The biggest brands in America spend most of their advertising dollars on TV stations. These companies have marketing plans, research, ad buyers and ad agencies to create their advertising. But what if you’re a local business — a car dealer, a furniture store, a restaurant — and you’d like to buy some advertising time on a local station […]
The biggest brands in America spend most of their advertising dollars on TV stations. These companies have marketing plans, research, ad buyers and ad agencies to create their advertising. But what if you’re a local business — a car dealer, a furniture store, a restaurant — and you’d like to buy some advertising time on a local station but don’t have the marketing advantages and TV production capabilities of those big national companies?
The lifeblood of many TV stations is local sales, the ability to go out in the community and convince the local businesses there that advertising on local TV is both affordable and effective. For a local business, coming up with the scratch to buy some airtime is one thing, but what about a TV commercial or campaign to run in that time?
The creative services staff at most TV stations that creates the advertising for the news department usually also serves the sales department and their clients. Sometimes the businesses pay for that service; often however, it’s thrown in for free as an incentive to get their business. Either way, many TV stations have what is essentially an in-house, ad agency/production company available to local businesses to write, shoot and edit their commercials. Reaching customers where they live and buy is critical for local businesses who often don’t have the luxury of having a marketing plan, or even a commercial. The local sales team and then the station’s creative services people fill that void.
Brandon Smith is the creative director for sales at WDRB, the Fox affiliate in Louisville, Ky. Here’s that station’s commercial reel, which I think is pretty effective.
Got a locally produced sales spot you want to share? Let me know.
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