Internet Broadcasting: Thinking Globally, Advertising Locally

The Challenge

The Internet has made it possible for any Main Street business to reach a national – and, indeed, global – audience by simply launching a Web site.

But for large businesses that want to reach Main Street via that same Internet, going in the other direction – from global to local – has been a challenge.

Enter Internet Broadcasting (IB). Established in 1996, IB is the leading local Internet media network building, maintaining and supplying national and local content for TV affiliate Web sites that reach more than 50 million visitors each month. The company creates and distributes Web products for the likes of CNN, Hearst-Argyle, McGraw-Hill Broadcasting, NBC, Telemundo and other media giants.

Still, in a medium that offers nearly limitless ad space, IB was challenged to profitably fill the inventoryWhile this can refer to a client's physical inventory of merchandise (which, if it represents an undervalued asset, could form the basis of a corporate barter transaction), in the corporate barter world, inventory more commonly refers to a supply of advertising time/space purchased in advance by the barter company, which client companies use as fulfillment to complete their side of a corporate barter agreement. it offered, especially between the peaks of newsworthy events. Corporate barterThe creation of value by exchanging a client's unwanted or undervalued asset for the promise to purchase over a period of time from the corporate-barter company a defined set of goods and/or services, called fulfillment. (Sometimes mistakenly referred to as Corporate Trade.) became a solution for IB to monetize inventory over time.

How ICON Uncovered Value

Just as it does in traditional media, ICON offered to purchase advertising inventory – lots of it – well in advance from IB. It became an alternative source of financing, helping the company hedge against future fluctuations in demand. In time, this arrangement helped IB with another sticky challenge – yield management, which helps smooth the supply/demand curve during unpredictable newsworthy events that can produce temporary floods of users.

Result

Today, nearly all ICON media plans include online components, especially for those clients needing to reach the elusive, always-on-the-move – and highly profitable – 25-to-54-year-old demographic. Why? Because IB properties have proved to be cost-effective, flexible and safe homes for Internet advertising and promotions.