Benecol Spread and Media Planning

Abstract

Benecol Spread, a cholesterol-lowering margarine, was a product with unusual media-planning challenges. With a narrow target group and unproven market potential, Johnson & Johnson needed to get the most "bang for the buck" from its Benecol advertising. Would a media-planning model (optimizer) requiring executives to quantify their judgment on several key inputs be helpful in this process? A spreadsheet accompanying the case allows students to weight the target groups and to choose among different advertising vehicles to form the best possible media plan.

Excerpt

UVA-M-0664

Rev. Apr. 7, 2016

benecol spread and media planning

Benecol Spread was a product with unusual media planning challenges. With a narrow target group and unproven market potential, it was particularly important for Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to get the most “bang for the buck” from its Benecol advertising. Executives wondered whether a media planning model (optimizer), which required them to quantify their judgment on several key inputs in order to produce useful output, could be helpful in this process.

Margarine and Cholesterol

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Keywords: advertising media, advertising strategy, media planning