Television
Television is a captivating medium that holds the audience’s attention through sight, sound and motion. There are 115,900,000 TV households in the United States, and 93.8% of Americans ages 18+ view television programming on a weekly basis.
(Source: Scarborough)

Why Choose Television Advertising?
Advertising during big television events has the potential to reach millions of viewers. Commercials give your audience the opportunity to visually understand your product or service. Great commercials are easy to remember. Television has a proven success record for promoting mass consumer products, and it offers wide geographic coverage.

How is Television audience measured?
The Nielsen Company provides advertisers with Nielsen Ratings to measure TV viewing audience. Ratings provide information about who is tuning into a TV show, network and programming hour and how many people have the opportunity to see commercials during that time. Your local television or cable rep should provide you with Nielsen Ratings to prove what programs are best for your audience.

Best Practices and Considerations
To use the power of TV, focus on primetime (after 6:00 pm), entertainment and sports on weekends. Restrict buys to the formats (shows) that reach your best potential customers.

Increasing popularity of DVRs diminishes the impact of commercials, since consumers can fast forward through them. Currently, 45.5% of American TV viewers own a DVR. Network television shows are also available online, making it easier to miss “live” scheduled TV programs. In a recent MediaPost article, analysts predicted that entertainment-based video will shift to more on-demand and TV stations will be in the same position as newspapers.

Services such as Hulu, Netflix, online streaming, etc. eliminate TV commercials. There are also hundreds of channels from which to choose, creating audience fragmentation. More channels mean more competition, so it’s necessary to buy ad space across multiple channels in order to reach your target audience.

Commercials are expensive to produce and air. When determining your advertising budget, remember to factor in the cost of producing the commercial as well as the cost of airing it. Consumers aren’t likely to be making purchasing decisions while viewing a commercial.

Television and Outdoor Advertising
Reinforce your Television advertising when viewers are away from their homes during the day by incorporating outdoor advertising  into your media mix. Outdoor advertising minimizes wasted coverage by providing the ability to target messages geographically. 4 in 10 (40%) OOH media viewers have watched a television program after seeing it advertised on a billboard or other outdoor advertising mediums.  Outdoor advertising can be used to both complement and drive traffic to the television medium.
(Source: 2013 Arbitron Out-of-Home Advertising Study)

When you’re determining your advertising budget, remember to factor in the cost of producing the commercial or jingle as well as the cost of airing it. Radio ads are cluttered with several others at one time, which blend your ad in with your competitors’ messages. Radio is not a visual medium, making it more difficult to capture your audience’s attention. Most listeners are doing something else while listening, so your ad has to work harder to get their attention.

Radio and Outdoor Advertising
Radio and outdoor advertising reach a mobile audience, and the combination of the two mediums offers a balance of sight (outdoor ads) and sound (radio). Since listeners often change stations during commercials, outdoor advertising can maintain the market presence of a brand featured on radio and fill in the gap. 23% of outdoor advertising media viewers have tuned to a radio station after seeing it advertised on a billboard or other outdoor medium. Outdoor advertising increases the reach of radio campaigns by providing exposure to a wider audience that might not be listening to the station at the time that the message airs.
(Source: 2013 Arbitron Out-of-Home Advertising Study)

Print Advertising
Print is a traditional, visual medium that reaches a large audience. Newspapers and magazines provide consumers with current events, informative articles, features and editorials.

Why Choose Print advertising?

Newspapers
Newspapers are a part of the daily routine for many loyal Americans, providing news and information to readers. Used copies are often left behind and picked up by more than one reader, giving your ad more exposure. Newspapers are printed either daily or weekly, so they have a fast turnaround time if you need to get your ad in quickly. They are great for targeting audiences in a specific geographical area and come in a variety of sizes and formats (such as display ads, classifieds and preprinted inserts).

Magazines
Magazines can be carried by consumers and read almost anywhere at any time. With a range of over 19,000 titles that appeal to a wide variety of demographics, lifestyles and interests, advertisers can focus on reaching a specific target audience. Magazines ads are visually appealing and allow the use of photography, graphics, color and copy. In-depth advertising messages or “advertorials” can also be created to appear more like editorial copy than an advertisement.

How is Print audience measured?
Print media is measured by circulation. Your newspaper or magazine rep should be able to tell you how many people subscribe to the publication. Scarborough also measures American newspaper readership through field interviews conducted by phone. National magazine publications report reader demographics from surveys by GfK Mediamark Research & Intelligence.

Best Practices and Considerations
With print advertising, your audience can refer back to an interesting ad and look at it multiple times, so there’s more room for details. You can target a national, regional or local audience, depending on the edition of the newspaper or magazine.

Magazines have a long lead time, so your ad must be ready months before the publication date. Newspapers have a short lead time, so advertisers can respond instantly to changing market conditions. In general, magazines are better for branding campaigns and newspapers are more effective for call-to-action campaigns, due to the lead time. You should make your decision based on your campaign objectives.

Newspaper and Magazine ads are cluttered with several others at one time, which blend your ad in with your competitors’ messages. Magazine ads can be highly creative and aesthetically appealing through the use of photography, graphics, color and copy. Keep in mind that newspaper ads are typically limited to 2-3 colors, so your message needs to be even stronger in order to stand out.

Newspaper readers tend to pull out the sections that they want to read and then discard the rest. Know your target audience and determine which section they’re most likely to read. The wide variety of magazine titles that are geared toward specific lifestyles and interests can help you target a specific audience. However, with all the titles available on the newsstand, there’s a lot of overlap. You may have to advertise in multiple publications to reach your audience. The internet has caused a decline in print readership because it’s faster to get news online.

Newspapers and Outdoor Advertising
Outdoor advertising can extend the life of a Newspaper campaign by presenting messages to your target 24 hours a day, 7 days per week. Readership rates are declining due to the alternative sources of news online. Outdoor advertising is unavoidable, and impacts consumers who may not subscribe to a newspaper or get their news elsewhere.

Magazines and Outdoor Advertising
Outdoor advertising fills in the gap and strengthens Magazine campaigns by delivering constant exposure to your target between issues or reaches consumers who don't subscribe to the publication.

Mobile Advertising
Mobile advertising reaches a mass audience. 58% of all U.S. consumers already own a smartphone, and over 1.2 billion people access the web from their mobile devices. According to comScore, consumers overwhelmingly prefer to engage with content on apps, which accounts for 4 out of every 5 mobile minutes, rather than the mobile web. People use mobile devices to access the most up to date news, search for information, stay in touch with friends on social media, purchase products and services, watch videos, download apps and more. Mobile devices make it easy for people to stay connected when they’re on the go. In fact, global mobile traffic now accounts for 17% of all Internet traffic. That number is growing by 50% per year. Market experts anticipate that this trend is likely to maintain its trajectory or even accelerate. 
(Sources: comScore, Trinity Digital Marketing, Internet Trends 2013, Mashable)

Why choose Mobile advertising?
Today, the U.S. consumer spends an average of two hours and 51 minutes per day on smartphones every single day, and more than 87% of internet users are now smartphone users. Why not capitalize on this statistic by reaching out to consumers who are able to purchase your products or services directly on their mobile device, anywhere or anytime?

There are a variety of mobile strategies that can be used to complement your ad campaign. Mobile apps can be used to boost brand awareness or deliver information, entertainment and notifications to your audience. Mobile coupons make it easier for consumers to access money-saving promotions while they’re shopping and can be delivered via text message or based on location. Location-specific advertising is gaining popularity, as users are becoming increasingly open to receiving ads and promotions that are relevant, reaching them in the right place at the right time.