Sample media plan - Media Plan for Fast Fitness

Media Plan for Fast Fitness

Table of contents

1, Background to hypothetical plan

2, Media objectives

3, Competitive analysis

3.1, Budgets

3.2, Media selection

3.3, Timing of media delivery

4, Target audience analysis and recommendation

5, Media habits of the target audience

6, Media selection rationale

6.1, Creative media options

7, Media strategy

8, Flowchart and budget

1, Background to hypothetical plan

Fast Fitness is a personal-training focused company, operating in three locations in Sydney since 2002. It is positioning itself between the large gyms and the personal trainers’ services. Sessions are held in small groups with personalised workout plans, for the average price of $80 for average 3 occasions per week, which is highly competitive with personal trainer’s $80/hr.

FF is hiring an advertising agency to create an effective media plan to support the marketing plan, which objective is to change the market share from 2,12% to 2,52% of its local market. The company has told the agency to assume a total advertising budget of $100000 and asked for a media plan. The account group says the creative department is working on page-four/ color magazine ads, car stickers and a YouTube video and other computer applications.

2, Media objectives

Fast Fitness wishes to advertise all year around, and also to heavy up one month before those months when the sales was lower in the past years (school year beginning month, December, January and February). The goal is to use the present facilities maximum effectively, without the need to purchase new location in the following year.

During the heavy up periods the company wants to reach the 70 percent of target customers an average of 4 times, and 35% 5 or more times. The all year around average reach should be 40% at least once a month in the local target area. Utilize various media which is able to show how simple the exercises are, what a beautiful body shape can be reached, how much weight can be lost in 3 months and how much someone can save in a year compare to attend to personal trainers.

3, Competitive analysis

The aim of this section 3 is to give an overview about the media usage of the competitors in the previous year, so the media planner have the resource and knowledge to come up with the best plan possible to make of the budget what is most effectively supporting the marketing and media objectives.

3.1, Budgets

Exhibit 1 shows how much the main competitors spent last year for advertising in various media.

Exhibit 1.
Competitor Companyes of Fast Fitness	Market shares %	Total annual expenditures $
URCoach	20	800000
Executive Fitness	11	400000
Coaching Pro	6	150000
Individual personal trainers (144 businesses)	60	2000000

3.2, Media selection

The amounts that competitors spent are only part of the story. From exhibit 2 the planner can find out how the competitors used their dollars. The data indicates that most of the money was spent in colour monthly magazines (women 31%, man 16,5%). The last column shows the average % spending in the various media types.

Exhibit 2.
	spendings in %
	URCoach	Executive Fitness	Coaching Pro	Individual personal trainers (144 businesses)	Average spend %
Men magazines	22	14	0	30	16,5
Women magazines	23	31	40	30	31
TV	10	23	4	10	11,75
Merchandise	11	3	31	10	13,75
Travel competition	5	2	10	0	4,25
Website	14	10	0	10	8,5
Radio show sponsor	5	3	7	0	3,75
Billboards	10	14	8	10	10,5
Total	100	100	100	100	100

3.3, Timing of media delivery

As in the whole business life, timing is critical also for the media planning. The attendance in the gyms usually follows a bit the seasons, regarding that when the weather is cold, people wish to exercise indoor, but when the weather is fine from August to April people tend to choose outdoor sporting activity. The beginning of school year, the times around Christmas and the usual summer holydays has a negative effect on the gym membership numbers also, regarding that everyone has extra spending and less time. Exhibit 3 shows timing of competitors’ spending. Normally it is worth to advertise harder when there is bigger demand, but in case of Fast Fitness next year circumstances, that there is only limited capacity left in the peak times and bigger in the off peaks, the media planner will be requested to focus on the free resources.

4, Target audience analysis and recommendation

Fast Fitness is focusing on the 35-50 age group, both man and woman. Fast fitness thinks that its best prospects are mature people, who have limited income, so they tend to choose cheaper personalised group sessions than more expensive personal trainers, but as they feel overweighted and not confident about themselves and the fitness practice, they still have a demand on personalised exercise plan. More details about target audience in Exhibit 4. , based on surveys by Fast Fitness.

Exhibit 4
Demographics	Geographics	Psischographics	Behaviour
90% between 38-50 years old	80% Sydney	like fit persons	eat chocolate every 2-3 days
56% male	10% Wollongong	like good looking persons	drink 2 beers every 4 days
44% female	10% other <50km	they trust magazine ads most	buy nutrition magazines monthly
average income less than $50000 / year		they trust famous sport stars	buy healthy life magazines monthly

To determine how many these people are, and how many of them are planning to do fitness the next year, the media company working on this media plan had to buy data from the Mediamark Research Inc. Australia. The result for how many 35-50 years old people in Sydney wants to do fitness for at least one month next year is 7% of Sydney’s population.

5, Media habits of the target audience

MRI Australia also tells planners which television programs regular fitness people watch. Exhibit 5 illustrates the concept of media selectivity. Composition represents the percent of the target age group, who wants to have gym membership next year. Although it is only 7% of the total Sydney population, it is much more percent of the viewer’s of the fitness programmes.

Exhibit 5
				People who want gym membership next year
		Adults nr.		number		%		index
Total adults Sydney		4000000		280000		7		100
Morning Fitness Ten		70000		39200		56		800
Afternoon Fitness Nine		60000		33000		55		786
Fitness world champ		66000		29700		45		643
Fitness Australia		58000		37700		65		929
Australia Fitness Idol		72000		40320		56		800
Biggest Loser		73000		48180		66		943
Fit and Strong		67000		38190		57		814

The media behaviour analysis continues in Exhibit 6 by showing average people’s selectivity to other sports programs on TV with fitness mindset. These analysis show which programs have concentrations of the target audience, and guide the planner in selecting the best media to reach them.

Exhibit 6
				People who want gym membership next year
		Adults nr.		number		%		index
Total adults Sydney		4000000		280000		7		100
Football games		350000		56000		16		229
Tennis		300000		45000		15		214
F1		330000		46200		14		200
Basketball		290000		37700		13		186
Beach volleybal		360000		43200		12		171
Horse racing		365000		40150		11		157
Surfing		335000		33500		10		143

Same concept applies to “body builders” readership of magazines. Readers of Fitness World are 371% more likely to have at least one month fitness gym membership than the average people from the target age group.

Another important thing beside composition is coverage, which is the percent of the target that reads a magazine. For example we can say that Man Fitness is covers 19,64% of yearly once gym membership holders (55000 readers / 280000 yearly membership holders * 100 = 19,64).

Cost effectiveness is usually evaluated by the Cost Per T(M)housand number, which shows how much does it cost to reach 1000 people of the target audience through a magazine. If an ad cost $2000 in Woman fitness for the Sydney area, and there are 45000 readers who do fitness once a year, than 2000/45000/1000= $44,44.

All data in detail for magazines are shown in Exhibit 7.

Exhibit 7	All numbers and % is valid for the Sydney area only
	Audience nr.	Comp %	coverage %	index	cost $	CPM $
Nr of fitness members yearly once	280000	7	100	100
Man Fitness	55000	43	19,64	614	2200	40,00
Woman Fitness	45000	42	16,07	600	2000	44,44
Fitness world	65000	33	23,21	471	2100	32,31
Fit Fitness	20000	60	7,14	857	1800	90,00
Personal Fitness	14000	80	5,00	1143	2341	167,21
Natural Fitness	46000	34	16,43	486	1567	34,07
National Geographics	80000	5	28,57	71	4321	54,01
Life	60000	9	21,43	129	1234	20,57
People	34000	13	12,14	186	1678	49,35
Cars	100000	4	35,71	57	2222	22,22

6, Media selection rationale

For the next year there are tree media vehicles sel ected to deliver the advertising messages.

a) There will be all year round a full A4 colour page bought in the middle of Fitness World Magazine. This magazine was selected for a few reasons. First of all, this magazine is only published in Sydney, and therefore it is tailored as much as possible for the local particularity. Secondly it has the cheapest CPM in the range of the investigated papers, $32,31 / 1000 people of the target audience. The Fit Fitness, Personal Fitness magazines are too expensive, the Man Fitness and Woman Fitness is too selective. Natural Fitness would be highly competitive, but has less target audience readers and last year there were communication problems between the two company’s management.

b) The second selected vehicle is billboard advertising in the neighbourhood of Fast Fitness locations. This vehicle is supposed to support the heavy up advertising periods, as it is easy to schedule in time.

c) The website of the company. This vehicle is selected, because it is directly controlled by the company, can be refreshed daily, has low cost after once it is already running, can contain various multimedia.

6.1, Creative media options

a) Cooperate with Australia Home Made Chocolate Inc. chocolate manufacturer, and introduce the “Crunchi Funchi Fitness Bar” with the following slogan on it – “Our chocolate tastes better than ever, and tells you how many exercises to do to use its energy in a fun way, so you stay as slim and healthy as you were before! To learn more about food and contained energy, visit Fast Fitness. Do fitness as fast as eat a chocolate bar.”

b) Distribute free stickers for cars: “Follow me, I am driving to Fast Fitness – sooner or later : )))”

c) Distribute free glasses and fridge magnets: “I love myself, I mind my health”

7, Media strategy

TV advertisements will not be applied, since they are more difficult to target geographically and they are very expensive.

Target 35-50 years old limited income people, with the demand of personal training, but not personal trainer.

The main page of the website will distribute first of all the value offer with the prices, locations, discounts offered etc. There will be a free sample fitness plan, a request form for a personal fitness plan for some price, and an automated virtual trainer, “who” will always communicate the elements of the personalised training plan, while also showing the correct movements required. Free screensavers, fitness theme e-postcards and desktop backgrounds will be downloadable. Present vouchers advertised for 5% off will be also offered.

Use the Fitness World magazine and the website for the continuous advertising and awareness maintenance, and use the billboard advertising for the heavy up periods.

Details shown in next chapter Exhibit 8.

8, Flowchart and budget

Exhibit 8 summarises the action elements of the media plan.

Exhibit 8
	Fast Fitness next year media plan
	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	Maj	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Okt	Nov	Dec	Cost $
Fitness World
Reach %	65000/(280000/100)=23,21
avg frequency	3
cost $	2100	2100	2100	2100	2100	2100	2100	2100	2100	2100	2100	2100	25200
Website													50000
Billboards
Reach %	13	14						13	14	15	16	14
avg frequency	10	10						10	10	10	10	10
cost $	3500	3500						3500	3500	3500	3500	3500	24500
TOTAL													99700