Planning fundamentals
Media strategy
Media strategy is the layer above planning: it defines the role advertising plays in the commercial objective, which audiences matter, how the brand will compete for attention and what the budget must achieve. Planning then converts that strategy into a channel-level allocation.
In practice
Strategy decides that a launch needs rapid awareness among a specific audience before performance activity can convert efficiently. Planning decides that this means video and social reach in weeks one to three, with search capturing demand from week two.
When strategy is skipped, planning defaults to last year's split. The allocation may look reasonable while answering a question nobody asked.