Discuss briefly the features if an ideal advertising medium. What are the factors to be taken into consideration while choosing a suitable medium?

The features of an ideal medium of advertising are as follows:

Message: The medium that helps is conveying the message adequately and properly should be adopted. Medium like newspapers, TV, radio, magazines etc, can be used to convey the message. The medium must deliver the message to a large number of people.

Reach: The medium should cover and reach maximum number of audience. Newspapers and radio proves to be the best for this purpose. Newspapers are circulated largely among the literate or educated people and radio reaches a large number of target audience.

Economy: Any medium that proves to be economical in respect of cost should be adopted. Magazines are less expensive, newspapers vary in the cost depending upon the space, radio and television are more expensive than others, direct mail is moderately expensive and outdoor advertising except bill boards is also less expensive.

Flexible: Relating to size, design, layout, color etc, medium should be flexible. Newspapers and direct mail are highly flexible, magazines are less flexible, outdoor advertising depending on the cost is moderately flexible, radio and TV both have restricted flexibility depending on the available time.

Scope of repetition: Medium should give adequate scope for repeating the message at regular intervals. Repetition should be there in order to arouse the interest of the customers. Radio and TV provide quick repetition, message can be repeated almost every day through newspapers and magazines are restricted to frequency of publication.

Effective: The medium that helps to achieve the goals of sales promotion should be adopted. Advertising helps in increasing sales and with a proper medium, one can earn profit with an increase in sales. Various medium can be used like magazines, radio, outdoor advertising, television etc, to advertise a product.

The following factors influence the choice of media:

Nature of the product: Consumer goods are advertised in different ways like the daily consumption goods do not need any elaborated description whereas technical details of industrial machinery should be explained. As per the nature of the products, the size and time of advertisement vary. It is better to advertise consumer goods through radio, TV, newspapers etc.

Type of audience: Medium should be selected by keeping in mind the target audience, Press medium is not useful if the audience is uneducated. TV will prove to be useful, if the villagers have TV sets in their houses. To reach housewives in urban areas, radio and TV should be preferred. Therefore, the characteristics of the target audience should be kept in mind while selecting a medium,

Coverage: The medium that can reach or cover the maximum number of target audience should be selected. Short films in the cinema halls solve the purpose if maximum number of people are uneducated and do not have TV sets. Sewing machines can be advertised in women’s magazines so that large number of ladies can go through the ad.

Cost: While selecting a suitable medium, remember to take the factor of cost into consideration. By absolute cost and relative costs one can analyse a medium. Absolute cost is the actual charge for buying a certain amount of time and space in a medium. For example—TV is quite expensive as compared to newspaper. Relative cost is absolute cost related to the size of the audience served by the choose medium. For example charges for a one page ad in two different magazines may be the same but what matters is their circulation. If one out of the two is circulated among more number of customers, businessmen should prefer that medium.

Character of the medium: It is important to analyse the characters of various media in order to choose the right and suitable medium. Following aspects should be considered before choosing any medium:

• Method of communication: Oral, visual or both.
• Geographical coverage of medium: National, local etc.
• Duration and frequency of exposure of message.
• Audience selectivity: It means how well a medium reach the target audience like ladies, children etc.
• Production quality of the media
• Degree of durability: It means for how long can the customers view the ad.
• Scheduling flexibility is said to be another factor.