Radha Subramanyam on Why Brands Have Started to Focus on Local Advertising [VIDEO]

The following is part of TV[R]EV’s “Eyes On Local” video series. Interested in learning more? See our new “Local OTT: What You Need to Know” special report.

Why have brands started to focus more heavily on local advertising? It's one of the key questions of TV[R]EV's recent local OTT report, and one that Chief Research and Analytics Officer, CBS and President, CBS Vision Radha Subramanyam explores thoroughly in the video below:

"So advertisers aren't one thing -- advertisers aren’t a monolith. There are different advertisers. There are national advertisers and local advertisers, there are DTC brands and there are other brands, right? There are a whole host of advertisers in America, and local plays a key role for all of them, maybe differently.

There are many brands that are regional to begin with. So they may seem national, because they're so big, but especially if you think of large auto dealers or retail, there are a lot of people who have a heavy local and regional presence for whom this is a natural extension. And then you have national brands, and national brands think of this in a couple of different ways. Yes, it's to optimize in a place with a potential for higher sales, but also there is a lot of room for creative optimization.

Very simply, you may want to sell weed killer somewhere, and you may want to sell snowblower somewhere. You may have a national brand, but the needs can differ. We're a big country. It's not just the 320 million people that everyone talks about, it's physically a vast country with a lot of physical diversity. If you're a national advertiser, you may want to optimize and optimize creative and optimize messaging, and optimize against seasons. But there are so many brands in this country that heavy up on specific localities, and they're also some brands that are better serving urban populations versus rural populations. So local was getting hot, but it's for a host of reasons, not one.