What are the key skills required for an advertising planner or media planner?
The basic skills… To take a client’s brief and translate it into the purchase and siting of advertising… Dependent on what type of agency a planners role can vary significantly. The ones I work with – a planner is more of a market researcher… Understanding the clients needs, combined with an understanding of the consumer means they can turn the brief into a decent creative brief… and in turn that drives decent marketing activity. In other agencies you may just have to find then buy the media and the exposure required to hit a certain audience. Which ever way you look at it, the key skills will be – analytical thinking, strong communication skills, team work and commercial accumen. On the hard skills side you will need to be able to use Excel, ppt etc… As well as being good with software (many agencies have their own media targetting tools)… Oh and lastly any negotiation skills + client facing skills would be a real bonus. Given that the agency is an advertising agency (assu
