Management Careers in Media - Media Planning and Buying

Media planning and buying is the function of procurement of media real estate at an optimal placement and price. Media buyers have to conduct market research to find the likely places where their client's customers and consumers tend to use media. Based on this research, they find the best advertising rates, and the best media to place the advertisements of their clients. In short, they 'buy' the media, or the advertising space/time for their clients.

Media planners have to be in touch with the media houses, their marketing executives and should be able to negotiate better rates for their clients. A good media buyer takes decisions on which media to buy and it requires both creative and business-driven decisions. Media Planners should be able to pick and choose an appropriate combination of media to help their clients reach their target audiences. The job can be pretty high profile as they with high level clients and top executives of organisations. The job is result oriented and also a high-pressure, deadline dependent job.

It requires excellent communication skills, and that too in multiple languages in India. You have to have very good persuasion  and negotiation skills; should have a very wide network of friends in the media. You need to be good at audience analysis, content analysis of all media including newspapers, television, radio and the Internet and social media. A media buyer should be adept at Google analytics, and social media analysis. A good media planner has to be fast on the feet, ready to quickly gauge the pulse of the audience and the trend in media - both in the traditional as well as online. You will have to advise your clients about the media to buy, strategize and sometimes, re-plan your strategy based on the latest trends and research results.

Qualifications: Employers prefer trained individuals over newbies, mainly because there is no scope in making mistakes, as media buying involves high amount of spends. Agencies, as well as organisations prefer candidates with a formal certification, with an internship during their course. You could check out such a management course here: The Best Management Program in Media and Communication

Following are some well known organizations for Media Planning and buying :

Group M, Strategem Media Pvt. Ltd., Havas Worldwide, Dentsu India, Lodestar, Lintas, Madison, Omnicom Media Group

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