Digital Ads Go Local
by Andrew Bowser
Local advertisers are gradually warming to the digital-ad delivery model--though sometimes it takes a little push from circumstance.
In Atlanta, the 1996 Olympics were a trial by fire for 12 advertisers who had yet to try sending ads electronically. "We had a lot of advertisers who were not going to be able to deliver materials to us as normal because of major traffic jams and blocked-off streets," says Don Morris, manager of electronic-advertising technology for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution.
Prior to the big event, the newspaper upgraded its ad server from B-Linked Inc. of Chapel Hill, N.C., to handle up to 50 remote users; installed two additional ISDN lines; and added analog capacity. The Olympics came and went without a hitch, even for the 12 digital-ad neophytes.
"It's so easy that, in my mind, a 2-year-old can use it," says Morris, who today oversees the reception of 100 ads per week via B-Linked, 230 via AP's AdSEND and 10 via Transdata International Inc.'s Digiflex.
Morris sees digital-ad delivery growing very quickly, led by advertiser interest in direct-transmission models. To further the goal of paginating as much of the paper as possible, Morris pitches the paper's advertisers on the benefits of cheaper transmission, no courier-related headaches and the ability to make last-minute ad changes.
According to developer Todd Melet, B-Linked is used by 33 of the top 100 U.S. newspapers and by well over 1,000 advertisers. More than half of the advertisers are local and transmit to a limited number of papers. Ads for autos, movies, supermarket chains and other retailers are common.
The desire to get local advertisers to send ads electronically is not lost on The Associated Press. Jim Farrell, director of AP's AdSEND, says the cooperative is planning to develop a product specific to local advertisers that may feature integration with billing and ad-reservation systems. AP probably won't formulate definite plans until first quarter of 1998, however. "Obviously, we wouldn't need to broadcast [the ads] using satellite transmission," Farrell says. "We are looking at other ways of moving them."
ACI Inc.'s AdDirect service, available for over a year now, has been used by at least 325 advertisers, and ACI Vice President W. Brackett Tucker positions the direct-connection, charge-per-ad service as an alternative to AdSEND. "Local advertisers particularly like the system," Tucker says. "They send ads to only a handful of papers in a particular geographic region. They don't see the sense of sending their ads to New Jersey to have them beamed up over satellite and have them come down to a newspaper perhaps 40 miles away."
Meanwhile, Atlanta is planning to triple its digital-ad volume over the next 12-to-18 months. Electronic-ad manager Morris has had some help as of late: Digitally-transmitted ad volume increased by 50-to-75 ads per week during the UPS strike in August, some through B-Linked and some through AdSEND.
Andrew Bowser is a writer on technology and industrial applications. E-mail, andyb@comm.net; phone, (504) 897-4026.