Here’s a link to a hard hitting blog entry and PowerPoint webinar presented by Rebecca Lieb for the Altimeter Group and published on the IAB site.
Co-op Advertising: Digital’s Lost Opportunity from Rebecca Lieb
First, she convincingly makes the case that local digital advertising is vastly under supported by most co-op programs. Then she explains why she thinks this is the case and then challenges the industry to solve the problem.
We’ve written many times about how building landing pages inside of an ad builder would be a major first step toward local digital. You can read about it here, here and here.
In our opinion there are several reasons why this solution is taking time to take hold.
1) Dealers aren’t clamoring for a solution they can’t envision.
2) There are no publication costs for most of the uses of these landing pages. Therefore there is nothing to co-op, so co-op administrators don’t pay attention to it.
3) This digital system is outside of co-op companys’ traditional business model. Because the landing page is from a template it is automatically pre-approved. Because we host the page there is no need to monitor a link to see if it’s up and running. Because so many of the uses for this landing page are free of publication costs there is no invoice to check nor money to reimburse.
Here’s how she ends her blog post:
Bringing coop advertising online will be neither quick nor easy. But with billions of dollars at stake, you can bet it’s bound to happen.
It will happen because it is a very, very good marketing tool for dealers and brands. The sooner the better!