Strata lacks media planning tools. Its media buying tools are siloed by media channel. In contrast, Bionic gives you a fully-integrated media workflow system.
About Strata
Strata, founded in 1984 and acquired by Comcast in 2005 and rebranded as Freewheel, provides media buying workflow automation.
Its strength is in creating and managing insertion orders across all types of media – digital and traditional – and its installed base of more than 1,000 advertising agencies.
Its weaknesses are a lack of support of the media planning process before the order, and high price.
How Bionic is Different From Strata
In contrast, Bionic media planning software provides a complete media planning and media buying tool on a modern cloud-based infrastructure at a reasonable price.
Although the Bionic and Strata products overlap and compete with one another, both products are sometimes used together at agencies – Bionic for media planning and Strata for media buying.
Strata vs. Bionic – 13 Key Differences
1. Lack of Customer Service
According to former and current customers, Strata’s customer service is lacking. In contrast, as a Bionic customer you get a dedicated Customer Success Manager, free onboarding, unlimited customer support, unlimited help with customization and configuration, live training, self-paced training with Bionic Academy.
2. Not for Media Planning
Strata is not a media planning system because you cannot use the Strata software to construct a media plan. Instead, Strata clients use Microsoft Excel to create their media plans and then re-key into Strata when they are ready to create insertion orders. This defeats the purpose of having a system because it hobbles collaboration, versioning, research, analysis and adopts all the problems of Excel. In contrast, Bionic gives you a complete media planning system.
3. Siloed by Media Channel
Strata divides your media plan into various modules organized by media channel. You use one module for ordering print media, another module for ordering broadcast media, another module for ordering digital media, and so on. But what if you have a multi-channel media plan? Bionic enables you to plan every penny of your media budget across all your media channels in one unified interface.
4. Locked into Broadcast Calendar
Strata is hard-coded to the broadcast calendar. While handy for linear radio and TV broadcasting, most other modern media channels do not use the broadcast calendar. They use our standard (Gregorian) calendar instead. With Bionic you can use either calendar and switch seamlessly between calendars.
5. Limited to US Dollars Only
Strata only supports media spending in US Dollars. In contrast, Bionic handles media planning every major currency in the world, automatically handles exchange rates, and follows tricky FASB and ISA accounting rules.
6. No Artificial Intelligence
Strata lacks artificial intelligence. In contrast, Bionic gives you powerful insights through AI-Powered media planning.
7. No Client Dashboards
Strata lacks the ability to create client dashboards. In contrast, Bionic gives you the ability to create beautiful custom dashboards through Bionic Data Studio.
8. Research Data Not Included
Strata requires you to add research data from third parties in order to conduct audience research. Bionic has a built-in, searchable catalog of advertising inventory and products that will help you to reach your market.
9. No Advertising Flowcharts
Strata does not create advertising flowcharts, which is one of the most important documents in the media planning process. Bionic creates advertising flowcharts with a click of a button.
10. No Media Plan Presentations
Strata is of no help when you need to create presentations, which are critical in the process of getting approval for your media plan. Bionic creates comprehensive PowerPoint presentation chock-full of graphs, charts, reports and company logos directly from your media plan. Save hours of time and eliminate errors and omissions.
11. No Product Transparency
Strata doesn’t provide product demonstrations or screenshots on their website. They require you to see the product through a salesperson. There’s probably a reason for that. In contrast, Bionic gives you an online product demonstration that shows you all the key features of the system at your own pace without a salesperson pressuring you.
12. Lack of Product Innovation
Despite significant changes in the advertising industry, Strata has not changed much in years. In contrast, Bionic gives you a steady stream of free upgrades with new features every month (sometimes more frequently).
13. High Price
Strata doesn’t post prices on its website. You have to ask for a price quote. It’s reputed to be expensive. With Bionic, you get no nonsense, transparent pricing which includes software, upgrades, onboarding, training, and all the support you need.
Did we miss anything?
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