Consumers actively avoid advertising and favorability towards it has fallen to a record low of 25% because of problems such as ad bombardment and excessive frequency and targeting as mentioned in a survey by Credos. And according to a recent study by Kantar, consumers in the UK are feeling apathetic towards – and mistrusting of – advertising.

So here are 3 keys to effective media planning in a world of a cluttered and elusive audience

Understand the people but target the machine.

The core of media planning is about reinforcing the relationship between brands and consumers.

Cognitive psychologist Daniel Kahneman extrapolate that people’s choices can be predicted and most of the time are based on automatic thinking patterns — heuristics and cognitive biases (Kahneman, D. 2011).

Success at this “game” flows to those with the“ability to predict the future—specifically the future of behavior.”Zuboff, 2016

with Consumer neuroscience you can:

Digital assistants are evolving and becoming smarter and more efficient. And as machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) evolves, digital assistants are going to become better at anticipating consumer needs. So, get ready for the machines to take over a huge part of the "human" consumer journey.

Create great content and let them come to you.

focus on owned to leverage your earned media

A recent Cognition Neuroscience Research project by the MMA conducted that consumer attention must be earned, not bought.

There is an increasing value in content marketing and Content-led advertising set for continued growth. Warc’s report about the World Media Awards 2019 featured a number of winners that excelled in attempting to bridge the gap between evoking, nuanced and balanced content.

You need to create genuine content as that is what customers want, traditional advertising doesn't work anymore, and that, to reach audiences, you'll have to try something new.

Move from linear to dynamic

Multiplatform Experiences can lead to more conversions

(Klapdor, Anderl, Schumann and Wangenheim, 2015)

According to the journal of advertising, behavior patterns across online channels inform strategies for turning users into paying customers. 2018 WARC Media Awards show how to reach elusive audiences through imaginative phasing and leveraging the right combination of paid, owned and earned media.

An article by Chang and Thorson found that synergy leads to significantly higher attention.

Finally, there is a fine line between personal and invasive. Don’t overdo it just because you can or have an abundance of personalised data.

Programmatic media buying is an agile tool that can offer you advances and better targeting to your advertising. However, it might lead you to suffer from short-termism. You need to focus on achieving the right formula “60/40 rule” which is the optimum ratio of long-term brand building versus short-term sales activation (Binet and Field. 2017)

The future of media planning