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 recently 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

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.

Key Differences

  1. Not for Media Planning – Strata is not considered a true 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.
  2. Disparate Modules – 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.
  3. No Artificial Intelligence – Strata lacks artificial intelligence. In contrast, Bionic gives you powerful insights through AI-Powered media planning.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. High Price – Strata doesn’t post prices on its website. You have to ask for a price quote. It’s reputed to be very expensive. With Bionic, you get no nonsense pricing including software, upgrades, and all the support you need for as low as $175 per month per user.
  10. Inflexible Terms – With Strata, you are locked into a long term contract. With Bionic, you get flexible month to month licensing and a money-back satisfaction Guarantee. You can upgrade, downgrade, or cancel anytime.

Did we miss anything?

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