When it comes to media advertising, there are many myths. It’s commonly believed that media awareness advertising is a pricey toy for big international brands, out of reach for smaller companies. And once upon a time, this was true. But with the advent of the digital world, advertisers gained access to advanced technologies, including measuring the delayed effects of media awareness advertising, and many began using it without even perceiving it as media activities. In this article, we’ll delve into the concept of media advertising and propose classifications to help grasp its diversity.

What is Media Awareness Advertising

Before considering the varieties, it’s worth defining the boundaries of what we’ll consider “media advertising” and describing it.

Media advertising is advertising distributed through media (television, radio, press, etc.). With the advent of the internet, advertising on social media (social media ads), advertising videos on YouTube (as a sort of extension of television), banners on websites, etc., are also considered “media.” But advertising technologies continued to evolve. Soon, digital offered more conversion-friendly formats than traditional offline media. These new formats (search advertising, shopping campaigns, etc.) came to be called “performance” in contrast to traditional “media” formats.

It’s worth noting that the approach of the Ukrainian market slightly differs from the global trend. In English-language sources, media advertising still refers directly to advertising in mass media – even online, but television channels, publications, radio stations, etc.

However, we write for Ukrainian colleagues and will rely on the realities of our market, where “media” refers to advertising that differs from “performance”; that is, advertising that creates demand rather than leading directly to the “order” button. 

Types of media advertising by placement

First of all, it’s worth distinguishing media advertising by where it will (or has been) placed – online or offline. This division is quite obvious, so we won’t describe how a print magazine ad differs from banner ads on the same magazine’s website. Instead, let’s look at the state and popularity of both of these markets.

For a long time, the largest investments by advertisers were in offline activities. Even in 2020, when global digitization was accelerated by a world pandemic, just television alone received more budgets than the entire market of digital media awareness advertising, according to the All-Ukrainian Advertising Coalition’s data for the corresponding year.

In 2022, budgets for digital media awareness advertising in Ukraine surpassed budgets for its offline counterparts. According to the AUC’s research for 2023, the volume of the Digital (Internet) Media advertising market amounted to 7.2 billion hryvnias, while advertisers invested 5 billion hryvnias in radio, press, outdoor advertising, cinemas, etc.

At the same time, expenses on SMM, influencer marketing, and advertising in the GDN (i.e., banner) were not included in the “internet media” category.

Types of media advertising by message delivery format

1. Text advertising. This includes all kinds of articles, posts, blogs, books, etc., created by a company and promoting its messages.
2. Visual advertising. These are banners, regardless of whether they are placed online or offline.
3. Auditory ads. Here, radio advertising, announcements in supermarkets, loudspeakers in public places are immediately mentioned. But digital also offers its options here – for example, the ability to launch audio advertising on YouTube and many music services.
4. Video advertising. Television and internet commercials. Earlier, we discussed their fundamental difference and why television advertising requires additional editing before launching on the internet.
5. Interactive advertising. This usually includes interactive HTML-5 banners and advertising that offers to play a game before redirecting to a download page. But let’s not forget about offline interactions, such as branded photo stands, or events organized by brands.

Types of Media Advertising by Placement Method

Programmatic

Programmatic advertising is a method of placing ads using automated advertising placement systems in digital media. This method allows for selecting a specific target audience and configuring the time and place of display, among other things. 

Although “programmatic” is often encountered as an advertising service separate from advertising on Google Ads (this can be seen in our list of advertising services), Google Ads (as well as advertising on Facebook with Meta Ads) is technologically programmatic. However, these systems are so widespread, well-known, and ubiquitous that they are distinguished from smaller market players.

Direct

Direct advertising placement involves direct interaction between the advertiser and the platform where the advertising will be placed. This is the oldest, traditional method, where a company contacts a newspaper, television channel, or website and buys advertising space from them. Typically, internet platforms combine programmatic and direct advertising, offering special conditions for those who purchase direct placement. For example, news websites leave space for banners from partner networks on the page, but offer branding of the page only to direct advertisers.

Direct placement also includes influencer marketing and brand ambassador engagement. Even if communication with a blogger is conducted through an intermediary, the result remains the same – a public figure promotes the company to their audience, without specifically targeting a particular audience segment or offering flexible payment terms for each view separately.

Any sponsorship also falls under the category of direct advertising placements. This includes not only sponsors of world sports events but also sponsorship of local events, charitable initiatives, or thematic projects, allowing for audience segmentation based on demographic indicators and interests.

Self-placement

Every company can create its own media resources and platforms, events, and information drives where it publishes what is important to communicate to its target audience. For example, a corporate blog (like the one you are currently reading) can rightfully describe the company’s achievements without coordinating publication with a direct platform or programmatic service.

The same applies to company accounts on social networks and on any platforms where information can be self-published. In particular, SMM should be highlighted as a tool for media advertising, as it allows for a quick response to information drives, broadcasting brand values, while constantly reminding of the existence of products. For example, consider a post from the Dnipro-M tools brand, which emphasized the use of their product by the Security Service of Ukraine.

Similar advertising in programmatic solutions or with direct placement would take more time to coordinate and, apparently, would look different.

Types of Media Advertising by Sales Funnel Stage

As we mentioned earlier, media advertising is less about the “buy” button and more about filling the sales funnel. However, it can still target different audiences depending on the readiness of the viewer to make a purchase.

When a company not only enters the market but needs to create its own consumer base, it may even focus on promoting a lifestyle for which its product will be needed. A classic example of this is the Michelin stars. In the 1900s, the French tire manufacturer began publishing guides, promoting the idea of ​​traveling. For trips to remote corners of the country, a car is needed, and for a car, tires are needed. At this stage, the guide advertising brings money to Michelin from its main product.

But let’s not delve into such a distant past; let’s consider examples of media advertising targeting audiences as Google shapes them: See-Think-Do-Care.

See

This is the stage of introducing the audience to the product; informing that a certain item, service, or company exists (or will even exist if it’s an announcement).

Speaking of genres, here awareness campaigns, sponsorships, and brand ambassador engagement are usually used. For example, our client Ajax did the same when entering the new market of Italy. It’s worth noting that Ajax security systems are not just a new brand but also fundamentally different from analog products. Therefore, the client not only had to “introduce” themselves to the audience but also immediately explain how they differ from simple alarms. For the initial campaigns, the brand prepared creatives with the Ukrainian footballer Andriy Shevchenko, a well-known figure in Italy due to his time playing for Milan and later coaching Genoa. The creatives were stylized in the popular Italian TV format and described the security system’s capabilities.

Our task was to select audiences and place ads in such a way that those who saw it would remember it as the most relevant. How we succeeded, you can read in the case study “Case Study. How Display Ads Introduced AJAX to Italians”

Think

At the “Think” stage are audiences who already know about the product but are undecided whether they need it. Here, advertising describes the specific product’s advantages and features more extensively.

For example, everyone knows about vacations and that you can go to relax on a foreign beach during a vacation; the “see” stage is closed to society. But advertising from our client NG Phaselis tells viewers how great it is to vacation specifically in Turkey, with cinematic creatives showing happy people on beautiful beaches and lively parties.

The mention of the hotel brand is at the last frames, but its logo is constantly present in the images. Of course, the campaign also had more conversion-oriented creatives, but this one was aimed at the higher levels of the sales funnel, aiming to remind viewers that vacation is good, and vacation in a Turkish hotel is absolutely incredible.

Here, we worked on optimizing marketing investments, reducing the cost of advertising, and improving its results. Read about the results in the case study “How to Promote a Hotel During Off-Season: NG Phaselis Using DV360 Case Study”.

Do

The audience that is ready to take action, at the “Do” stage, believes that they need a certain product and is now choosing which one to buy. Even if you have warmed up potential customers to this stage, people may go to a competitor with better-explained advantages. However, a warmed-up audience from elsewhere may switch to you if you work well on media advertising at this stage and maximize closing performance advertising.

Let’s consider this with the example of OLX’s categorical campaigns. The brand awareness of OLX and its products in Ukraine is unquestionable, but the company regularly promotes various categories of goods, reminding viewers of itself as a possible place to buy.

For example, this creative from 2020 reminds viewers to search for winter clothing on OLX.

The client doesn’t need to remind that winter is coming, and in winter, there’s snow; the “see” and “think” stages are covered by everyone’s life experience. Instead, the OLX creative immediately emphasizes the advantage of the specific platform – a wide choice, “for every request”.

To further optimize impressions and not waste the advertising budget on those who already have enough clothes, we used separate segments for display, and the campaign yielded great results. Read about them in the case study “Three OLX Cases with the Coolest Media Advertising Analytics.”

Care

At this level, it’s about retaining customers, encouraging them to make regular, repeat purchases. This can be announcing a new product and describing it through comparisons with the previous version: “20% more effective,” “now even more,” or “choose which one you want today: strawberry or apple.” But despite the clichés in FMCG brand ads, Apple shows the highest skill here, introducing consumers to a new product every year at a massive presentation, which people watch in bars instead of football all over the world.

Returning from the heights of Apple marketing to the more realistic level of working with client retention, BMW has a pretty interesting approach. Around this brand, a loyal community of enthusiasts has formed. This audience is ready to buy branded accessories that will even speak for themselves “yes, I love BMW” outside the vehicle. For this, the car brand launched a separate e-commerce project “BMW Lifestyle,” which we have been promoting for many years. In the article “A Year of Promoting BMW Lifestyle: Growth Points for E-commerce” we talked about the campaigns of 2020-21.

Conclusion

1. Media advertising in the understanding of the Ukrainian market is advertising that creates demand and subtly pushes the audience towards conversion, in contrast to direct prompting for a transaction in performance advertising.
2. On the global market, “media” advertising is considered advertising in “media” – mass media. The closest equivalent to our media in English-language thesauri is the Companion Ad. Keep this in mind when communicating with foreign counterparts.
3. We suggest classifying media advertising according to various factors, including:

• Placement (online or offline);
• Form (text, image, audio, video, interactive form);
• Placement method (Programmatic, direct placement, self-placement);
• Audience sales funnel stage (See, Think, Do, Care).