What makes great local advertising in print and online

The INMA conference began with the workshops on how local and regional newspapers can benefit from creative thinking and use their unique selling proposition catering for the advertisers. Many examples from the British Press were shown.

Al Young, Executive Creative Director of St. Luke’s and Robert Ray, Marketing Director of the Newspaper Society set up a truly interactive session where workshop attendees had a chance to learn how to make great local ads with practical examples, take part in the discussion about their own market’s advertising and team up to work on a live creative brief.

Local newspapers are really important to societies and so are the advertisements included there. Robert Ray began the workshops by showing the results of the research led by the Newspaper Society:

• The scale of the local medium is really high. Within the different types of media consumed in the UK, local newspaper came out second with 82% of people in the UK admitting they read it. The leader was television (94%), and after local newspapers came radio (74%), internet websites (67%) and national newspapers (60%).
• What was very interesting in the research was the fact, that despite high consumption, local newspapers were the last medium to have its advertisements skipped by the readers (only 17% of people asked said they actually skip ads in local newspapers). The leader was again television where 47% answered they change stations during commercials, next came national newspapers (27%), internet (25%), magazines (23%), and radio (17%).
• The last question from the research was about having a choice to have no ads in different mediums. Again, local newspapers came last with only 14% of respondents choosing it. First was television (51%), radio (37%), and national newspapers (23%).

Local newspapers have the following features that are most important to their readers:

• they are trusted and reliable
• they are relevant to local society and its life
• they are up-to-date
• they carry important ideas and lead to actions

When those features are combined with advertisements printed in local newspapers, the commercials may become an informative piece of content.

During the workshops, Al Young pointed out that ads in local press are fundamentally different to any others:

• in any other medium the audience is interested in content of the medium and not advertising – commercials are an intrusion, tolerated to a greater or lesser extent
• readers come to local press with the assumption that the advertising will be useful

Therefore, the conclusion is quite simple: local press is the only place where ads are actually sought by readers, and are treated as information. To prove his point, Al Young presented the listeners a campaign run by Newspaper Society and Local Media:

During the workshops, the media experts from different countries such as Norway, Holland, India, and Estonia, showed their examples of really bad advertisements in their local newspapers. Some of them included local poultry seller, wooden houses manufacturer or local discount stores.

Then the speakers showed some really good, informative local advertisements. Examples included a local window manufacturer (showing in his ad local houses that were “enbrightened by his products”). Instead of trying hard to create great commercials to be run on national TV or in national newspapers, brands should go local and prove they are close to the consumer. Many global superbrands understood it: Tesco, Nike, or Adidas which in this very case run a commercial in the local press recognizing Manchester as a rainy town (just as it is seen by its inhabitants):

The speakers recognized the problems which lead to a very bed results of press ad campaigns. Those are:

• no insight
• too much in the ad
• terrible visuals
• cliched metaphores
• being not local

On the other hand, common themes to great advertising in a local media environment are:

• insight
• local knowledge
• local context
• relevant
• helpful / informative
• drive action / response

Companies should recognize local newspapers as a very important medium for their campaigns. They should adjust their advertisements to the medium they choose for the campaign. Last but not least, they must remember, that ads often mean information to local societies. Local advertising should be a key part of their revenue income. They have to make sure it stays that way.

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