The wall between national and local marketing is falling with tech-empowered consumers able to find their information wherever they want it, noted YP‘s EVP & GM of Digital Markets David Lebow during a keynote at Leading in Local: The National Impact in Atlanta. “Traditional media companies are the only ones keeping up that wall.”

YP is very much a company in transition, like Gannett, Hearst and others, noted Lebow, a longtime media and online leader with recent stints at AOL and Internet Broadcasting. Like the others, YP’s real and clichéd task is “to grow the growing side of the business in excess of the declining side of the business. It never changes.”

“The question is: how can we be the Google of local search?” asks Lebow. “In order to do that, we need to innovate at the pace of the market.”

There is no question that YP should be pursuing local search. “We don’t want to be in directory. One is a $2.7 billion segment growing at 3 percent, while the other is a $29.8 billion segment growing at 7 percent,” said Lebow. But it is critical to attack the market in a broad way. YP shouldn’t be a content play within a vertical, like a Zillow or a WebMD, he said.

A core focus of the local search effort needs to be in SMB presence management. “Businesses really need to be found,” Lebow said. And that’s where the convergence of national local comes in. “The SMB says it needs leads and loyalty. National says it needs measurement, analytics and reporting. The needs of national and local businesses” are coming into one.”

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The wall between national and local marketing is falling with tech-empowered consumers able to find their information wherever they want it, noted YP‘s EVP & GM of Digital Markets David Lebow during a keynote at Leading in Local: The National Impact in Atlanta. “Traditional media companies are the only ones keeping up that wall.”

YP is very much a company in transition, like Gannett, Hearst and others, noted Lebow, a longtime media and online leader with recent stints at AOL and Internet Broadcasting. Like the others, YP’s real and clichéd task is “to grow the growing side of the business in excess of the declining side of the business. It never changes.”

“The question is: how can we be the Google of local search?” asks Lebow. “In order to do that, we need to innovate at the pace of the market.”

There is no question that YP should be pursuing local search. “We don’t want to be in directory. One is a $2.7 billion segment growing at 3 percent, while the other is a $29.8 billion segment growing at 7 percent,” said Lebow. But it is critical to attack the market in a broad way. YP shouldn’t be a content play within a vertical, like a Zillow or a WebMD, he said.

A core focus of the local search effort needs to be in SMB presence management. “Businesses really need to be found,” Lebow said. And that’s where the convergence of national local comes in. “The SMB says it needs leads and loyalty. National says it needs measurement, analytics and reporting. The needs of national and local businesses” are coming into one.”

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Following yesterday’s talk from Living Social’s Mitch Spolan, this morning at Leading in Local: The National Impact, The Weather Co.’s Curt Hecht offered another primer on applying creativity to national to local marketing and advertising.

Hecht is an ad agency veteran who serves as Weather’s global chief revenue officer, driving revenue generation strategy for the Weather Channel and Weather.com.

“I love this topic of national-local,” Hecht said. “Weather is a global brand built off of location.”

Hecht has brought a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis to the task of using Weather data to drive new insight and creative new ways to help brands generate more sales based on weather patterns. These insights are activated on a hyperlocal basis, because responses to weather conditions are often very different based on region.

Under Hecht, Weather’s insights go much deeper than selling snow shovels when it’s about to snow.

“We think we can help you move more salad, beer,” Hecht said. “We have made the pivot to helping them know about their brand, our whole sales force now pushing it.”

One example is an exercise Weather went through to track how weather conditions drive soup consumption in the spring. The drivers vary by market. Clouds in Chicago, humidity in Boston.

Another example was Pantene, which ran a “forecast Frizz” campaign that pushed out ads pushing anti-frizz product days in advance of humid weather.

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UBL’s Co-Founder, CEO, and Chairman, Doyal Bryant said “UBL’s partnership with MomentFeed represents a boon for brands worldwide and serves to support our Company’s objective of providing best-in-class local SEO solutions for our global customer base. By combining the power of Universal Business Listing’s expertise in listing syndication and claiming, along with our patent-pending ClaimCard? solution, with MomentFeed’s robust marketing platform and PinSync technology for setting accurate map points across local sites and mobile apps, we have created what we believe is a true game-changing paradigm for companies to effectively reach and engage customers where they work, live and play, however they may choose to connect.”

This partnership is beneficial to any brand (national and/or local) with multiple locations. This partnership is designed to assist brands that have a broad range of challenges across multiple networks and channels that they use to communicate with their consumers, whether it be social and/or mobile.

Robert Blatt, CEO of MomentFeed, said, “The partnership between UBL and MomentFeed will help SMBs manage the digital identity of their physical locations and make sure consumers can easily get the right information about these businesses across channels and ultimately get to the locations.”

To read more about the new partnership click here for the press release.

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UBL’s Co-Founder, CEO, and Chairman, Doyal Bryant said “UBL’s partnership with MomentFeed represents a boon for brands worldwide and serves to support our Company’s objective of providing best-in-class local SEO solutions for our global customer base. By combining the power of Universal Business Listing’s expertise in listing syndication and claiming, along with our patent-pending ClaimCard? solution, with MomentFeed’s robust marketing platform and PinSync technology for setting accurate map points across local sites and mobile apps, we have created what we believe is a true game-changing paradigm for companies to effectively reach and engage customers where they work, live and play, however they may choose to connect.”

This partnership is beneficial to any brand (national and/or local) with multiple locations. This partnership is designed to assist brands that have a broad range of challenges across multiple networks and channels that they use to communicate with their consumers, whether it be social and/or mobile.

Robert Blatt, CEO of MomentFeed, said, “The partnership between UBL and MomentFeed will help SMBs manage the digital identity of their physical locations and make sure consumers can easily get the right information about these businesses across channels and ultimately get to the locations.”

To read more about the new partnership click here for the press release.

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The convergence of ‘local-local’ and ‘national-local‘ was in full swing on Day 1 of BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local: The National Impact conference yesterday in Atlanta.

AAA, Aflac, AutoTrader, Balihoo, Living Social, Fourquare, LocalVox, Two Men and a Truck, Yodle, YP were among the big names crowding the stage on Day 1. A number of key themes emerged. One is the amount of creativity being applied to the national-local challenge, which came through in the talk from Living Social’s Mitch Spolan. Another is the degree to which technology and automation are helping solve the inherent scale issues involved in national to local. This theme came through loud and clear in the “Local Imperative” Superforum and the Leading in Local Demos.

Here are some of the “aha” moments from yesterday’s sessions.

Before the Bell Insight Session: Local Search and the Keys to Discovery

This pre-conference session was probably the most SMB focused conversation of the event so far. The discussion honed in on the challenges and opportunities in local search. Some key moments:

Trevor Sumner, CEO, LocalVox talked about the confusion in the local search marketplace and how daunting it is for small-businesses. “What SMBs really want is a hug.” Meaning SMBs are overwhelmed with decisions to make about media. Make it simple for them. “Content creation is huge for national brands. Let’s bring that opportunity to local.”

Chuck Lee, VP Marketing, YP: Competition with small, local digital agencies is a big challenge for large media companies like YP. The only way to compete, in his view, is to “sacrifice margin for the lifetime value of the client.” Lee made the point the high customer acquisition costs will kill a company much faster than a high cost of customer service.

BIA/Kelsey Leadership: Why National Is Key to Local Success

BIA/Kelsey CEO Tom Buono and Managing Director Rick Ducey set the stage for the event with a thematic framework supported by data. National advertisers are increasing their spending in these local markets to target consumers in specific geographic areas. While they still spend on nationwide networks (e.g., NBC, ESPN), they are increasing their spending with local media companies such as local radio and television stations, and local online properties.

Overall BIA/Kelsey expects national advertisers to increase their spending in local markets from $50.2 billion in 2013 to 68.9 billion in 2018, growing at a 6.5 percent compounded annual growth rate.

AutoTrader founder Chip Perry joined Buono and Ducey for a conversation about the challenges of building a national-local business. A few of Chip’s insights:
— Price appropriately, find and serve the unmet needs, and make buying easier are key ingredients Perry offers for successfully disrupting an industry and scaling to success.
— Taking Autotrader.com from zero to $1.5 billion was supported by an innovative Cox Media but it also took entrepreneurial vision, willingness to be open to trying new things and commitment over time to reach goals, not short term profits.

Keynote: Rob Wilk, Foursquare

Rob Wilk runs sales at Foursquare, the check-in app, and is looking for ways to help helping national brands connect with local consumers. Last week Foursquare made the decision to move to a two-app approach, a decision that has drawn some flack for diluting its use case.

“Local is the intersection of interest and discovery,” Wilk said, explaining how its service now offers a core discovery engine, plus a separate app for social interaction (Swarm). Wilk defended this choice by saying consumer behavior strongly supports the idea of single use apps.

Mobile is Foursquare’s DNA. And as Wilk said, “Local is mobile.” This mirrors a theme BIA/Kelsey has been talking about with its clients, how advertisers are increasingly using multiple mobile channels to reach local customers, and mobile consumers are off the charts in terms of their proximity to purchase. Foursquare users are high engagement mobile users, and are 352 percent more likely to use their smartphone to find a location than the average consumer.

Keynote: Mitch Spolan, Living Social

Yahoo veteran Spolan has been at Living Social for three years, now with the job EVP Global Retain. His focus is on helping big brands use deals and Living Social’s marketing platform to reach new customer segments. Living Social is bringing a lot of creativity and innovation to helping national brands. Spolan gave a quick and energetic view of how Living Social is going well beyond deals to drive local engagement for national brands. A few highlights from Mitch’s talk:

— “Deals are very, very powerful for many brands,” but the deals themselves only represent part of the overall opportunity that brands have in working with deals companies and their millions of local customers.”

— LivingSocial positions itself as offering daily inspiration on things to do locally, travel adventures, and fabulous products, all while giving you fantastic deals and discounts.

— “The company is mostly focused on providing an “integrated experience” that tie brands to Living Social customers. For instance, Living Social provides local specific experiences as part of its brand promotion deal with Miller Coors’ Redd Apple Ale — and “Miller Coors is not selling its products on Living Social.”

The post At Leading in Local: The National Impact: Day 1 Highlights appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

The operative question is how do you activate and bring to life a brand’s strength? asked Spolan. It doesn’t always include a deal. In many cases, email, Facebook and Twitter can target local customers with messages — in fact, Living Social regularly achieves 12 percent coverage in given markets using the wide range of social media and commerce tools at its disposal.

The company is mostly focused on providing an “integrated experience” that tie brands to Living Social customers. For instance, Living Social provides local specific experiences as part of its brand promotion deal with Miller Coors’ Redd Apple Ale — and “Miller Coors is not selling its products on Living Social,” said Spolan. Consumers are also not going to be buying a Hyundai Santa Fe on Living Social — but Hyndair finds real value in working with Living Social.

Living Social “experiences” that are sponsored by brands include a kayaking adventure in Denver, a pirate cruise in San Francisco, a Blues and BBQ part in Atlanta; urban biking in Philadelphia and emerging artist festivals in Washington DC.

The company’s base of customers are often larger than brands can achieve on their own, added Spolan. A campaign with a restaurant chain such as Outback will be marketed to larger group than Outback would otherwise have. If brands do want to do a deal or sell an item, however. The volume is potentially huge — or in Living Social parlance, a “Stampede.” Bed Bath & Beyond, for instance, recently sold 378,000 vouchers for an in-store deal.

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During his kickoff keynote today at Leading in Local: The National Impact, Foursquare VP of Sales Rob Wilk asserted that his company sits at the intersection of interest and discovery. This has remained unchanged since its 2008 launch at SXSW he says, despite many product evolutions.

His comments come close in the wake of Foursquare’s controversial move last week to unbundle it’s flagship app into two apps. This has been argued by some to fragment its use case. It now has the core local discovery engine, and the separate social activity app for finding nearby friends.

The latter takes form in its new Swarm app while the former will be positioned for a broader mainstream audience. The thought was that some of the features now being peeled out for Swarm were holding the main app back from this broader appeal… and the growth that comes with it.

Wilk also argued that these are two inherently different use cases that should be able to develop on  their own. This echoes the recently well covered comments of Mark Zuckerberg who has similarly unbuldled the “big blue app” and has lots of orbiting apps such as Instagram, Messenger, Paper, etc.

For Foursquare, Wilk characterized these divergent use cases as suggestions and local discovery (main app); and “keeping up and meeting up” (Swarm). He even used “Where you at?” as an unofficial tagline — reminiscent Loopt’s early mantra around similar social/local ambitions.

Interestingly, despite the bifurcation of app front ends, they’ll share the same data backbone. That makes sense considering the rich data that each will uncover about location based sentiment, and the company’s longstanding data-driven DNA. That’s what all those check-ins were for.

The jury is still out on app unbundling, but the single-function paradigm of the app marketplace (“do one thing and do it well”) has proven out in lots of ways. That gains additional support from Facebook’s strategic endorsement. And it has historical significance according to Wilk.

“It will be similar to the de-portalization we saw on the web,” he said.

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Eyeview and G/O Digital have brought a personalized and hyperlocal flavor to the Go Local Awards with their program to help appliance retailer Conn’s use video to distribute its local circular content. The awards, co-presented by BIA/Kelsey and Balihoo, showcase innovation in national to local digital marketing.

Eyeview Sales Director Ben Flaccus walked us through the program. Conn’s key challenge was finding a robust way to deliver its weekly circulars in an era of declining print newspaper circulation.

“We were able to combine the wealth of data that exists within online circular environment — in this case through G/O Digital’s ShopLocal circular warehouse — with the most powerful medium for delivering messaging, which is video,” Flaccus said.

The Go Local Award winners will be announced this week at BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local: The National Impact conference in Atlanta.

Watch this video to learn more about the program, how it worked and the results it produced.

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Eventful, the latest Go Local Awards finalist to be featured here, borrowed a technique often used for film trailers to promote a new TV show, Fox’s “Sleepy Hollow,” with tremendous results. The program used digital media to created a competition among cities for which would get to host a preview of the new show.

Eventful’s Holly Anderson shared some of the campaign’s results — 30,000 participants, 18 million social impressions, 1 million trailer views and 35 million digital media impressions.

“And 31 percent of the 30,000 participants shared their voting on Facebook and Twitter,” Anderson said.

Anderson said campaigns like this work well for higher-engagement type films and TV shows — think comedy, scifi and horror. One event derived from the campaign drew 4,000 people to view a screening in a cemetery. And yes, the Headless Horseman was in attendance.

The Go Local Awards winners will be announced next week at BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local: The National Impact conference in Atlanta.

Watch this video to learn more about Eventful’s finalist entry in the Go Local Awards.

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