Seller, know thyself.

• Author: Dibble, Marcia C.
• Position: Focus: Advertising/Media Planning

When creating an advertising plan, the experts agree on where to start: You must first understand who you are and what you want to say about yourself. All the other pieces will fall in line from there.

"This may seem elementary," says Brian Rasmussen, managing director at the Salt Lake office of R&R Partners, "but the first thing we ask is, 'What is it you want to communicate? What result do you want to have?' The biggest mistake some advertisers and agencies make is to talk about money and media before they decide what their objective is. Once they decide the objective, then they can decide how best to accomplish that."

"That sounds so simple," concurs John Youngren, account services director at Love communications, "but you'd be surprised about the meetings we go into and they're just not sure. Instead of saying one thing well, they're trying to say 12 things not so well. We can't introduce you to people and tell them who you are until you know that for yourselves."

Determining

Message involves defining your image and how you want to place yourselves, and deciding what you want to accomplish with this campaign. If you're a new business, you may simply want to create awareness. Or you may want to begin the process of branding, getting your name out there with strong emotional associations. Or, you might just want to run a sales campaign to increase foot traffic. This is all going to play into what media you'll want to consider.

Once you have a strong idea what your message is, you should figure out as specifically as possible to whom you want to tell it. "The more they know about their target, the more we can help them," says Melanie Mulvey, media buyer for Crowell Advertising. "The more specific their target is, the more wisely you can spend the money." Once clients know what they want to say, notes Mulvey, "we have to make sure they are saying it to the right people and that it reaches them in a cost-efficient manner."

After you know who you are, what you want to say, and who you want to say it to, you must determine a target budget. Then, you'll finally be at the point you can consider media.

Youngren runs down some of the strengths of the dominant advertising media. "A TV commercial makes the quickest impact in the shortest amount of time and can be very visceral. For launching a brand or making a quick impression, TV has the reach and creative capabilities. Radio also has some of the emotional possibilities of TV, with 'theater of the...