Math & Advertising?

Question

We are doing a paper in my calculus class on how math is used in a career. I chose advertising. We need to interview someone who works in advertising so we can put it in the paper.. The question is how is math used in the career of advertising. Anyone care to help?

Answer 1

Publications and newspaper ads---each pub has a different way to measure their "space" and asign rates to it.  For example....one local paper might sell space at $27/column inch while a glossy publication only sells space by the size of the ad.  THe size informatin is critical to design and creative folks b/c otherwise the pretty picture won't fit in the publication.  Not to mention that math is included in counting their readership/circulation/subscription numbers.  

Radio/TV:  Counting impressions is difficult to be exact, but MUST be measured.  For example, the Texas Lottery must reach consumers that are 18 years of age or older and Coors must reach consumers that are 21 years of age or older.  By LAW.  Now, how do they measure that?!  Media buyers must count impressions and justify the age demographic per program...which is pretty much defined by Neilsen and Arbitron---two research companies they subscribe to for ratings information.

Direct Mail:  Math is used here to determine the size of the cards, envelopes etc...and again....while building artwork in design and creating ads.

Online media is math too----all the back-end metrics for counting click-thrus, unique users, unique visits, etc....

Also consider research in general.  There are companies out there (PRIZM, for example) that collect all the above data with EVERY medium out there and can tell a potential client EXACTLY who they ought to market to and HOW they shoudl do it.  

Your question is hard to answer completely, but I hope this helps give you a start.

Answer 2

If maths is not used,then any company in the world would have gone bankrupt if ti doesn't control its marketing expenditure

Answer 3

One Gross Rating Point (GRP) = 1% of the target population exposed 1 time

TV ratings of all the shows in a schedule are summed to get to total GRPs.

Reach (the % of population that is exposed) x Frequency (the average number of times those reached see the ad) = GRPs.

Reach and Frequency achieved by different media can be combined.

Example:

TV schedule:  40% Reach x 2.5 Avg Freq = 100 GRPs

Radio schedule: 30% reach x 3.3 Avg Freq = 100 GRPs

Combinded reach = 40% + 30% - (40%*30% (those duplicated)) = 58%.  Avg Freq = 200 GRPs / 58%  = 3.4

There's lot more of this kind of math in advertising media planning.