BOLD Holds Paid Digital Media Workshop

This Tuesday, October 20th, Claudia Garcia, Digital Media Planner at rbb Communications, talked to students about her work in paid digital media and strategy. Claudia is a University of Florida graduate and has worked in paid media with various companies such as Zimmerman, Spirit Airlines, DHL, Chuck E. Cheese and Sam’s Club. Her presentation went over the process of how paid digital media planning works— a sector that many advertising students are interested in. 

Claudia started her presentation by talking about the various paid digital media channels such as search engines, social media platforms, and music and video streaming platforms. The presentation went into detail about the media planning process which includes campaign objectives and KPI, research, strategy, media buying, and monitoring and reporting. When talking about this process, Claudia mentioned that the paid digital world includes many of the same steps that traditional public relations follows but just translated differently. 

When it comes to targeting specific audiences, Claudia mentioned two groups of consumers which are those who are in-market for a certain product or service and those who have an affinity for that product or service. “You can be in the market for something which means that you recently searched up Adidas for example, but you can have an affinity for them which means you have constantly bought or researched Adidas over a long period of time,”. Companies use these terms when they decide on who it is they want to target specifically. Retargeting is another technique companies use to reach consumers. “Once a lot of people have added to your [company’s] cart, you can create an audience of that and target those people which is why it is called retargeting,” added Claudia. 

BOLD members were interested in Claudia’s presentation because the information pertains to many of the classes advertising and public relations students are taking. “It’s like one of my ad classes wrapped up in one real world presentation with super up to date information,” said Tiffany Davis, BOLD member. Claudia concluded her presentation by talking about some examples from the past experiences she’s had working with various brands. She encouraged BOLD members to reach out and ask her any questions they might have in the future. 

Click here to connect with Claudia!

BOLD is a student-run strategic communications agency at Florida International University. Click here to learn more.

Written by: Alejandra Chahine, Director of Public Relations