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Random [to me] Manga
image via Wikipedia

Local advertising networks have begun to reach out to Lookery for our demo targeting as well as private retargeting via Lookery MyProfiles. We’re easily able to accommodate them, but I wasn’t expecting local ad interest so early in our history. So, I started looking for data.

The most revealing data I found is from the MAGNA, the forecasting side of Interpublic. That press release is the summary of their more detailed forecast. The whole deck is worth looking through, but two points come through that don’t seem intentional:

1. From the first two slides above, the Internet is not only the first true engagement medium as implied, but it’s also the first medium to meet all MAGNA’s “Illustrative Goals.” The latter point is made clear in the second slide as the Mom & Pop’s convenience store isn’t likely spending much “building brand.”
2. Wow, is offline local advertising crashing. The report promotes TV spend heavily:

   Democracy Television is the worst form of government advertising, except all the others that have been tried.

   Yet, it includes the nasty local TV spend chart above. The deck has similar graphs showing the devastation occuring to local radio and directories. Local newspapers even make the nationals look healthy.

My interpretation of the data is that local advertising is coming online in a different way than I’ve seen documented. Local direct response is coming online reasonably well, but local engagement is not. Local businesses can advertise around products and services but have not found a way to communicate around interest and likemindedness.

It’s not very surprising when you look at it — online communities of interest have no specific reason to be primarily local. The Internet helps us find people with our very same passions, no matter where they are. Statistically speaking, they are unlikely to be nearby. There are certainly exceptions which can be fun to play with, but I’m not surprised to see that our engagement with local communities is losing relative mindshare.

For local advertisers and their ad network vendors, one good solution is to plug people’s anonymous local buying behavior into a large profiling system and retarget them on other non-local web sites. It’s yet another example of ad networks using demographic targeting and Lookery MyProfiles to compete with Facebook Ads out on the Open Web.

[NB: Yes, I originally mistyped MAGNA as MANGA.]