The Vertere Group Explains Advertisers' Sudden Interest in Local Audiences

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.

Local advertising has earned greater appeal of late as the effects of COVID-19 created a disjointed landscape across different states and regions. Some areas are more open than others, while national brands exist in both environments. How do they deal with those location-to-location demands?

The answer's clearly local ads. But it's not solely because of the pandemic. Local's always possessed a significant targeting ability, as the Vertere Group's founder and CEO Tim Hanlon explains in the video below.

"Local spot cable has more targeting ability -- albeit via zones and maybe a zip plus four zip code overlay kind of thing, right? So while that itself is not as specific as an IP address or household per se, there is household addressability as well available in some of those environments.

Over-the-air local television still lacks that. I think most local broadcasters have kind of fallen back on that right with the sort of notion of 'well, it's still the most broadly reach-oriented vehicle in a local marketplace, against a sea of everything else being targeted and specific, and addressably targeted, addressably focused.'

So in some respects, it almost feels like it's been an old school go-to-market proposition where yeah, we don't do that hyper specific targeting capability, and that therein lies the beauty of 'local broadcast television spots.'"