An Optimization Approach Using Traditional Media

Media plays a significant role in advertising so as to attract and persuade people to buy products/services. Traditional advertising media including: television, newspaper, magazine and radio medium channels are the focus of this study. Advertising agencies usually seek effective advertising strategies that attempt to analyze the impact of each dollar spent, on various ad medium channels, so as to maximize the number of potential customers' exposure. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to develop an optimization model using linear programming techniques to determine the optimal advertising cost to achieve a desired target of potential customers' exposure. The model is then solved using LINDO software. Three scenarios representing three companies of different levels of ad spending (budgets) are considered in this study. In addition two sub-scenarios are developed under each main scenario; i.e., restricted vs. unrestricted. In the restricted sub-scenarios, the model was forced to use the four traditional medium channels, while in the unrestricted ones; the model was left to select the optimal medium channel(s) amongst the four.