Influenced by Media Brands? A Conjoint Experiment on the Effect of Media Brands on Online Media Planners' Decision-Making

Advertising revenues are a major source of income for media companies such as publishing houses. In the age of digitalisation, generating revenue in the online advertising market is an essential ingredient for future economic viability and competitiveness. However, programmatic advertising as a new marketing technique, as well as the proliferated number of websites and increased competition, has challenged publishing houses to generate revenue within the online advertising market. Therefore, media branding has emerged as an important issue. Since brands in such a B2B market share the same purpose as they do in consumer markets, they too offer the potential for media companies to gain a substantial competitive advantage. This article investigates the importance of media brands in relation to other purchase criteria within online media planning. The results of an Adaptive Choice-Based Conjoint analysis (ACBC) with online media planners suggest that the role of media brands within online media planning is limited and secondary to price and its influence varies over different career levels. Furthermore, a price premium can be obtained for a media brand with a higher perceived utility. This article concludes with implications for media companies.