives of the particular campaign, a broad decision must be reached about the required balance of the elements of impact and repetition in the campaign. For the moment we will consider this balance in terms of a single medium such as a new paper; in this case it will consist of larger spaces for impact and smaller for repetition. In practice the balance may be found by a combination of media, e.g., press for impact and posters for repetition; but it will be easier to trace the process of decision in principle in terms of a medium such as press which allows with in its compass for both elements.
2. Next, an assessment must be made of the space sizes properly required to carry the agreed advertising message; in impact ad in repetition form respectively.
3. Third, an assessment must be made of the required frequency with which the potential market should be reminded of the product through advertising.
4. The ideal size and frequency schedule for the product must now be applied to the media suitable for the campaign in character and atmosphere. Those which are best value will be chosen first, and the list widened at the budget permits.
5. It is essential to give adequate coverage to each medium used, and to avoid giving too thin a schedule of size and frequency to the primary media, simply in order to widen the list.
6. In the opposite direction it is essential to avoid giving any medium an excessive coverage either in size or frequency; this involves a diminishing return of advertising value.

Let us now examine these successive stages in detail.

1. Impact and repetition.: The decision between impact and repetition is one of the most fought over battlegrounds in advertising practice. It is not a theoretical decision, but an entirely practical issue arising out of the particular circumstances or objectives of the campaign under consideration. It is not difficult decision to take, perhaps, when faced with a clear-cut advertising job such as launching a new product or an entirely fresh appeal for an old product. In practice, however, the problem arises more often of selecting media for products, which have been on the market for years and which may have already achieved what appears to be a stable degree of domination in a part of their market. Moreover, at this particular moment the advertiser many have nothing outstanding or important to say. How far then should he prefer the drip-drip-drip of continuity to the more vigorous impact of larger spaces? And how far should he carry the process of reducing size to get even greater frequency?

The key to the answer lines in realizing that the real threat to any successful manufacturer of a branded article is not so much that his product will fade out of the public’s mind, as that it will be supplanted these by a competitor with something new to say or offer, or with a greater willingness to invest in a large advertising budget with the object of gaining a better foothold in his market. Markets are continuously in a state of flux with new comers pushing in and new ideas ousting the old ones.

If we are considering (as is normally the case) a complete campaign, designed to last at least three months and possibly a whole year, it seems to the writer that few advertisers can afford to do without some measure of impact space during so long a period. Their reputation with the trade, their goodwill with the public, the general knowledge of the product’s performance, all require to be noticed consciously during such a period. Reminder, by its very definition affects only those with previous knowledge; an advertiser who does nothing during a year to secure new customers, nothing to win over the new generation to adults or housewives who come of age each year, nothing to open new accounts, must surely he risking that his market will be smaller, through the sheer process of death and attrition, at the end of the campaign period than at the beginning.

Therefore it appears important that every campaign period should include an element of impact as well as one of repetition, and most advertisers experience shows that this so.

This is widely accepted practice which seems to work well enough. The explanation why the system should be good may be along the following lines. For each product a certain proportion of the public have a ready and easily awakened interest. They will notice even quite small advertisements, which appeal to this interest. But in order to reach more and more people the advertisement has to penetrate progressively increasing layers of resistance (which account for the factor of diminishing returns in advertising , noticed in earlier chapters.)

The value of the sequence of large spaces followed by smaller spaces now becomes clear: once the larger space has widened the circle of interest in the product and introduced it to a new public, the smaller spaces have a wider field of ready interest to work upon and thus become more effective. It may take two or three advertisements to turn resistant interest into favourable interest and thence into buying action; but if this result can be achieved with a proportion of smaller space then the process becomes more economic.

2. Assessing the required size: The first step in deciding size and frequency is to settle what is the proper size of advertisement (or number of sites, or length of films, etc.) required to do the particular job defined at the outset; or the combination of sizes required for impact and continuity respectively. Here the creative departments must have their say. Some campaigns require large spaces: it may be necessary to give plenty or room for copy, of scope for large half-tone blocks; it may be desirable simply to he big for tactical reasons. Usually the requirements of size fall within certain reasonable limits up or down, but them may actually require a particular area or shape and no other. Almost always, however, both the presentation and the tactics of the campaign set some limits; it is seldom that the media department will be told “You may have anything between a half page and a two inch double.” The limits of size thus laid down will control the media department’s scope for maneuver.

The creative department’s decision cannot necessarily be final. What is wanted must be tempered by what is available in the media which offer the right character, atmosphere and value for money to suit the particular advertiser’s case. The best possible decision must therefore be reached between art and media considerations.

3. Assessing the required frequency. The next step toward the decision is to assess the proper frequency of insertion for the campaign. This process consists of two considerations:

a) The rhythm of the consumer purchase of the product;
b) The need(already mentioned) to ensure that the advertiser’s message stays fresh in the public’s mind, by not having too long an interval between reminders.

The former factor usually controls the maximum frequency, and the latter factor the minimum frequency. If a product is bought weekly, as groceries are, a weekly frequency, especially when synchronised with the main buying period of the week, is the ideal. Anything more is probably excessive; often, however, the advertiser has to content himself with less. In theory, the more people one can remind of the brand name or product just before they go out shopping for it, the better; ideally, therefore, the weight of advertising should be brought into coincidence with the maximum concentration of shopping.

Where products are bought at infrequent intervals, there may be a seasonal factor which lays down some measure of frequency. For instance since home painting is largely done in the spring, and during off-duty time, the Spring bank holiday seasons become very important. The paint will probably be bought on the Saturday before Easter, whitsun, and August bank holiday. This bespeaks a strong impact in three insertions just before these holiday.

At this point the second factor comes up for consideration: how soon will the impression created by the message fade from the mind? Ideally, a further insertion or more should be interposed between the buying peaks at such interval as will on sure the brand’s story is kept fresh in mind. Also there will be some buying between the holiday seasons. In this example, the solution may be to have strong spaces just before the holidays and perhaps one or two insertions in between, but the latter might be smaller and more of a reminder.

When a product of very occasional purchases is being considered, like a refrigerator, the frequency of buying is clearly unimportant. All that is required is enough frequency to carry the campaign’s message over form one insertion to the next, to keep the message fresh in the mind and so ensure that it takes root and is not supplanted by alternative claims from a competitor. There may, of course, be special seasons when buying is concentrated but this is usually the occasion for concentration of impact rather than for frequency.

4. Applying the size and frequency schedule to the media. Once the required space sizes and the proper frequency have been decided, the next step is to take the primary medium or combination of media, and apply this ideal schedule to each. There may need to be minor modification to accord with availability of space resulting from the particular form or circumstances of each chosen medium. An impact space, which may be a half-page in a full-size daily newspaper may be converted to a full-page in a magazine. If the chosen repetition size does not yield good positions in one of the newspapers owing to its special make-up, a variant will have to be chosen. But the variations will be of minor degree not affecting the broad decision s on size and frequency.

It must also be remembered that since most media duplicate each other to some extent, the element of duplication is also an element of repetition. The 25% of readers of paper X who also see papery will see two insertions if both papers are used, and this can be taken into account in assessing frequency over a multiple schedule, especially when the question is one of using supporting media, such as smaller circulation magazines in support of mass newspaper or larger circulation magazines.

It is therefore a good plans when a fairly large media list is being used to “stagger” insertions so that in any given week one paper or another is carrying an insertion, rather than to arrange that all media carry the advertisement in the same week and then have a complete hiatus until the frequency permits another insertion in all papers. For example, if six publications, A,B,C,D,E and F, have monthly insertions for a product, it is better to arrange the schedule thus.

Week

Publication	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
A B C D E F	X X	X X	X	X	X X	X X	X	X	X X	X X	X	X
Than thus:

Week

Publication	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
A B C D E F	X X X X X X				X X X X X X				X X X X X X

Generally a monthly frequency is regarded as the best minimum, an a weekly frequency is regarded as the maximum necessary for products bought weekly or less frequently. A monthly frequency in a media list with normal element of duplication should give adequate reminder to keep the message fresh. It is, however, essential to emphasis that it is very dangerous to accept may sort of rule of thumb; each case, should be considered separately in the light of the clearly defined campaign objective, the competitive position and so on. If there is strong competition within the field, this increases the risk, that the advertiser’s message may be supplanted by some rival, so that greater frequency may then be needed to keep the continuity.

The combination of impact and continuity usually means that a campaign involves a combination of larger and smaller spaces; sometimes in as many as three combinations of size. The smallest size will be the repetition element designed to refresh the deeper impact created by larger sizes. A third element may be introduced by the need for one very big dominant space, designed to act a a focus for impressing the retail trade and as a means of giving the campaign an initial momentum. The usual arrangement of such a combination of spaces should provide for:

The dominant space at the beginning of the campaign, to create the maximum moments of interest among the widest possible public as quickly as possible;

Following up with some of the larger spaces to rain force this momentum on a broad front and add some new impact;

Following up with the smallest size to maintain interest;

A revival of the momentum, by introducing a larger space at reasonable intervals.

Example. Suppose a 20 week campaign justifies using in each newspaper included

One half-page

Three 11” x 3 cols

Six 8” x 2 cols

Giving fortnightly frequency over all for a product with a weekly buying rhythm. The probable course would be to divide the media list into two roughly equivalent groups, A and B, and the sequence of spaces would then be:

Publications week	� page	11 x 3	8 x 2	� page	11 x 3	8 x 2	Week
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20	X	X X X X X X	X X X	X	X X X	X X X X X X	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

With some media, of course, such an arrangement is not possible because they prescribe their own frequency. For reasons of audience building, a radio programme will be weekly or even daily. For reasons of booking convenience, cinema filmlets will appear daily every week or daily for a week at fortnightly intervals. Posters are up all the time and may be seen daily or twice daily. This excessive frequency is unnecessary but cannot be avoided; the point is that the medium is so inexpensive o the basis of assumed daily or twice daily notice of it, that any wastage due to excessive frequency can be easily absorbed within the very economic cost.

5. Satisfy each medium before passing on to the next. We now come to one of the most important principles in media planning; do one thing properly before moving on to widen the coverage. We have settled the proper balance of size and frequency in the first three steps. The next step is to calculate the best media in order in value. By “best media” is meant those which confirm with the character and atmosphere required to carry the advertising message of the particular campaign. There will probably be a number of likely choices, and these will then be evaluated on the basis of quantity and cost of the right type of coverage.

Starting with the first choice in this order of value, make sure of giving this medium the full required schedule. And so on down the list of value allowing for duplicated coverage, until the widest coverage of the defined market is achieved, with each medium having its full proper schedule of size and frequency of insertion. Do not grasp for extra coverage at the risk of doing an inadequate job all round. The advice is harder to follow than it sounds; there is always the temptation to try to satisfy one extra point of view or one extra marketing ambition. Make certain of making your mark at one point and do not be greedy to make your mark ever where.

6. Avoid excessive coverage. Finally, however, the caution must once more be repeated against over-using any one medium. It is the measure of skilful media selection and planning that it must steer a course between Scylla of not doing a proper job in the chosen medium and the Charybdis of overdoing it. We have already seen that increase of space size produces a diminishing return in quantity of notice (thought effects of prestige and impact are enhanced). It is also clear that excessive frequency is likely to entail a similar reduction of value. This is not only true of individual media (e.g., a single publication) but a types of media. Therefore when newspapers as a group or when publication media as a whole (not forgetting that element of duplication which adds a measure of frequency that may be overlooked) have had a proper coverage, it may well be useful to proceed to another type of medium which introduces fresh kinds of impact such as sound (i.e., television, radio and films), movement (such as films) colour (such as poster and films) which will give the message new life and vitality.

In the same way once the primary need of building up the product’s reputation on the widest front (by means perhaps of mass dailies or magazines) has been satisfied with sufficient size and frequency, it may be desirable to tackle some particular part of the selling problem with special intensity in selective media. Thus, in selling a dentifrice, if sufficient has been done in the primary selling job, a special campaign directed to children in children’s media might be added. If in selling a bee enough has been done to saturate the general reputation-building media, a secondary campaign to catch the home going workers, the television market, the football crowds or some other limited but rewarding part of the market might be run, in a suitable selection of special media. In each case, however, the rule applies of doing each job – both the primary and secondary job – thoroughly, and not attempting to do too many jobs with a resulting insufficiency of size or frequency in any of them. The subject of combining media to achieve a combination of campaign objectives is dealt with more fully in the next chapter.

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