A major broadcast TV station operator, which we call “Big Town Broadcasting” for the purposes of this case study*, has seen the local video advertising landscape shift with the rise of streaming video. Big Town wanted to offer its local advertising customers a way to advertise on both broadcast TV and streaming video, although it only publishes a small inventory of its own digital video. Enter Locality’s private-label streaming video ad sales solution. Together, we launched streaming video ad sales through a channel partnership. We have helped Big Town achieve four consecutive years of incremental revenue growth in local streaming advertising.
Locality’s Channel Partnerships team helps media companies sell over-the-top (OTT) digital video ad inventory as their own. We partner with companies such as TV broadcasters, newspapers, cineplexes, and radio stations to develop a fully customized and branded platform. This provides our private label ad-sales partners with an added tool to complement their existing owned and operated inventory.
Big Town Launches Streaming Video Ad Sales
Locality partnered with Big Town in 2021 to launch streaming ad sales across over 150 premium streaming publishers to complement its broadcast inventory. Big Town operates numerous broadcast TV stations in sub-100 designated market areas (DMAs). Such DMAs are advertising markets centered on smaller cities of 50,000 to 250,000 people, similar to Rochester (MN), Reno (NV), Abilene (TX), and Gainesville (FL).
Before partnering with us, Big Town had never sold streaming ad inventory at scale. Therefore, these digital ad sales would be an incremental revenue opportunity for the company. We started together from the ground up to help Big Town capture market share in the growing streaming video space with new customers and offer the company’s loyal advertisers a more holistic advertising toolkit with the combined power of broadcast advertising and streaming.
Our Expertise Tailored to Your Local Market
As with all of Locality’s channel partners, we provided Big Town extensive training to prepare their salespeople to pitch and sell local OTT ad inventory alongside their broadcast inventory. While our adtech is based in New York City and our sales enablement in Atlanta, our expertise is local advertising tailored to wherever our partners operate. For Big Town, that meant introducing our sales enablement experts, including Lauren Garris and Logan Mulling, and connecting them to each of Big Town’s local market TV stations.
Locality’s Garris explained that when the partnership began, some of Big Town’s smaller local TV stations hadn’t heard of OTT. She visited Big Town’s locations to conduct in-person training.
“This was like 0 to 60 for trying to take my digital knowledge and package it for them,” she said. “We focused on how streaming TV works and complements broadcast television and we still have that as a main focus today. It was very much like a college ‘OTT 101’ course.”
As the relationship has expanded, Garris and her team have helped Big Town consider integrating OTT advertising with other digital advertising tools, including email marketing and paid search. The ongoing stewardship has helped Big Town sell digital to its clients.
“Lauren and Logan have made a ‘not so easy’ product a pleasure to sell,” Big Town’s sales manager said. “They have made OTT understandable through training, and now the benefits of OTT are easy to communicate to our clients.”
A Fully Customized and Private-Label Partnership
Locality develops a customized and branded OTT Dashboard for all of our channel partners. The OTT Dashboard provides a full suite of tools to assemble streaming advertising campaigns targeted to specific local market audiences, individual demographics, and consumer behavior profiles, depending on the advertiser’s needs.
“Locality is super-fast to respond to any question or concern and bends over backward to assist with the OTT Dashboard,” said Big Town’s sales manager.
Moreover, the Locality OTT Dashboard provides a one-stop shop for Big Town and its advertisers to access built-in and accessible audience metrics. Locality’s numerous metrics partners include Experian, Alliant, Veva, Crossix, Neustar and more. The toolkit offers even small advertisers the research and metrics scale of a national brand or a major advertising agency. Refreshed daily, you can quickly inform advertisers of the number of incremental digital ad impressions above those seen via broadcast with our Automated Content Recognition (ACR) tech. We also publish view-through conversions and granular publisher-by-publisher reporting.
The sales pitch to advertisers is also fully customized for Big Town and its local markets, with sales collateral and market research created by Locality and branded in Big Town’s name. Locality provides ongoing coaching to Big Town’s salespeople as they prepare for each sales effort.
“Lauren and Logan are always providing us with new and updated information for our client pitches, which helps close the deal,” the sales manager told us.
An Ongoing Partnership Leads to Consistent Revenue Growth
Because OTT is an ever-evolving space, we work continuously alongside our partners to help them evolve too. We never “cross a finish line” or step away from providing ongoing support. There are always opportunities for further revenue growth, and that means developing and maintaining relationships over the course of the contract.
“Lauren has been nothing but helpful and flexible since day one,” another ad sales manager told us. “I don’t think she has ever said, ‘No, we can’t do that,’ and she has always helped me find a way to make an OTT strategy work for a client. She is great to brainstorm with.”
We strive to integrate seamlessly with our channel partners as if we were working within their walls. For example, we continuously help with new sales pitches and provide ongoing stewardship of campaigns with existing customers.
Big Town’s sales manager said, “Logan closely monitors our campaigns and proactively ensures our clients get full delivery every month. I never have to worry about anything slipping through the cracks or if a campaign is running correctly. Logan stays on top of it. Lauren and Logan provide excellent customer service with a can-do attitude. I love working with them.”
Through our ongoing relationship, Big Town has succeeded in growing incremental digital revenues year after year. Sales already booked in 2024 suggest it will be another record year for Big Town’s digital streaming sales.
Growth chart of Big Town Broadcasting OTT revenues attributed to Locality Channel Partnership
Big Town is Their Advertisers’ Champion for Streaming Video Ad Sales
As far as local advertisers are concerned, Big Town is their digital champion. In other words, Locality remains completely hidden behind the scenes. The OTT ad management dashboard and all sales materials are customized and branded in Big Town’s name. Yet Big Town’s advertisers can access a full range of premium digital content from over 150 top streaming publishers via Locality’s platform and technology suite.
While revenue growth is already substantial, Locality is now working with Big Town to identify additional avenues for ancillary revenue. We’re continuing to scale the operation with deeper activation in each market. In the coming quarters, we are focused on product line diversification to expand the range of our content publishing partners and to grow our catalogue of live sports.
Zach Mullins, Locality’s head of Channel Partnerships solutions, explained the company’s goal when working with Big Town or any other partners. “Our aim is for the partner to trust us whole-heartedly as if we work for their own company. They don’t see us as a vendor or product pusher, as we have focused on really helping them learn and grow from the ground up.”
Your media company and your advertisers could benefit from the explosive growth of OTT video viewership. Contact us to schedule a demo. We have more to share about establishing your own private-label digital sales program.
*Locality offers all of our channel partners a customizable private-label solution fully branded as their own. As such, we do not disclose the names of our channel partners. Company and employee names and geographic details have been genericized to preserve anonymity.
