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Kelsey ILM Coverage: We have money to spend; help us spend it!
By Kim Carlson | November 29, 2007
This was the resounding message from a session titled, ‘National Advertisers Going Local’. The session raised many interesting questions and challenges for online Local media.
So why are national advertisers at a Local conference?
1. They have big budgets - national advertisers currently account for 15% of local ad spend (not including Franchise or Co-Op money)
2. They have a local presence (storefront)
3. Buying local media online is more complicated than offline
Next, is the agency model broken?
Shawn Riegsecker, chairman and CEO of Centro, said that buying traditional media using the agency model, back when there were fewer choices was pretty easy. Along came Cable, which put stresses on the Agency buying model, then the introduction of online only made it worse.
However, the panel contended that the agency model is not broken but rather needs scalable technology to streamline fragmented online media purchases.
How big is the video opportunity at the Local level?
The panel had widely varying answers but agreed that there was no standardization with video products. It is tough to execute a successful media buy when the video product varies so much from network to network. But with standardization video can have an be impact, especially with younger audiences.
What about “user-generated” content?
The general theme I heard was that the buying community is trying to find ways to leverage it. Jeff Huges, media director of GM Planworks elaborated that with GM, sports are big. Therefore, associating GM with local content related to sports is huge from a brand perspective. But the panel agreed for national advertisers to truly leverage UGC it must be 1) world class from an editorial perspective, 2) safe, and 3) relevant.
Then, the panel pointed out the balance of volume vs. relevance being a major challenge for Local. There are many publishers that can attract a targeted local audience, but often with not enough volume to make it worthwhile.
So it’s true that national advertisers have a ton of money to spend on local. They are waiting…… we just need to figure out real fast how to get them to that audience in a scalable manner.
Topics: National advertisers, The Kelsey Group, Local Search, Advertising |