TELCOS TO VIE WITH STATIONS FOR LOCAL ADS

Phone companies, with their retransmission cash, have been welcomed to the TV scene by local stations, but by the end of next year, they’ll be competitors for local ad dollars too. Telcos are in the early stages of gearing up their local ad sales operations, but by the end of next year, they are likely to be a factor in the top 50 DMAs, said Bill Battino, leader of IBM Global Business Services’ Americas Media & Entertainment Consulting Services.

Speaking Tuesday at an NAB New York panel on the “Death of the 30-Second Spot,” Battino suggested to the audience full of producers and media analysts that local telco video operations offer a prime opportunity for advertisers. “They have a lot of inventory and they want to make deals,” Battino said.

Battino also suggested that TV companies of could take a lesson from women’s magazines, which are purchased as much for their ads as for their editorial. “TV broadcasters can learn from FedexKinko’s involvement in The Office,” Battino said. The relationship included FedexKinkos products integrated into the show as well as commercials run during breaks, and the campaign included both linear and non-linear telecasts of the show. “We’ll see a lot more of that kind of campaign in the future,” he said.

Much of the panel dealt with the challenges confronting advertisers, which are faced with dramatic media fragmentation and limited budgets with which to experiment with new media. “Marketing dollars aren’t going up dramatically even though usage of new media is growing dramatically,” said Pat Dunbar, president of the DiMA Group, an alliance of big advertisers and agencies that is researching new media usage.