Marketing communication: principles and practice

chapter 
nine
SELECTING MEDIA
FOR COMMUNICATING
LEARNING POINTS
Careful study of this chapter will help you to:
• understand the range of media available
• examine ways of comparing media suitability
• take account of major changes in media options, without losing sight of
central marketing communication objectives

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measurement and analysis of ‘opportunities to see’, response rates, cost per
exposure, ‘impacts’, and similar criteria for ‘cost effectiveness’. Today, we
are faced with a much greater challenge – how well do we understand how
people use the various media and how they feel about their relationship? 
The original concept of the market as a physical meeting place is further
challenged by business mediated through electronic connections – 
the response requires more than simply applying orthodox theory. The
problem is more than how to advertise in electronic marketspaces – the
traditional dichotomy of producer vs. consumer may no longer be very
helpful, marketing communication practices may no longer be fully under-
stood as acts of sending and receiving information – even if that was ever
really the case.
By the end of the 20th century, two-thirds of marketing communication
spend was on ‘below-the-line’ (i.e. not advertising) activities such as direct
mail, sponsorship, sales promotion, telemarketing, and ‘infomercials’, with
conventional advertising taking up the rest (‘above the line’). This is a reversal
of the traditional allocation of budget. 
While it is obvious to us that consumption is an activity of consumers and
buyers, for some time marketing communication was considered as active
for marketers and consumers were considered as passive recipients. Today,
consumers are thought of as active media users. There is considerable
cognitive activity in media consumption – attending to and making sense of
the world. Thus, we must examine media use as both attending to and
meaning-making. The intentional fallacy is the notion that what the message
creator intended it to mean is what the audience members take it to mean.
Research on what people do with media demonstrates that people are very
creative, often doing surprising and unpredictable things with media products
(Grossberg 
et al
., 1998).
With so many communication media options available, selection decisions
must be based on judgements of both effectiveness (suitability) and efficiency
(performance). 
The Internet is considered a means of allowing buyers and consumers to