As my husband and I tried to keep pace with our 7, 10 and 12-year-old kids (via text and geolocation app of course), I noticed how much our Halloween strategy this year correlates to a Media strategy.

Like managing a brand, managing my kids on Halloween started with a very basic question.

What are your goals? "What will give each target the most fun on Halloween?"

7 year old: His mission was to hit every house and secure as much candy as possible.

A straight up frequency approach to his end-goal with daypart limitations (cap at 8p)

10 year old: Meet up with best friends, go to every scary-looking house or find the “full-size candy bar”; the holy grail of Halloween.

An integrated media mix utilizing search, premium display, social with a geo-target overlay.

12 year old: All about the friends, independence from family and going to cool houses.

Mobile social media mix campaign with geo-targeting, optimizing against key app usage.

Do you have mixed demographics? How are you approaching each audience within your overall campaign to effectively communicate your product or service?

We understand how each demographic receives messages and consumes media. We optimize to ensure delivery, tweak parameters to boost performance and secure bonus when possible or make-goods when necessary. Customization of the media mix and its parameters to multiple demographics and parameters, even within a campaign are essential to the overall success of the campaign and delivery of the brand's goals. Not dissimilar to our Halloween success that included a ridiculous haul of candy, sorted (optimized) and two fully engaged tweens still talking about the scary house and “sharing” the tale of how they were chased by the scarecrow that came to life (marketplace disruption equaled ownership of the night).