SpinSix Strategic - Marketing Design

In advertising, "media buying" refers to the buying and scheduling of the ads themselves, be it television or radio spots, magazine ads, newspaper ads, outdoor ads, online banner ads, or pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Media buying is a specialty unto itself, requiring knowledge of which outlets to advertise in, how to negotiate the best rates, how to schedule which ads run in which markets in which time slots, and a host of specialized technicalities and terms such as designated market areas (DMA's), remnant space, run-of-site, interstitials, and rich media ad formats.

At SpinSix, our in-house media buying experts can manage all of your media buying if you prefer. That said, we are fundamentally unlike almost all other ad agencies in one important way: We don't depend on buying your media.

See, traditional ad agencies make the bulk of their money based on buying media at discounted rates and reselling it to you at a healthy markup. This creates a severe conflict of interest, in which the agency is incentivized to recommend that you buy as much media as possible, often without regard to maximizing your marketing ROI.

This is why you will almost never find an agency that will try to talk their clients out of advertising. They simply aren't geared to think that way—in fact, they often don't even understand the alternatives, such as launching an affiliate program instead. (It's sad to say, but their associates would probably be fired for suggesting such a thing, even when it's in their clients' best interest.)

At SpinSix, we take a different approach to advertising. First, we ask whether or not you even should be advertising, as it doesn't make financial sense for many firms. Because we're a comprehensive marketing strategy firm, we look at your entire marketing mix, of which advertising is just one potential tool out of many in the toolbox. We don't try to talk our clients into using a bigger hammer when the job calls for a screwdriver. In other words, the answer to many companies' marketing problems is not simply to boost the ad budget. If advertising isn't for you, we'll tell you. Or perhaps, rather than blowing through your entire annual budget running a brute force, carpet-bombing branding campaign, you should only be running laser-targeted ads in one or two select venues, for a limited time, to accomplish one specific task. If so, no problem, we'll identify that opportunity and, if you prefer, we'll manage the process for you.

When the situation does call for advertising, we excel at it – not only in media buying, but also advertising design, because the best strategy in the world will fail without good execution.

Whether your situation demands traditional offline advertising (broadcast, print, outdoor, etc.), online, or a mix of both, SpinSix is your one-stop shop for integrated advertising campaigns as part of your overall marketing strategy.

See Also:

Ad Design, Advertising Campaign Design, Management, and Metrics, Multi-Channel Ad Campaigns