It’s here! We have just announced the agenda for BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL. which takes place March 25-27 in Dallas.

The NATIONAL theme is especially important this year. Local technology and services have reached a level where they have fostered major relationships with national brands and retailers. At IAB’s Annual Leadership Meeting last year, we noted a poll by Operative that showed that local sales has now become the seventh most important revenue driver for CMOs. Our own BIA/Kelsey research shows that national players will spend more than $68 billion on local marketing by 2018.

We know this: Brands want to be part of this. Retailers want to be part of this. Franchisees want to be part of this. And so does local’s growing community of digital channel players and vendors.

All of them will be front and center at the third edition of BIA/Kelsey NATIONAL, which we are co-chairing with 3rd Act Marketing’s Gregg Stewart (ex 15 Miles, TMP and Wahlstrom).

The agenda is now posted, with an initial slate of keynoters that includes Facebook’s Jon Czaja, whose portfolio includes the national franchise opportunity, where he leverages his experience at core national local leaders such as General Mills, eBay and Walmart; “Everything I Know about Marketing I Learned from Google” author Aaron Goldman, Kenshoo‘s CMO, who shares his irreverent and critical take on search. social and mobile; and Geary LSF President and CEO Karen Kovaleski, who is spearheading national local strategies for such key brands as Bumble Bee, WD-40, Brooks Brothers and Ashley Furniture.

The brands themselves will be well represented at the show. The initial slate of brands at the event include key local targeting leaders from Brooks Brothers, El Pollo Loco, All My Sons Moving and Storage, ServiceMaster/American Home Shield and Rooms to Go.

Other speakers come from media leaders who are providing local solutions to national players, including Dallas Morning News SVP Grant Moise and Washington Post VP Ethan Selzer.

We’ll also hear from a number of top platform providers and agencies, including BizHive Chairman Dave Walker, ReachLocal VP Travis Arthur, Where2GetIt CEO Manish Patel, Simpli.fi CEO Frost Prioleau, SpeakEasy CEO Mike Orren, LocalBizNow CEO Todd Webber and Soci CEO Afif Khoury.

Anchoring the whole show is the second edition of our GoLocal Awards, honoring the best efforts from national brands and rretailers(and their agencies) in local. We’re just getting started. Watch this space for frequent updates.

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Right now mobile advertising accounts for about 9% of advertising spending for business franchisees or licensees according to BIA/Kelsey’s Local Commerce Monitor™. About 68.4% of business franchisees or licensees say they are planning to increase their current level of advertising and promotional spending in the next 12 months. This increase in spending will likely lead to a larger allocation of advertising budgets towards mobile with franchisees and licensees planning to use 42.2% of their future advertising budgets on digital/online advertising (7.1% more than last year).

For those franchisees and licensees who are not yet involved in mobile advertising, it is something they are considering for the future. About 34.3% of those who do not already advertise with mobile said they would invest in mobile search advertising, 34.3% showed an interest in mobile apps, 31.4% showed an interest in text message advertising and 31.4% in mobile deals according to the Local Commerce Monitor.

Many franchisees and licensees are taking advantage of bar codes in store. These bar codes are scanned by consumer’s smartphones with 54.7% of bar codes used being in print and 36.8% being posted somewhere in the store. Check-in information is also utilized with 70.5% of franchisees and licensees saying they actively use the information that is generated when customers check-in to their location, according to the Local Commerce Monitor.

Franchisees and licensees are clearly not ignoring mobile. In fact we expect their spending on mobile advertising to increase. To learn more about how national brands will be using mobile to appeal to the local population their franchisees and licensees cater to, come to BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local: The National Impact conference that will be held May 7-9 in Atlanta. Hot topics in national to local realm will be discussed by industry leaders so do not miss this opportunity to learn about and network with the experts.

For additional reasons to come to Atlanta in May, see below:

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Today at BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local conference, Hill Holiday EVP and Chief Media Officer Cindy Stockwell gave a street-level view of the opportunities and challenges confronting brands as they seek to localize their advertising/marketing. While there are voluminous channel and platform choices, Stockwell stressed three universal precepts: “add value to consumers in whatever channel they use,” “drive choice,” and “provoke conversation” (thus sparking virality).

Stockwell has led campaigns for prominent brands, notably Dunkin Donuts, across a variety of channels, utilizing various creative approaches. Dunkin, for instance, has run everything from branded messaging within social games to mobile-local coupons/locators in markets based on store density.

Her other rules of thumb and best practices for national-local in newer digital channels: 1) Social: “Big campaigns that are a moment in time are a waster of money. Brands must have continuous conversations with customers everyday”; 2) Mobile: “Use location (geo-fencing, for example) to add value to the experience.”

The bottom line: national marketers enjoy more choices than ever, and that increasingly includes customizing messaging to specific customers.

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The title of this event represents a bit of a change for us. BIA/Kelsey has always focused attention on the local SMB community. That business group continues to represent a significant revenue opportunity for those in local media.

We’ve observed a shift. National brands are now quite interested in using local interactive media platforms as they seek to grow sales. The large national brands do see a distinct benefit of “localizing” their messaging and marketing.

The question for local media brands is simple: are you in a position to offer these national brands the assistance they need?

Marketers on a national level are increasingly aware of the dangers of watching millions of dollars in brand/product messaging get lost or become ineffective because of poor execution at the local level. Store managers and franchisees can be forgiven for allowing these subtleties to pass them by but that doesn’t hold true for the corporate marketing department that gets stuck living with these mistakes.

If you are in any way related to the development of revenue in your company and you’d like to learn more about what national brands are doing to localize, you need to join us in Boston next week. Visit our website (www.biakelsey.com/LeadinginLocalBoston) to learn more and take a look at our agenda.

Hope to see you there.

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BIA/Kelsey’s advertising revenue estimates illustrate that national advertisers play a significant role in the purchasing of advertising opportunities across many different local media outlets. In 2012, our estimates are that national brands spent $45.2 billion dollars in local media advertising such as direct mail, television, print yellow pages, radio, out-of-home and more. This amount accounts for more than a third (33.6 percent) of all spending in local media.

Ultimately, to be successful, national advertisers need to reach audiences in specific areas with possibly different messages depending upon geography and/or the age/demographics of the audience consuming these media.

Where does this all go? Will national advertisers continue to utilize local media outlets to entice new and retain old customers? With the new opportunities sprouting up in the digital arena, will national advertisers take the lead in taking advantage of these opportunities?

Balihoo’s new study just released from the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council reveals that 59 percent of national marketers report that local demand generation is essential to their business growth, yet only 7 percent feel they have effective campaigns in place. The report, titled, “Brand Automation for Local Activation,” (download exec summary) and conducted in partnership with Balihoo, concludes that that the typical marketing mix lacks in strategy, automation and accountability leading to a localization scale gap that results in delayed and less effective local roll-outs of national brand campaigns.

We’ll be continuing the discussion at our LEADING IN LOCAL: The National Impact event, March 18-20 in Boston. Starting day one will be our SuperForum Highlight: National Brands, Local Channels. More info on the agenda is here. Registration is here.

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