Local Advertising: Where the Action Is
by
Charles Lamson
Not long after graduating from San Diego State, Ralph Rubio opened his first Mexican restaurant. He offered an unusual specialty: fish tacos---lightly battered and fried whitefish served in soft-shelled corn tortillas with white sauce, salsa, cabbage, and a wedge of lime. At the time, very few other Mexican eateries offered fish tacos, and none featured them. So Rubio found fish tacos hard to sell, even with his secret batter recipe (which he'd gotten from a street vendor in San Felipe, Mexico). The first month's sales at the restaurant averaged only $163 a day.
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Rubio started using small newspaper ads with coupons to lure courageous customers. It worked. As business picked up, he expanded his advertising to radio and TV, targeting his market further with ads on Hispanic stations (whose listeners knew what fish tacos were). And he went after younger venturesome customers aged 18-34 by advertising at local movie theatres. Business picked up some more. Rubio soon opened another restaurant, and then another.
With each new opening, Rubio distributed direct mail flyers in the area and took free samples to nearby stores. Working with an artist, he created a cartoon character named Pesky Pescado based on the fish taco. He purchased a 15-foot inflatable Pesky to display at his restaurants. Employee T-shirts sported Pesky's picture and Rubio sold Pesky T-shirts and sweatshirts to enthusiastic patrons. He also offered bumper stickers and antennae balls to add some fun to his promotions. To further integrate his activities, Rubio took an active part in community affairs, including tie-ins with a blood bank, a literacy program, and fund-raising activities for both a Tijuana medical clinic and a local university's athletic program. As the popularity of the fish taco grew, so did Rubio's revenues, doubling every year for the first five years. He trademarked the phrase "Rubio's, Home of the Fish Taco," and a local restaurant critic, commenting on things San Diegans could not do without, called fish tacos "the food San Diegans would miss the most." After 19 years, Rubio had 137 restaurants in 5 states. Together they produced more than $112 million in annual sales. And by the year 2004, Rubio's had served more than 50 million fish tacos. Every year, advertisers spend billions of dollars in the United States. Almost half of that is spent on local advertising by local businesses in a particular city or county targeting customers in their geographic area. Local advertising is sometimes called retail advertising because so much is placed by retail stores. But retail advertising is not always local; Sears and JCPenny advertise nationally. And many businesses besides retail stores use local advertising: banks, real estate developers, movie theatres, auto mechanics, plumbers, radio and TV stations, funeral homes, museums, and local politicians, to name a few.  Local advertising is critically important because most consumer sales are made (or lost) locally. An auto manufacturer may spend millions advertising new cars nationwide, but if dealers do not make a strong effort locally, the dollars will be wasted. When it comes to making the sale and dealing with customers, local advertising is where the action is---where relationships often start and truly develop. Types of Local Advertisers There are four main types of local advertisers:
A small local business---say, a hardware, clothing, or electronics store---may have just one person in charge of advertising. That person, the advertising manager, performs all the administrative, planning, budgeting, and coordinating functions. He or she may lay out ads, write ad copy, and select the media. A manager with some artistic talent may even design the actual ads and produce them on a desktop computer.
A chain store often maintains a completely staffed advertising department to handle production, media placement, and marketing support services. The department needs artists, copywriters, and production specialists. The department head usually reports to a vice president or marketing manager. Types of Local Advertising Most of the ads placed in local media are product, institutional, or classified advertising. Each type serves a different purpose. Product advertising Product advertising promotes a specific product or service and stimulates short-term action while building awareness of the business. Three major types of product ads are used by local advertisers: regular price-line, sale, and clearance. Regular price-line advertising informs consumers about services or merchandise offered at regular prices. An accounting firm might use regular price-line advertising to promote its accounting and tax services. To stimulate sales of particular merchandise or increase store traffic, local merchants occasionally use sale advertising, placing items on sale and offering two-for-one specials or other deals. Local advertisers use clearance advertising (a special form of sale advertising) to make room for new product lines or new models and to get rid of slow-moving lines, floor samples, broken or distressed merchandise, or out-of-season items. Companies going out of business also use clearance advertising. Institutional advertising Institutional advertising attempts to create a favorable long-term perception of the business as a whole, not just of a particular product or service. Many types of businesses (stores, restaurants, banks, professional firms, hospitals) use institutional advertising to promote an idea about the company and build long-term goodwill. It makes the public aware of what the business stands for and attempts to build reputation and image. An institutional ad might focus on convenient hours, a new credit policy, store expansion, or company philosophy. Although readership is often lower, effective institutional ads build a favorable image for the business, attract new customers, and encourage customer loyalty. Classified advertising Advertisers use classified advertising in the newspaper for a variety of reasons: to locate and recruit new employees, offer services (such as those of an employment agency or business opportunity broker), or sell or lease new and used merchandise (such as cars, real estate, and office equipment).  Local Advertisers: The Original Integrators When Ralph Rubio built his restaurant business, his promotional activities involved a lot more than just running ads in the media. In fact he did everything he could to develop a relationship with his customers and to promote a good word-of-mouth reputation. That meant using publicity, sales promotion, and direct response as well as media advertising---all integrated with consistently good food, reasonable prices, and excellent service. This combination constitutes integrated marketing communications (IMC)---joining together in a consistent manner everything that communicates with customers. Thanks to IMC, Rubio's fish taco became a local staple. Local advertisers and the local agencies that serve them are not stuck with the traditional national view that advertising means "ads placed in the media." By necessity, local advertisers wear many hats every day. They tend the cash register, deal with customers, prepare mailers, write and place ads, evaluate suppliers' trade promotions, answer phone inquiries, spruce up the office, talk to newspaper editors, and coordinate the graphics on premiums for a seasonal promotion. By successfully combining personal selling with media advertising, direct marketing, sales promotion, and public relations, the local advertiser can be the consummate integrator of marketing communications. Creating Local Advertising Cal Worthington first pitched his car dealership on Los Angeles TV stations in 1951, and over 50 years later, he is still at it. He sponsors third-rate movies on late-night and Saturday afternoon TV. In his zany ads, he often appears in cowboy garb with a variety of domesticated wild animals, all introduced as "my dog Spot." Some low-budget, do-it-yourself advertisers like Worthington are so successful they engender a near-cult following. Others who try the same approach fail miserably. In print advertising, many local advertisers achieve remarkable success with what professionals would call a schlock approach---heavy bold type, items crowded into ad space, loud headlines, and unsophisticated graphic design. If the message is honest, consistent, and effective and meets the advertisers objectives, that may be all that matters. To direct and control the creative aspects of their ads and commercials and ensure consistency, local advertisers should develop a checklist of creative do's and don'ts. Finding big ideas for local ad campaigns can be extremely difficult. Some advertisers look to the merchandise for ideas; others look to the customer. An important goal for local advertisers is to achieve a consistent, distinctive look that makes their ads both appealing and identifiable. Local advertisers can turn to a number of sources for creative help, including reps from the local media, local ad agencies, freelancers and consultants, creative boutiques, syndicated art services and the cooperative advertising programs of wholesalers, manufacturers, and trade associations. Cooperative Advertising As a service to their distributors and dealers, and to ensure proper reproduction of their products, wholesalers and manufacturers as well as some trade associations often provide local advertisers with ready-made advertising materials and cooperative advertising programs where the costs are shared. There are two key purposes for cooperative (co-op) advertising: to build the manufacturers brand image and to help its distributors, dealers, or retailers make more sales. Every year, national manufacturers give their local retailers more than $60 billion for co-op projects. Newspapers, network and cable TV, and radio are the favored media of co-op spending, with newspapers claiming 55 percent of co-op dollars. Intel alone spends more than $800 million annually to help PC marketers who display the "Intel Inside" logo. In addition to the usual co-op marketing media, Intel wants its retail partners to be able to use billboard, transit, cinema, and direct mail advertising. In vertical cooperative advertising, the manufacturer provides the complete ad and shares the cost of the advertising time or space. The local newspaper sets the name and address of the local advertiser, or the radio station adds a tagline with the advertisers name, address, and phone number. Bridgestone makes vertical co-op advertising even more customizable for its retailers. With the help of Copyco, it developed templates for newspaper ads, flyers, and point-of-sale (POS) materials that retail managers can download and edit to fit their needs. After only a few minutes of training on the program, dealers without any graphic design experience can create local advertising that looks as polished as national advertising. With horizontal cooperative advertising, firms in the same business (real estate agents, insurance agents, pharmacies, car dealers, or travel agents) or in the same part of town advertise jointly. Competing auto dealers, for example, might pool their dollars to advertise their common retail area as the "Mile of Cars."
*SOURCE: CONTEMPORARY ADVERTISING 11TH ED., 2008, WILLIAM F. ARENS, MICHAEL F. WEIGOLD, CHRISTIAN ARENS, PGS. 99-103*
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