I've been enjoying some back and forth with different radio people across the country. Here is the scenario: You have a long client ready to advertise with you. They will be on for the year at minimum. Their budget as of now allows them to air 20 messages a week on your station. How do you schedule those 20 messages?
Rod is right. It depends on so many things. The type of client, how the purchasing decision is made, the buying cycle etc.
For example, a restaurant for weekend business... when do I decide where I'm eating? Friday afternoon? On the way home in the car? When my wife gets home and tells me where I'm going?
Buying a car I take a lot longer to decide so a year long OES package would do the trick, 3 spots a day, maybe weighted to early week, varying schedule so that the OTH rises month on month.
But without a full detailed brief it's a matter of guesswork.
Also does he have peak business times of the year?
I was always taught that the best times to advertise are at the times when customers are ready to buy! So don't do a snow blower sale in August. Some clients can do 1 or 2 spots a day to let people know that they're still there and selling, and then do 8 or 9 a day when they need to hit the market. (if we're looking at the year spread and not just the week).
Like many have said it depends on a lot. But typically the best for the client is to have them on a branding campaign. With only 20 ads a week I would keep the frequency higher and run 5 a day for 5 days. If your station is like ours, our early week is lighter than than late week. So to get the client some better times on a few of the days I would probably run sunday through thursday and stay out of the clutter of Friday and Saturday. But again that all depends on the business.
I follow the Paul Weyland philosophy: "Own" the day, "own" the daypart or "own" the program.
Good advice from all of the above.Again scheduling for the type of business is the MOST important thing.Since you did'nt mention what kind of business this is,your more then likely gonna have the most listeners in AMD and PMD and NOT BTA.This is about all the advice I can give without knowing what type business your scheduling
for.
Assuming this is a branding campaign and the day of the week makes no difference. 5 ads per day Monday through Thursday. Avoid the weekend clutter.
May I ask, what is the "weekend clutter" that a few have eluded to?
Businesses tend to run more ads on the weekend because the rates are lower.
If the advertiser is a "sale driven" marketer, they'll load up ads (in my experience) Thursday through Sunday to promote their weekend sale.
I would hope it's a response advertising. Since branding is an essential by product of advertising and not an objective.
I want my brand to be known (recognised? loved? trusted?) But I actually want to shift product or make sales.
Many stations seem to have more unsold inventory Sunday-Wednesday than they do on Thursday-Saturday.
I know that agencies often ask for lower rates for their weekend (Sa-Su) schedules than for weekday schedules, Celeste, but are you saying that your station has established lower rates for weekends? I wonder if this is a widespread practice in our industry.
Most that I'm aware of charge less for SA-SU because that's what the demand dictates. I'm also aware of stations that have cheaper rates on SU-MO-TU and charge a premium on WE-TH-FR-SA.
Our stations have lower audiences on the weekend - thus the lower rate. Our country station, however, has a good Saturday audience and gets close to the rate if not the same as the weekday. Also, as Jack brought out - seems to depend on demand, too. One sports station I worked for in a large city charged quite a bit during the pro game time on Sunday - $700 per 60 seconds. So, no - probably not an industry standard. Thanks for catching this!
I normally do not suggest anything less than five per day. Having them for a year is a great advantage.
I would schedule the ads possibly on a Monday, Wednesday Thursday and Friday. That would give you coverage
four days a week. Or I'd go to 6 on Tuesday and 7 on either 7 on Friday or Saturday. Of course I've let my conventional thinking outweigh what I probably would really want to suggest. That would be 10 a day on a rotating basis. So one week it might be Mon and Wed, the next week Tue Thur etc. I would make sure I used copy that created a demand for a response and not just "image".
I would also encourage that once the schedule began that either monthly or quarterly they scheduled additional ads either on the days ads or already running, or on the other days for better fill. The higher the repetition, in my book, the better the response. And most of all I wouldn't quit selling to this client. It is far easier to get existing clients to increase their investments than to work on getting new ones. (of course I would be selling to anyone I could get in front of.)
Hope there is a gem of wisdom in there somewhere for you.
David G.
It depends on when the commercials air. Paul Weyland said to pick 2 days a week and run 10x a day. Or, pick two day parts, running 2 per day part Monday-Friday. Either way that's 20 ads a week.
I've never been a fan of the vertical scheduling. It only gives frequency on that day and assumes a day long listener. It looks good on paper but I've never been able to understand that value of that type of scheduling.
This is exactly what I would do. 5x Mon-Thurs 6a-7p.
Seems to me that the ads always run one at a time, so even in busy stop sets, if the commercial is done to command the listener's attention, who cares what else is running. I believe the best job we can do for a client is to encourage them to run enough ads per day to make it count. They don't run 1x1's in the paper! Yet radio has always seemed to be willing to take a back seat, add on, media mix, posture instead of asking for the whole budget and actually deliver something that has the best chance of working.
Just one old guy's opinion.
We're at the other end of the spectrum. Our station has one set of rates and some discount plans based on quantity and time of schedule. But we don't even offer a premimum for a client to buy fixed times! But, to each his/her own. I just always figured that no matter the time of day, we always had more listeners than the client had customers and it costs the same to produce, log and run an ad at two in the morning than at 9 in the morning.
Very interesting, the reponse just above "home there is a gem of wisdom in there for you." was not my message. It had good thoughts for sure, but I am not usually that clever. Computer must have had a "senior moment."
I like the vertical approach because it gives the advertiser a better chance of being heard by the most number of people. I don't think it necessarily implies a day long listener, but rather the hit and miss listener who tunes in for certain things. The odds of them hearing the ad are better if the ad is running more times in the same day. But it is certainly open for interpretation and always comes back to who the client is, what they want to accomplish, how you produce it....and what kind of budget they have.
