A media buying agency plans and buys the paid space your campaign runs in, whether that is print, digital, social, radio, cinema or out-of-home, and negotiates the rates, placements and timings on your behalf. Good media buying gets your budget in front of the right audience at the right moment, for a fair price, and keeps checking that the money is working while the campaign is live. It is the paid side of getting noticed, and it works best when it is planned alongside the coverage you earn rather than in isolation.
Kitten & Shark is a boutique media buying agency based in London, planning and buying media for hotels, travel, restaurant and lifestyle brands across the UK and Europe. You work directly with our senior PR consultants from the first conversation onwards, so the people who plan your campaign are the people who run it. There is no handover to a junior team once the contract is signed.
Media buying sits within our wider online PR services, so your paid media can be planned next to your media relations and digital marketing, rather than bought in a silo.
A media buying agency turns a budget and a set of goals into a plan of where to advertise, then buys that space and manages it. For most hospitality and lifestyle brands, the work is a mix of the following:
The planning and the buying are two halves of the same job. The plan decides where your money should go, and the buying makes it happen on the best terms available.
A media planning and buying agency does both, so the thinking and the buying stay joined up.
The strategy: who you are trying to reach, which channels suit them, how much to put where and when the campaign should run.
The execution: negotiating the deals, booking the space and managing the campaign once it is live.
When the two are split across different suppliers, the plan and the spend can drift apart, and the campaign is usually weaker for it.
| Service | What it supports |
|---|---|
| Media planning and strategy | A clear plan for who to reach, on which channels, with what budget and timing |
| Digital and social buying | Paid search, display, paid social and video, aimed at the right audience |
| Programmatic media buying | Automated buying across digital inventory, with targeting and controls in place |
| Print, out-of-home and broadcast | Press, magazines, posters, radio and cinema for launches and seasonal campaigns |
| Negotiation and booking | Fair rates, strong placements and campaigns trafficked correctly |
| Reporting and optimisation | Clear reporting and budget moved towards what is performing while live |
Paid and earned media do different jobs, and they are stronger together. Media relations earns the coverage that builds trust, a travel editor recommending your hotel or a journalist reviewing your restaurant, while media buying puts paid budget behind the moments you cannot leave to chance, such as a launch date or a seasonal push. When the two are planned together, a piece of earned coverage can be amplified with paid support, and a paid campaign can point people towards the stories already being written about you.
This is why buying media through a team that also understands PR tends to work better than treating the two as separate line items. The message stays consistent, the timing lines up, and paid and earned spend support the same commercial goal rather than competing for it.
Media buying earns its keep when you have a budget to spend and a real reason to reach people at a particular time. A few situations we see often:
We start with the audience and the goal, not the channels. Who are you trying to reach, what do you want them to do, and by when? From there, we map the channels those people actually use, set out a plan for how much to put where, then negotiate and book. Because we are independent, we recommend the mix we believe will work rather than the space we happen to have to sell, and we keep adjusting once the campaign is live.
UK advertising spend reached £46.7 billion in 2025, spread across more channels and formats than ever.
That figure comes from the Advertising Association and WARC Expenditure Report. With that much choice, careful planning and buying is what stops a budget being spread too thin.
Where a campaign needs it, we bring in social media management and creative support through our wider network, so the buying and the content pull in the same direction.
Good media buying is measured against what you set out to achieve, not vanity numbers. Depending on the campaign, that can mean reach and frequency among your target audience, cost per click or per thousand impressions, enquiries, bookings, footfall or brand awareness. We agree the measures that matter to you before the campaign starts, then report on them clearly. Paid media can support awareness, coverage and demand, though no agency can promise a fixed return, and we would be wary of anyone who does.
There are two parts to the cost: the media spend itself, which is the money that goes to the platforms and media owners, and the agency fee for planning, buying and managing it. Fees are usually a monthly retainer or a percentage of spend, sometimes a project fee for a one-off campaign. Rather than quote a fixed package, we prefer to understand your goals and budget first, then suggest a level of support that fits. A short conversation is the quickest way to get a realistic sense of cost.
If you are comparing media buying agencies, or looking for a media planning and buying agency for a hospitality or lifestyle brand, the right choice depends less on size and more on fit. A few things worth checking before you sign anything:
Here is what a boutique, senior-led model gives you:
Kitten & Shark is based in London and plans and buys media for brands across the UK and Europe. A London base matters for a media buying agency because so many of the media owners, platforms and national titles are based in the city, which keeps the relationships that secure strong rates and placements close at hand. The campaigns themselves reach wherever your audience is, from a city launch to a regional or national push.
Kitten & Shark is a boutique PR consultancy whose senior consultants work directly on your account. Founder Clemmie Mason-Pearson has more than 17 years of experience in lifestyle and hospitality PR, with long-standing relationships with the editors, journalists and media owners who shape these sectors. Because the team is small, everyone knows every account, so your campaign always has a senior contact who knows the details.
Alongside the core team, we draw on a wider network of specialists across event handling, celebrity booking, hotel sales, social media management, digital marketing and SEO, international media and crisis management, so you get the focus of a small agency with the reach of a larger one. Media buying sits alongside our hospitality PR work, and we plan it with the same brands in mind: boutique and independent hotels, four and five-star properties, premium hospitality names, restaurants, wellness spaces and distinctive travel brands.
A media buying agency plans where your paid advertising should run, then negotiates and buys that space and manages the campaign while it is live. It covers the audience research, the channel plan, the rate negotiation, the booking and the reporting, so your budget reaches the right people on fair terms.
Media buying is paid: you buy the space your campaign runs in and control the message. PR is earned: you gain coverage and credibility because a journalist, editor or creator chooses to feature you. Paid and earned media do different jobs and work best when they are planned together, which is why we handle media buying alongside our PR work.
Media planning is the strategy, deciding who to reach, on which channels, with what budget and timing. Media buying is the execution, negotiating the deals, booking the space and managing the campaign. A media planning and buying agency does both, so the thinking and the spending stay joined up.
There are two parts: the media spend that goes to the platforms and media owners, and the agency fee for planning, buying and managing it. The fee is normally a monthly retainer or a percentage of spend, or a project fee for a one-off campaign. We suggest a level of support based on your goals and budget rather than a fixed package.
We start with the audience and the goal, not the channels. We map where your target audience spends its attention, plan how much to put where, then negotiate and book. Because we are independent, we recommend the mix we believe will work rather than the space we have to sell, and we keep adjusting once the campaign is live.
Against what you set out to achieve. Depending on the campaign, that can mean reach and frequency, cost per click or per thousand impressions, enquiries, bookings, footfall or brand awareness. We agree the measures that matter before the campaign starts, then report on them clearly. Paid media can support demand, though no agency can promise a fixed return.
Programmatic media buying uses technology to buy digital ad space automatically, in real time, with targeting and budget controls in place. It can make digital campaigns more efficient, but it still needs a clear plan and human oversight so the buying stays aligned with your goals and your brand.
Yes. We plan and buy media for hotels, travel, restaurant and lifestyle brands, and we plan it alongside your PR so paid and earned coverage support each other. We work across boutique and independent hotels, four and five-star properties, premium hospitality names, restaurants, wellness spaces and distinctive travel brands.
Reputable industry and media sources are used to inform the figures and context on this page.