Local ad revenues for 2019 are forecasted to have a strong year. Unemployment and general optimism for future growth has led to strong consumer spending, with national and local advertisers having greater incentive to increase their spending as well. Local ad spending often follows consumer spend and the entertainment vertical (i.e., theaters, race tracks, sports events, movie theaters, amusement parks, and caterer/hotels) presents new revenue opportunities for sellers of traditional and digital advertising this year. The entertainment vertical is expected to spend $13.3 billion in 2019 on local advertising according to BIA’s Local Media Forecast. Local entertainment businesses in our annual survey reflect this with most saying they will increase their ad budgets in 2019. In 2018 they averaged $26,000 in ad budget with an additional $10,000 spent on promoting (content on social and digital properties) of their businesses.
What media is getting the most of their ad dollars?
Mobile channels are the most used and spent on as reported by SAM ™ BIA’s Survey of Advertising and Marketing. Consumers are watching videos, looking for entertainment on their mobile devices when not at home. Among traditional channels, newspapers are still used by this group but direct mail, TV, and cable show an increase in spend. This parallels our national local forecast which shows mobile and direct mail, TV growing in share of wallet for 2019.
Where is the future opportunity?
Video should be offered to all entertainment advertisers. Video is their top channel used for both advertising and promotions. Out of the 45 channels we track, video is the fifth (5th) highest of all media used for this group of advertisers.
Mobile, social and streaming audio advertising are key growth areas. For social, geofencing and search with location targeting are great brand builders to get consumers at their venues. Media sellers should offer this with their traditional targeted advertising.
