What is a Universe and Why is it Important?
A Universe is an area of measurement of who you’re reaching within a media campaign. You want a Universe to cover the same area regardless of the type of media buy you’re utilizing in your overall campaign. It doesn’t matter whether you’re planning a buy for print, digital, or outdoor. “When you’re pulling together a media buy, your Universe should be equal on all media platforms,” says Media Link Software® President Natalie Linville-Mass. “Whether you’re using digital, television, or print, you should be looking at the same Universe so you can compare media buys and examine efficacy as an apples-to-apples comparison.”
What is the role of a DMA in a Universe?
We recommend going with TV as the template to build your overall Universe. In TV, you begin with DMAs (Dominant Market Areas). DMAs can vary wildly by market. For cities with a dominant media center, the DMA will extend from the metro urban area outward. For markets with more than one metropolitan center, a DMA may include a region of several cities in the overall geographic footprint.
Because the TV footprint is usually larger than the reach of radio, print, and other media, you’ll need to consider the reach of each medium when building your Universe.
How does a Universe help your clients?
A Universe is another tool to help your clients reach their base. You’ll still need to use tools such as demographic targeting to reach the right customers for each client. The Universe is another tool to help define the overall reach to find that demo within your targeted area.
Each client will have different needs in a Universe. If you have a Homebuilder as a client, for example, that client will have a very specific geographic region they work within. Another client in the same city as your home builder may have a business which needs to reach a larger geographic area, and will need a larger Universe.
Will a Universe save time on future media buys?
The flexibility of building your own Universe is powerful, and it also saves you time in the long run. It takes some effort to build each Universe, but then you can fine-tune and re-use that Universe for each consecutive media buy for a specific client.
See how useful a Universe can be in streamlining cable advertising, as just one example. You can calculate a Market within Media Link Software®, to build a Universe not just for a single media buy, but to be re-used for all future media buys for each of your clients. It’s a powerful tool.