Campaigns: Local vs. National

Although both local advertising campaigns and national ones have the same end goal--to sell something, the campaigns are usually drastically different. Local campaigns should, in theory, be able to better tap into the mentality of their target market, yet they tend to more straightforward, less interesting, and less creative than national campaigns. In fact, national campaigns that specialize for different markets, like Sprint's "Coverage like..." or AT&T's "More bars in more places" campaign, end up appealing to local markets more than the local ad campaigns created for those specific markets.

In magazines like New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore Style, the local ads are usually for apartment buildings, restaurants, and theatrical performances. On the inside back page of a recent issue of New York ran an ad for Barclay Tower, "Glenwood's New Luxury Rental in Tribeca." Glenwood appeared to be marketing its newest luxury apartment building as the ideal apartments for young, wealthy, vibrant professionals in the "in" crowd. The ad, though, is rather boring and overrun with text, which would usually put off the exact crowd that Glenwood is attempting to draw in.

Ad for Glenwood's Barclay Tower, as seen in New York magazine

On that same page the next week ran an ad for K-Y® Intrigue Heat. The K-Y ad, part of a national campaign, much better tapped into the mentality of the young, wealthy, vibrant professionals than the Glenwood ad. The K-Y ad is more interesting visually, less overrun with text, and more unique than the Glenwood ad, and therefore better able to appeal to the young market. K-Y is marketing the Intrigue Heat lubricant as an exotic, exciting, passionate product, and its ad captures that feel. Glenwood, however, is trying to market Barclay Tower as an exciting place to live in the midst of the hustle-and-bustle of the city, using the line, "Live it up downtown!", but Glenwood is unable to convey that attitude through its ad.

Ad for K-Y® Intrigue Heat, as seen in New York magazine

Granted, Glenwood's product is vastly different from K-Y's. Their target market, though, is the same, and Glenwood (and other local companies) would do well to focus a little more on their actual ads. No matter how great the product is, if the company can't draw customers in through their advertisements, they won't do as well as they'd like to. (Plus, the money spent on the advertisements which, in the case of Glenwood, is significantly large, will have been spent in vain.)