I read an article several weeks ago that I just can’t get out of my head, “What National Advertisers Can Learn From Local Advertisers in Times of Uncertainty.”
The article was focused on the differences between National and Local advertising, thought processes, and tactics focusing primarily on the use of Out of Home. The article went on to position OOH as typically a local advertising tactic and Broadcast and Digital advertising as primarily National mediums.
The product, market, audience demographics, time of year, budget, available creative, and the amount of effort you or your media agency are willing to put into your advertising plan dictates what channels are available for your advertising campaign. Let’s look at the options individually.
Broadcast: is broadcast the first thought for a small local company, probably not. Unless you are in a one-county DMA broadcast probably will reach consumers well past your typical consumer target area. Then you add in the cost of broadcast quality creative, and you may have already exceeded your annual advertising budget. If you negotiate enough to make it past these hurdles you may have just created more work for yourself than you bargained for. National schedules typically run on a higher priority and at a higher cost than local so you may be following bumped spots for the duration of your schedule. Hopefully, your account executive will find creative ways to get the spots to run, after all, you want your ads seen and they want to fulfill your contract – it’s the only way they get paid. For a national advertiser or their agency, placing a national broadcast schedule may be the simplest, highest total gross cost advertising possible.
Cable advertising may seem more manageable for a local campaign. With the use of zone buys you can geographically target a more focused area, but you are still subject to similar hazards as buying broadcast with additional unknowns. National advertisers have the luxury of buying entire cable systems or even simpler using Ampersand, a national cable buying service, to buy every cable household available. How many homes are cord-cutters and subscribe to streaming services? Cable subscriptions have been on the decline in the US for years. So, do you now need to consider both cable and Streaming, OTT? Can you afford to do both?
3. Do you think you’d be better off abandoning cable and going for streaming, OTT, households? The data shows you may be. Now you have the option of addressable delivery, virtually no waste, using subscription-based user demographics with the similar advantage of local live networks delivered through their streaming subscription. But which streaming service, or services, do you use.
4. Conspicuously absent in the article was radio. Radio, along with digital are both well suited for both National, Regional, and local advertising. While both require different planning based on scale, both have the added benefit of a more moderate creative expanse as compared to broadcast-quality creative. This alone may make either, or both, more appealing options particularly for local advertising. Digital can be as, or more, efficient to local as OOH can be to National, the key to its success is in the strategy and execution.
5. And finally Out of Home….. This is where I take exception to the article referenced. Honestly, the idea that OOH is typically a local advertiser channel - in my humble opinion, I couldn’t disagree more. While local advertisers may have a boots-on-the-ground knowledge of the premier OOH options in the market and are on a first-name basis with their local OOH representative at the local convenience store, OOH done right can have the same efficiency and outcome for regional or national advertisers. One downside for large OOH campaigns, the creative production expense is going to be directly proportional to the campaign scale, so be ready for that. Is doing it right as easy as placing a regional or national buy and leaving the final choices to an inventory specialist at a National Sales office? It is not! To remove any confusion, we aren’t talking about easy, we’re talking about doing it right. “Advertisers and agencies must educate themselves on the OOH channel to find out just how valuable it is to achieving brand, audience and KPI requirements….” If you are an advertiser placing your own media yes, you’re going to have to navigate the minefield on your own, if your agency needs to educate themselves on the value of OOH as part of your media mix it’s pretty simple, you have the wrong agency.
“Anything worth doing, is worth doing right.” - Hunter S. Thompson
If you’re good with rep firms, resellers, or holding companies taking your money and going through the motions or possibly subbing out your media buying……..best of luck!
If not, A3 Media’s only job is Media Planning & Buying, it’s all we do……All day, every day!
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