Out With A Bang

I hesitate to call it the money shot; people will get the wrong end of the stick.

But when I recently presented to the DigiCity people in Birmingham, it was the second slide that caught one or two eyes. It was the BIA/Kelsey forecasts for the value of the US mobile-local ad space come 2016. An eye-watering $5.8 billion. A market-place that BIA/Kelsey sees expanding at 54% year-on-year.

The full deck is here:

….what follows after the money shot is the usual fare on the power of local networks – be they those of rural church spires or 183 Co-Op Local Stores.

The slide is of Main St, USA. The fact that there’s an insert pic of the local church spire isn’t wholly coincidental.

But for anyone who still doesn’t believe that there is something interesting going on in this local space, even the exec summary of the BIA/Kelsey research should make one or two sit up and think.

Here’s the report with those headline numbers; and here’s the executive ‘take away’ from what those numbers are saying…

“Growth drivers include smartphone penetration, location data, ad targeting innovation and advertiser evolution to utilize these factors for higher-performing mobile local ad campaigns,” said Michael Boland, program director, mobile local media, BIA/Kelsey.

More interesting still, however, is BIA/Kelsey’s latest tome of January 22: ‘From National to Local: Mobile Advertising Zeros In‘… ie national brands are seeking out local spaces; particularly those that are mobile and highly-targetted. For that’s where the value is for, say, a Co-Op local store manager – punting out his perishable goods offers at 8pm of a night to whoever is sat on their mobile 500-yards from his front door.

“Following the typical pattern of new media, advertiser adoption of location-based mobile marketing trails consumer adoption,” said Michael Boland, report author and senior analyst, BIA/Kelsey.

“It’s been relatively slow-moving until now, but we see growing signs of an imminent tipping point for location-based mobile ad adoption.

“A key driver of the mobile-local share shift will be the evolution of national advertisers, who, to date, have run mostly mobile campaigns that mirror the tactics of the desktop, missing opportunities for more precise location targeting.”

That’s nice. Growing signs of an ‘imminent tipping point for location-based mobile ad adoption…’

National brands seeking local audience has, to my mind, long been the key that unlocks the door to sustainable platforms of community news.

Its how anyone manages that relationship simply and transparently that is the $64 million question; or rather the $5.8 billion question. On just one side of the Pond.

<On March 5, we will be hosting our second #1000flowers event – in Newcastle. Nominally, the Ranters and the Ravers of the UK local space are gathering again to talk about the future of Local TV.

Which is why I’m delighted that Jamie Conway, ceo of the ‘Made In… network of Local TV licence holders has agreed to speak; he has the gig for Newcastle TV. Among others.

Also speaking that day, however, is our Ian.

‘Unlocking a $5.8 billion market: Drive into that mobile-local ad space via Addiply’s Public API.’

Last year, we won funding out of the Technology Strategy Board’s ‘Convergence In A Digital Landscape’ competition.

At its heart was a commitment to open up Addiply’s API for developers to go build; for us to be part of a new, collaborative community. It is why I headed to Berkeley last year to take part in the conversations at the Collab2012 space.

The point is that if the world is, indeed, getting ever more mobile, ever more local, so we all need to work together to tap into this new-found opportunity; to pool our resources and our thinking in these straitened times and try and get something to work.

By good fortune, our Ian is a mobile app developer by trade. ‘Cocktails Made Easy’ is one of his.

So we have a rich heritage in that mobile app space. And as our TSB-funded tech developments start to come on line, so we will be moving our thinking into that app and mobile space; SDK codes to take our platform into the world of mobile app development are coming down the pipeline…

The fact that we can now localise advertising by both long-lat and language is courtesy of the TSB funding; hopefully, the first beneficiaries will be the nation of Wales for whom re-building a new, indiginous platform to sustain community news in the Principality has long been high on the Assembly’s agenda.

Rightly or wrongly, the don’t appear to be in a mood to trust their nation’s media future to a London-based TrinityMirror or, indeed, a London-based OfCom whose plan for ‘Local TV’ in Wales boils down to the ownership of a hill.

Hence why Mold ‘TV’ is a runner; one for Swansea isn’t. Hence why they are seeking fresh tools to go build…

So come and listen to what Ian has planned… and what the TSB has funded. A collaborative advertising platform whose API will, come the summer, be open and public; and whose drive is towards making something work in mobile and local… the space where, according to the man from BIA/Kelsey, the real fun is to be had.

Details of #1000flowers can be found here…