Programmatic could ‘blur’ national-local lines, analyst says.

INSIDERADIO
March 4, 2015

 

Much of radio’s focus on the impending arrival and expansion of programmatic buying has been on a potential impact on the price paid by advertisers. But a bigger effect could be how it will break down marketers’ walls. "There is a significant potential for a blurring between national and local inventory in a way that doesn’t really exist right now," Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser said
 

Machine-to-machine buying will allow for an advertiser to buy across markets and stations, or hone-in on a single city with just a few different keystrokes. "Your automated processes don’t really care exactly how you get the inventory," Wieser said. "This potentially creates a broadcaster marketplace, especially for local media." He puts at the top of the list a group of newbie marketers that grew up on digital advertising. But as they’ve grown bigger, other forms of media could make sense for them. Most critically, Wieser told the Borrell Local Advertising Conference, is that it upends the goal long associated with the traditional reach and frequency mindset. "It’s not about selling to the right customer, it’s about what inventory goes to which advertiser," he said. Under orders from their holding companies, big agency media teams are racing to embrace programmatic buying. OMD, for instance, has said it hopes to place the bulk of its national radio buys that way by the end of next year. Weiser said it’s not surprising to see agencies champion the conversion, and not just because they think they’re getting more value from the buy. "Having a data-driven sale ultimately makes the agency look like a hero to the clients," he said.

ComScore: Radio remains the ultimate in mobile media. Since portable radios arrived on the scene decades ago, radio has long been the on-the-go electronic medium. Now that smartphones have become ubiquitous, new comScore data shows no other content category gets more of its digital consumption on a mobile device. The research firm says 99% of time spent with radio’s digital extensions is done on a smartphone or tablet. Just 1% is on desktops. It’s an even bigger time spent tilt that than what comScore tracks for photographs (96% mobile), maps (90%), weather (82%), news (51%), or sports (47%). Growing penetration is helping drive the growth. There are currently 182 million smartphones in use, reaching three-quarters of the market. Penetration up 18 points in the last year, according to comScore. Tablets now total 97 million with a 40% market penetration. Even so, comScore co-founder and executive chairman Gian Fulgoni said at the Borrell Local Advertising Conference that the desktop is hardly dead. It accounted for 41% of the 1.3 billion online minutes logged by Americans in November. And in terms of total minutes, desktop use rose 19% compared to a year earlier. "You can’t afford to not have a mobile strategy, but you still have to pay attention to desktop because people are still using it for a variety of activities," Fulgoni said. Yet comScore says 56% of online time is now spent with mobile apps. But the data also reveals75% of app time goes to just four apps. "Once you have that app on the phone, you have the challenge of whether it’s going to be used," Fulgoni said. Experts say that’s where radio’s content advantage should come into play.