Local Integration
“You can’t buy out the homepage of MSN in Denver, but you can buy out the homepage of the Denver Post or Rocky Mountain News,” said Shawn Riegsecker, Founder and President of Centro on the panel “Developing an Integrated Local Media Strategy.”
He cited Hitwise numbers that 21% of newspaper site visitors are coming from a portal or search engine. Though that concerned some, he thinks that’s great for newspapers. “It’s a pretty sad statement on a couple levels today that if you mention geotargeting to an interactive agency, they call a portal and see how many impressions they can get in that city.” He said at Centrohttp://www.yahoo.com, they believe local targeting must begin with local publishers.
Fred Lebolt, VP of New Media with the Sun Times Group, recapped newspapers’ strongest assets: local content, and strong relationships with communities and advertisers. Much of his talk focused on defining integration. “Integration in my mind comes down to a simple phrase: it’s all about audience-targeted delivery… I think the key to success here will be a deep and rich set of audience metrics that go well beyond what’s already talked about… In the digital age, it means understanding behavior across many more platforms than in the past.” The downside: this integration requires a great deal of work.
Warren Kay, Yahoo‘s Director of Emerging Products, followed with more of a sales pitch. One part is making sure Yahoo’s effectively targeting consumers where they really are. The other part is helping advertisers create truly local campaigns. On the display side, Yahoo lets advertisers target ads by various geographic parameters. Then there’s a subscription-based product on Yahoo Local and Yahoo Yellow Pages. Lastly, there’s the search model, which lets any advertiser target consumers searching locally from a number of way. Yahoo says it takes a holistic view to enable advertisers to target consumers locally in any number of ways, such as in specific markets or adapting messaging to varying local audiences. Moderator Rich Gordon, Associate Professor and Chair of Northwestern University, asked him to clarify that “integrated” means “targeting nationally and locally.”
Marc Barach, Ingenio‘s Chief Marketing Officer, noted the disconnect between online usage and media spending. He said integration is step two; the first step is bringing more advertisers online to meet their target audience.
