Many retailers have started their holiday advertising at the beginning of November. According to Gerry Grant, Executive Vice President of SMY Media, a national media buying service based in Chicago, planning for holiday promotions typically have been taken care of months in advance.
“We like to start planning media buys for our clients in September and have everything in place by October,” Mr. Grant explains.
So is it too late for retailers and other businesses to advertise for the holidays? “It’s not too late to get something onto TV and radio for the holidays”, Mr. Grant says. “But you really need to move fast.
“Depending on your market, media inventory may be low. Because of all of the money being spent on political advertising this year, a lot of businesses delayed their advertising until after the election. So along with those that traditionally spend money on holiday advertising, we also have the after-election crowd that wants to be on the air.
“But I am certainly not discouraging people to advertise. We can still help people get their holiday promotional messages out.”
And if you don’t already have a TV or radio commercial developed, a new company called The Ad Diner might be the solution. Randy Gunter is the President of The Ad Diner, an online company that offers small businesses ready-made TV, radio and print advertising that just needs to be customized with the local businesses logo and information.
“Right now we have a couple different options where small businesses can get a very creative holiday television commercial or radio campaign. We can have these commercials customized with their information and on the air within a few days.”
Mr. Gunter continues, “These commercials were created by award-winning ad agencies and with the Ad Diner program the small business pays a fraction of the price that they would have to pay if they had these commercials created from scratch. We have a TV commercial with a 3D animated Christmas tree that can be customized with video or images within the ornaments. It’s hard to explain, but once you see it, you’ll understand how intriguing the commercial is.
We also have a very funny radio campaign where someone from the business is talking to elves from the North Pole on the phone about their holiday orders. We can actually record someone from the business to be the phone voice with a custom script that fits the commercial. Either one of these, the radio or television, can work for practically any business that wants to promote themselves during the holiday. The demos on the website use a jewelry store as an example, but any retail and even service oriented businesses can use them effectively.”
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SMY Media is a Chicago-based media planning and buying service with a national reach but a philosophy of “buying locally”.
Contact:
Gerry Grant
SMY Media
[email protected]
312-621-9600
The Ad Diner delivers “hot advertising from a menu”, the online company offers small businesses pre-made advertising that can be customized at a fraction of the price of hiring an ad agency.
Contact:
Randy Gunter
The Ad Diner
[email protected]
608-527-2200
www.AdDiner.com
