Flighting

Flighting is media scheduling in alternating on and off periods — weeks of active spend, then dark weeks, then on again — against its rivals continuity (steady presence all period) and pulsing (a low continuous base with periodic heavy-ups). The pattern answers a budget's oldest dilemma: when funds can't sustain audible weight year-round, concentrated bursts that clear the attention threshold can beat a continuous whisper below it — the EFFECTIVE-FREQUENCY entry's threshold logic, applied to the calendar.

The classic case for flights: threshold economics (a SOV too thin to register all year, concentrated into periods where it competes — the ESOV math run in waves), demand seasonality (the retail moments and BLACK-FRIDAY-grade peaks where presence pays multiples), and launch-burst patterns (the BURST-CAMPAIGN entry's concentrated debut). The case against is memory decay: dark periods spend down the awareness the flights built — adstock curves measure the leak, and the Ehrenberg-Bass school's recency argument (be there when buyers enter the category, who arrive every week) pushes toward continuity at whatever affordable weight, noting that MENTAL-AVAILABILITY refreshing wants regular light presence more than occasional shouting. The modern synthesis is unsentimental about both camps: continuous-where-affordable for the base (always-on search and social riding intent — the ALWAYS-ON entry's layer), flighted heavy-ups where thresholds and seasons genuinely bind, and pulsing as the named compromise. The craft variables: flight lengths sized to memory decay (shorter darks leak less), creative wear interacting with the calendar (the CREATIVE-REFRESH clock pauses in dark weeks), competitive timing (flighting into rivals' dark weeks buys cheap relative SOV), and measurement designed for the pattern — the on-off structure is a natural DIFFERENCE-IN-DIFFERENCES experiment if the geos and timing are planned for it.

Flighting matters wherever budgets can't fund continuous audibility — most brands, most categories — and at seasonal concentrations where the calendar does the targeting. It matters as a deliberate choice against its rivals: the continuity evidence is strong enough that dark weeks need a reason. The discipline is thresholds and seasons argued with numbers, darks sized to decay, the always-on intent layer never flighted, and the pattern's own on-off structure harvested as the measurement experiment it naturally is.

Flighting is broadcast-era planning vocabulary — the 'flight' as a scheduled run of activity — formalized alongside continuity and pulsing in media-planning's scheduling triad; the threshold-versus-recency debate that governs the choice is the same one effective-frequency research has run for fifty years.

Etymology: source.

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Areas of marketing where flighting is a core concern: