The Local Advertisement Distribution Network
This past summer I interned at Mediavest, a marketing and advertising agency located in New York City. There I worked in the Local Activation department. Going into the internship I had no idea what that even meant, not to mention what my job would entail. However, I quickly learned that Local Activation were responsible for the buying of ad space on local radio and tv stations for large clients like Coke, Aflac and Walmart to name a few. So basically, when you hear an ad for Coke followed by a “bring your coke to Six-Flags New England for a discount”, that was us, communicating with local radio stations to air those ads. But it isn’t just individual radio stations that clients are after, its markets and there are 210 Designated Market Areas (DMAs) in the United States. And if you consider that Mediavest’s buyers have to communicate with a multitude of radio stations in each DMA, the number of people involved in distributing local ads skyrockets. The way Mediavest handles 210 DMAs is by employing 35-45 buyers who are each responsible for 4-6 DMAs. The way the DMAs are distributed is not by region as one would assume. Instead they are distributed by DMA rank, which is based on the population and ratings of each market. So the most senior and most competent buyers have less markets, but bigger markets and junior buyers have more markets but they tend to all be smaller. This creates an interesting network of communication when viewed geographically. If Coke wanted to advertise a new theme park across all of Texas, then they would be going to up to 17 different buyers to purchase the ad space. However, the reason the buyers are not responsible for 4-6 markets all grouped together is because more often than not a local ad is simply a DJ of the station doing the ad for Coke because a familiar voice might prevent listeners from changing the dial as opposed to a commercial. In this case, a client like Coke would want to select the top ranked DMAs because that way they are reaching the bigger audience.
A map of the Nielsen Designated Market Areas. There are 210 across the United States (including Hawaii and Alaska, not pictured).
Another interesting Network that arises in the world of Local Activation is that of the network of buyer and account management interaction. Mediavest’s job of buying ad space does not end when the 30 second slot is purchased. The agency is also responsible for ensuring the ads run on time and at the frequency purchased. This is where account management comes in. Account managers are not assigned to markets but rather to Clients, so a team of 3 employees is in charge of ensuring that all Walmart or all Aflac ads across the nation run properly. So while buyers are interacting with just a particular set of markets, the account team interacts with the whole nation. Often they rely on buyers’ personal connections to radio stations in each market to facilitate communication but sometimes they have to go to the stations themselves. This creates a complicated network of people that each radio station has to interact with as they could have up to 4 contacts at Mediavest all with different responsibilities. The complicated network of distributing local ads was something that did not resonate until I saw first-hand how many people are required for the client to communicate with the listener on a local level.
A simplified example of the Account Management – Buyer Network