Which media to choose for your advertising?

Choosing an advertising medium is not something to be left to chance. Each media responds to specific issues that your company or brand faces. It is thus necessary to determine the objectives you wish to reach in order to choose the communication support that will allow you to reach them for sure.

Discover all the objectives that can be reached by the different advertising media and find the ideal communication medium for your next advertising campaign.

Article Summary: Which media to choose for your advertising?

1. The objectives of advertising
2. Which media to choose for which purpose?
3. Summary table of media to use to achieve campaign objectives
4. Which media to choose to reach your target?

The variety of advertising media reflects the objectives they can achieve:  

• Notoriety / image
• Promotional
• Traffic
• Lead
• Conversion
• Employer Brand

>>> What is advertising? Definition, purpose, current trends

The notoriety objective

The notion of notoriety gathers several sub-objectives to which an advertising campaign can respond: 

• To make your company or brand known
• To obtain visibility
• Memorization of the brand by the consumers
• To build brand awareness

Notoriety should not be confused with brand image.

Improvement of the brand image

A brand's image refers to the representations and associations that an individual associates with a product or a brand. When a company wants to improve its brand image, it communicates on its positioning and its values. It thus works on the perception that consumers have of it.

The promotional objective

This is probably the first goal that comes to mind when it comes to advertising. The promotional purpose is simply to highlight a particular product, service or promotional offer.

The increase in traffic

If your goal is to increase traffic to your website, advertising can also help you do this, as it can also generate online visits. Of course, you should also think about improving your SEO and user experience.

>>> Why prepare your website before an advertising campaign?

Generating leads

Advertising can also help you qualify your leads (individuals who show interest in your brand) and convert them into prospects (qualified individuals who meet your targeting criteria). It's a process that starts online.

The conversion goal

Advertising can obviously help you encourage consumers to perform specific actions on your site: purchase, shopping cart, application download.

Improving the employer brand

By improving its employer brand, a company is really responding to a double objective of image and recruitment.

As you may have already realized, not all advertising media will allow you to meet the objective you have set for your next campaign. Here are the different advertising media to choose from depending on your goal.

Which media to choose to improve your reputation?

In order to improve the notoriety of your company, it is possible to use a large number of media:

• Traditional: Press; TV; Radio; OOH, DOOH; events OOH; Cinema
• Digital: Display ; YouTube ; Social media; Audio digital

Which media to choose to improve your brand image?

The brand image makes fire of all wood and thus offers you the possibility of communicating on the quasi-totality of the existing supports of communication:

• Traditional: Press; TV; Radio; OOH, DOOH; event OOH; Cinéma
• Digital: Display; YouTube; Social media; Audio digital; SEO; Content

Which media to choose for promotion?

And yes, you can't promote a product or service just any old way. It is preferable to use the following advertising media:

• Traditional: Press; TV; Radio; OOH, DOOH; event OOH;
• Digital: Display; YouTube; Social media; Audio digital;

Which media to choose to increase your traffic?

The traffic you want to generate may be online, but the solution may not be on the web:

• Traditional: Press; TV; Radio
• Digital : Display ; Social Networks ; SEO ; Content
• Direct Marketing

Which media to choose to generate leads?

On the other hand, to generate leads, you will definitely need to use online communication tools:

• Digital : Réseaux Sociaux ; Remarketing ; SEO ; SEA ; Content
• Marketing direct

Which media to choose for conversion?

As with lead generation, conversion requires the use of online advertising media:

• Digital : Social networks ; Remarketing ; SEO ; SEA ; Content
• Direct Marketing

Which media to choose to improve your employer brand?

Your future employees may be behind a screen or a poster: 

• Traditional: Press; TV; OOH, DOOH
• Digital: Display; Social Networks; Digital Audio; SEO; Content

>>> Can't decide? Ask the Adintime media experts for advice

Be careful not to choose your media only according to your campaign objective! It is also necessary to think about your marketing target and to have a precise idea of the media that will allow you to transmit your message. 

It will be difficult to reach your target on a social network like TikTok if your audience is 65 years old and more, just as you will not be able to communicate with an audience aged 4 to 10 on BFMTV. 

Try to identify your audience's habits, interests and the media they are likely to encounter during their day. You will then have to cross-reference this information with the media that best meet your campaign objectives. 

>>> Learn how to identify your marketing target

The French nomenclature of media targets

Here is a summary of the categories used in France to describe media targets:

>>> Marketing targets and media buying nomenclatures

Television targets

Television remains a media appreciated by the majority of French people, it mainly concentrates the targets:

• 25-49 years: men and women are included in this age group
• CSP+: socio-professional category which includes executives, company managers, engineers...
• FRDA: women responsible for purchasing aged 25-49 (femmes responsables d’achat âgées de 25-49 ans)

>>> Who are the TV targets ?

Radio targets

For radio stations, the targets vary according to the station's theme. Thus, for general radio stations, their audiences are considered to be CSP+ and listeners aged 65 and over, while music radio stations gather 15-25 year olds and students. Nevertheless, this is not a formula that applies to all stations. Here are two examples:

• France bleu listeners: 25+, rather women, retired, CSP+.
• NRJ listeners: 25-49 years old, mostly men.

>>> How much does a radio spot cost?

The written press

The written press is the ideal medium for precise targeting: general public, life style, political orientation, socio-professional situation... For example:

• 82% of the readers of Le nouvel Economiste are managers and business leaders.
• The readership of Science et vie is made up of men under 50 years old, CSP+ (business & executives).

>>> Specialized press and professional press: is there a difference?

Billboard

Installed in places of consumption, life and traffic, billboards can reach a large panel of consumers as well as a very specific marketing target: 

• Public roads billboards: general public.
• Roadside billboards: motorists and pedestrians.
• Subway advertising: employees, students, tourists...
• Airport advertising: travelers and businessmen/women.

N.B.: the targets of the billboards are influenced by two numerous factors: billboard networks, billboard sectors, period, geolocation...

>>> Prepare your advertising campaign from A to Z