Media Planning for Q1 is Essential for Branding after New Years

Q1 2011 is just weeks away and you’ve probably already started your digital media planning for Q1. But for those that haven’t started media planning what should be your strategy for the first quarter of 2011?

For grocery / supermarket and CPG companies the largest event to allocate advertising budgets towards in Q1 is the Super Bowl. So to make it easy, Gourmet Ads has developed five Super Bowl Packages from a month in duration through to a week before the big game. All the packages feature high visibility creative paired together with regular display for reach. Our Super Bowl Packages will create buzz around your brand to our audience of grocery buyers as they plan for Super Bowl Parties. Contact Us if you’d like to be sent our Super Bowl Packages.

For companies that are not focusing on Super Bowl, Gourmet Ads can develop a custom media plan to get your brands message in front of grocery buyers and household decision makers to drive sales growth. We can run your campaign nationally or locally with various types of media. For the first time in Q1 2011, Gourmet Ads will begin offering our video advertising packages, running pre roll in front of cooking videos.

Super Bowl is the most important event when Media Planning in Q1

So no matter what your media planning strategy you’re undertaking for 2011, the team at Gourmet Ads can develop a custom media plan for your brand.

Media Planning for Q1 is a blog post from Gourmet Ads Food Advertising network, providing Display Advertising , Video Advertising and Supermarket Advertising solutions to reach the Grocery Buyer online.

We are seeing Increased Advertising Budgets with 2011 Media Planning

Believe it or not a great deal of digital advertising agencies are already undertaking their 2011 Media Planning for their clients. The RFPs from agencies coming in right now are mostly for companies undertaking media planning from July 2010 through to June 2011 activity. This is very different from media planning which we experienced last year with most planning taking place either a couple of days from going live or at a maximum of 8 weeks in advance.

Interestingly most companies have increased their budgets for 2011 Media Planning by approximately 2 to 2 and half times from that in 2009/2010. Many of the companies we deal directly with in the food, wine, tourism and kitchen appliance industries are all looking at online as a cost effective channel to achieve growth in sales.

Already apparent across 2011 media planning that we’ve seen is the shift from the performance based metric of just click through rate (CTR) over to the broader brand based metric of engagement rate. The move to engagement rates suggests that a heavy emphasis will be placed on creative development in 2011, using high visibility units such as video. This is very different from the past where most campaigns booked consisted of only regular display units such as 728×90, 300×250 and 160×600. Its seems that agencies are planning to use creative such as pre roll video, widgets, long term integration, dynamic ads, expandable ad units, background advertising and interstitial advertising all which can be executed through Gourmet Ads. We’re also seeing a lot of requests for social networking elements as part of campaigns.

Many Food and Wine Brands are already undertaking 2011 Media Planning

For companies in the Food and Wine space, Gourmet Ads is a natural fit, but some of the media planning we’ve seen in 2011 is for companies outside of this space. Advertising agencies have recognised the value of our female grocery buying audience which has led to RFPs in the tourism, financial, automotive spaces indicating that many brand advertisers are seeking quality inventory out of their “safe” advertising places that they used in 2009 and Q1 2010.

Gourmet Ads can help you or your advertising agency develop your 12 month plan to target your audience online throughout the year. By booking media in advance (either 6 month or 12 months) allows us to offer significant discounts on CPM rates and bonus impressions increasing your return on investment. For more information about 2011 Media Planning, Contact Us.

2011 Media Planning is a blog post from Gourmet Ads Food Advertising network, providing Display Advertising , Video Advertising and Supermarket Advertising solutions to reach the Grocery Buyer online.