Radio stations provide a wide local net, providing an advertiser with reach and frequency. Mobile lacks those elements, but can target a consumer right down to a set of specific business-based coordinates. Marketron has a way to combine both elements into one package.
Marketron VP of Mobile Solutions Martin Kristiseter notes the inescapable fact that advertising dollars are migrating to mobile at a rapid pace – despite its inability to match the wide net cast by broadcasters.
To address this, Marketron is offering the possibility of incorporating a mobile element into an advertising flight.
As an added element to a marketing package sold to an advertiser, a radio salesperson can offer specifically targeted mobile placements, keyed to any number of relevant factors.
Location is everything, and not surprisingly is one of the key factors advertisers want. As an example, an average citizen may have heard an ad for Dealer X on the radio while en route to that very location.
If a mobile element was included in the ad flight, Dealer X may well be one of the precision-targeted geographical locations that would trigger the provision of mobile advertising to that same citizen.
It might happen like this: The citizen is sitting in the showroom waiting for a dealer to check on something, and may pull out a mobile device to kill the time with a game of Angry Birds. An ad tied to that application might well pop up, possibly for Dealer X, or maybe for other clients with an interest in a citizen with personal characteristics similar to the citizen in question; or perhaps it is 11:30AM and an eatery near Dealer X may want to suggest itself as a lunch option for the citizen.
The possibilities are endless, and the bottom line is that it is a way for radio stations to take a bite out of the growing mobile advertising pie slice.
This has nothing to do with a radio mobile presence – the station doesn’t even need a website. Marketron is the mid-point in a broadcast-mobile radio-advertiser transaction, and will be the entity responsible for plugging in the mobile portion of the buy.
According to Kristiseter, the concept works everywhere, whether a market is large, medium or small. Among clients using the service are such disparate groups as Cumulus, Beasley, Radio One, Wilks or Delmarva.
The goal is “…to serve the right ad to the right person at the right time and place,” and in so doing, maintain budgets with existing radio advertisers and bring in new clients.
RBR-TVBR observation: At this point in history it is important for every broadcaster to explore all ancillary revenue possibilities. Digital is not going away, and the old saw “if you can’t beat it, join it” has never been more true.
The beauty of this particular concept is that it doesn’t require any kind of technology investment on the part of a broadcast station. It’s more a matter of incorporating it into the rate card than making in infrastructure investment.
Not that other forward-looking programs should not be in constant development – they should. But the presence of broadcast on mobile is in its infancy, and with that in mind, it might be worth giving a program like this a good look.
