MRG 3-Day Course: Media Planning
The MRG’s newly relocated Media Planning Course took place on 23rd-25th October 2002 at Moor Hall in Cookham – the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s HQ.
Over 30 delegates from a wide range of agencies, media owners and research companies gathered to hear industry experts imparting their knowledge on various aspects of media planning over the first 2 days.
Delegates were then asked to put this knowledge into practice and spend a harrowing Thursday night preparing a pitch for the client posing panel of judges on Friday morning. Armed with information gleaned from the assembled industry systems and advice from the course tutors, the delegates emerged, somewhat frazzled, on Friday morning to present an impressive series of pitches launching their respective products.
Each of the groups was judged according to their analysis of the target audience, media strategy, media execution, use of systems and their overall presentation.
Graham Page of Mindshare Direct delivered the verdict on the first series of presentations – those given the brief to launch Tia Lusso with a budget of £2million. He praised the groups on their strategies, sound bites and in one instance, brave use of acetate but chose Group A who brought their Bridget Jones-esque consumer to life as winners. Group A consisted of Tom Smith (Universal McCann), Tracy Friend (Carlton TV), Paul Ferron (Beacon Dodsworth), Farah Visram (Channel 5) and Mike Hemming (Emap).
The second round of presentations dealt with the launch of another cream liqueur, Drambuie Cream, with a smaller budget of £500,000. Graham Applebly from BSkyB commended the high standard of the presentations stating that any of the three would have won in previous years. Group F, or Ozzie Media as they became re-branded, emerged victorious from this strong bunch of contenders with a campaign targeting local residents who “moved a lot of grog”. They were Marji Ismail (BBC Prime), Nav Kaul (Carlton), Toby Roderick (BMRB), Mark Benjamin (Future), Verity Amos (Newspaper Society) and Melinda Roberts (Initiative).
Despite the hard work put in by everyone, feedback has been very positive. Verity Amos from the Newspaper Society told us: “The MRG course was very well thought out and organised. The speakers throughout the course were both interesting and inspiring, and provided excellent support during the brief on the final night. The course was very intensive, and you needed to be prepared to work very hard, but it was also great fun”
The MRG prides itself on providing excellent educational courses to promote an understanding of the techniques and uses of media research.
For more information on MRG Education please contact Rosemary Taylor: rosemary@rt-associates.demon.co.uk or visit the website at www.mrg.org.uk