Designated Market Areas: The Swiss Army Knife of Media Buys

Designated market areas were created in the mid-1950s specifically for use in national TV spot buying. 

Each designated market area (or DMA) covers an area where viewers have access to the same television options, according to The Balance. “Advertisers wanted to tailor their buys to the specific areas of the country where sales were concentrated . . . [DMAs] facilitated this marketplace,” explains media historian Tim Brooks.

Are DMAs a concept that has come and gone? “No, but they need to come into the 21st century,” says Patti Gold, managing partner and chief media officer at The Shipyard. “DMAs work in a way that other definitions—like metro areas—don’t, because they include virtually everyone in the country. We need this kind of common denominator in order to cleanly value offline media and compare apples to apples between offline and online.”

Today, there are 210 designated market areas, according to Nielsen, representing 114,695,130 total TV homes in the U.S.

Read the full article  on the Videa site

Q&A Interview with Ellen Oppenheim - Oppenheim Media

Ellen Oppenheim of Oppenheim Media Consulting began her career at Y&R in their media training program. Her background spans such a wide swath of the industry that she likes to say that that she “has done everything that one can do in media that is legitimate –  bought, sold, marketed and promoted all forms of media”.  In this interesting interview, Ellen talks about her work at the MPA, the impact of second screen on print, the concept of engagement and what skill sets the next generation of media executives need to have. Ellen also shares her views on what the media landscape will look like five years from now.

The three videos of the complete interview are as follows:

Subject                                                Length (in minutes)

Background, Skill Set                            (4:33)

Second Screen, Predictions                   (4:54)

MPA, Engagement                                (6:55)

Charlene Weisler interviews Ellen Oppenheim who talks about her background and the past trends in media in this 4:33 minute video.

Ellen Oppenheim of Oppenheim Media talks to Charlene Weisler about second screens and how the future of media will look in this 4:54 minute video: 

Charlene Weisler interviews Ellen Oppenheim about her work at the MPA and how media can become more engaging in this 6:55 minute video: