How do advertisers select the most effective advertising media?

"The channels through which advertising is carried to prospective customers are the advertising media. Both product and institutional ads appear in all the major advertising media. Each company must decide which media are best for its products. Two of the main factors in making that choice are the cost of the medium and the audience reached by it. Cost per contact is the cost of reaching one member of the target market. Naturally, as the size of the audience increases, so does the total cost. Cost per contact enables an advertiser to compare media vehicles, such as television versus radio or magazine versus newspaper, or, more specifically, Forbes versus The Wall Street Journal. An advertiser debating whether to spend local advertising dollars for TV spots or radio spots could consider the cost per contact of each. The advertiser might then pick the vehicle with the lowest cost per contact to maximize advertising punch for the money spent. Often costs are expressed on a cost per thousand (CPM) contacts basis. Reach is the number of different target consumers who are exposed to a commercial at least once during a specific period, usually four weeks. Media plans for product introductions and attempts at increasing brand awareness usually emphasize reach. For example, an advertiser might try to reach 70 percent of the target audience during the first three months of the campaign. Because the typical ad is short-lived and often only a small portion of an ad may be perceived at one time, advertisers repeat their ads so consumers will remember the message. Frequency is the number of times an individual is exposed to a message. Average frequency is used by advertisers to measure the intensity of a specific medium’s coverage. In addition to listing hundreds of scrumptious menu choices and cheesecakes, the Cheesecake Factory’s magazine-sized menus feature a number of full-page glossy ads for Bebe, Macy’s, Mercedes-Benz, and more. An increasingly popular media option, menu advertising offers many promotional benefits: huge readership by a captive audience, outstanding demographic selectivity, and great value—less than a penny per exposure. How do advertisers decide whether or not menu advertising is right for their promotional mixes?"