Selecting Media for National Advertising Revisited: Criteria of Importance to Large-Company Advertising Managers

Abstract Building on a previously published study of large-agency media specialists, the authors surveyed large-company advertising managers on their judgments of the importance of twenty selection criteria used to evaluate media for national advertising programs. The survey was designed and executed to complement and extend the media specialist study. Following pretesting, a modified version of the media specialist questionnaire was mailed to 402 advertising managers with the largest 100 U.S. advertisers. Factor analysis revealed four distinct media selection factors, which systematically differed in degree of importance regardless of ad managers' age, education, gender, and years in advertising. Factor structures and mean importance ratings of individual selection items were compared to results in the media specialist survey. While the number of factors generated by ad managers and media specialists varied, a great deal of consistency was found between the two groups' judgments of individual selection criteria.