Starcom Author Highlights Media Changes in 4th Edition Handbook

Helen Katz, Senior Vice President-Research Director at Starcom Mediavest Group, has seen her fair share of changes in the world of media planning and buying and advertising over the years. Katz, the author of The Media Handbook: A Complete Guide to Advertising Media Selection, Planning, Research, and Buying (Taylor and Francis-Routledge Division), has incorporated a few key updates in the book which came out in its fourth edition in June.

“I added a whole new chapter on social media and the way in which non-traditional media, which includes social, mobile, in-store, guerilla marketing and other forms of communication with the consumer, are affecting the process of media planning and buying,” she said in a recent interview. The text is intended for both the professional and academic audience.

While social media has exploded since the last edition of The Media Handbook in 2007, that’s not the only thing that’s changed. Katz says media industry consolidation and the way media research is conducted have also evolved. For example, media buyers and planners must now take into account new considerations given the consolidation of media agency ownership–planners are routinely cutting deals across diverse media types as well as diverse properties within a single content company. The considerations and negotiation processes are more complex than ever.

There are also profound changes in the way media research is conducted. “It used to be about pulling something out of a computer system, but now we are much more interested in the data analytics in media research. It’s much more sophisticated than it was,” Katz observes. There is an impact on how audiences get measured and it makes a difference in how we think about media in the agency space. In addition, “there is a shift toward more digital measurement of audiences to put them into a market mix model.” And social media measurement remains very much in flux. “No one has the answer yet in terms of fully evaluating the impact of social media or social media audiences,” Katz adds.

Katz, who joined SMG in 2001 after stints in her own consulting practice, at Zenith Media and DDB Needham, also taught advertising at The University of Illinois and Michigan State University. “I really felt the need to offer a guide to both practitioners and students that provides a holistic view of where advertising media fit within a marketing context,” Katz says of the text.