LOAC2016 features the perfect combination of the informative sessions, time for face-to-face business meetings, and engaging social opportunities.
Sunday, Feb. 28th
6:00PM Welcome Reception Sponsored by
Monday, Feb. 29th
7:30AM Breakfast
8:30AM Welcome
8:45AM A Peek at The Future: Local Media in 2016 and Beyond The conference begins with a fascinating look by Gordon Borrell at how the next three years are likely to unfold. Using trending analysis and results from Borrell's Delphi panel, which has offered uncannily accurate predictions, we'll offer a Kenny Rogers twist on local media: Who's likely to hold 'em, who will fold 'em, who will walk away, and who will run?
9:00AM How to Survive a World of Multitasking & Short Attention Spans In a world of multitasking and wildly fragmented attention spans, how can the media world adapt? Maggie Jackson, author of the best-seller "Distracted," has moved on to new research showing how to break through the barrage of electronic media to craft slow, deliberate thinking.
9:30AM Local Media's Place in 'The Internet of Things' The future of media doesn't just resemble a smartphone anymore. It's a watch, a car dashboard, a wristband, eyeglasses, and a horde of other devices outfitted to signs, vending machines, refrigerators and toilets. Asif Khan, founder of the Local Based Marketing Association, examines all the possibilities, with an eye toward how wireless communications is opening new opportunities for forward-thinking local enterprises that aspire to become "communications" companies.
10:00AM Successor: The Growth & Evolution of The Knot In today's fast-changing media world, evolution is key to sustained growth. At The Knot - the nation's premiere weddings brand - that evolution is giving local businesses dynamic, new ways to acquire customers. The Knot is morphing from a mere media company to an enterprise that creates that magical Uber moment where people planning weddings can engage, connect and transact with vendors instantly. CEO Michael Steib tells the story of that ongoing evolution, and how the company is focused on its mission to inspire, plan and book every wedding in America.
10:50AM Events By the Numbers: Who's Doing Them, & How Much They're Making Fresh off research on how local media companies are handling events, Local Media Association President Nancy Lane delivers several case studies and details on the bottom line: Just how profitable are they? Bonus: attend this session and receive a free copy of the 2015 Local Media Innovation Mission report.
11:00AM How Digital Is Driving the Latest Pot O' Gold: Events The power of digital media to reach niche groups has created a new and very lucrative opportunity for traditional media companies. Even for the smallest of radio stations and newspapers, events are fetching hundreds of thousands of dollars - and millions for larger ones. Leading the charge is Jason Taylor, who's been developing events as a newspaper publisher. Hear the strategy behind this latest media morphosis and the role digital is playing.
11:30AM Buzz Session: Rapid-Fire Killer Ideas One of the highest-rated sessions of past conferences, this session features 10 case studies presented in rapid-fire format delivered by a select group of industry vendors. No sales pitches - just "show us what you got" in four minutes or less. The Buzz Session highlights the most dramatic examples of revenue-generating ideas instituted by local media companies.
Moderator: Gordon McLeod
2:00PM Track I: Digital Co-Op, Political Advertising, Sales Recruiting, & Social Media
2:00PM How to Tap Digital Co-Op At $36 billion in 2015, co-op advertising represents a huge opportunity for both retailers and media outlets. But 40% of it - about $14 billion - has gone unused, in part because programs are out of sync with retailers' needs. This session dissects the opportunity, looking specifically at how digital co-op offerings have suddenly mushroomed and how to take advantage at the local level. Speakers: Joanna LaBear, independent co-op advertising consultant; Tim Brennan, VP of Strategic Development, Recas. This panel will cover:
Overview: A broad look at how co-op programs are changing, and why. Which big brands are changing co-op, and what do the digital program offerings look like?
Front-Line Tips: Two local media managers of highly successful co-op programs describe the tricks to identifying available dollars, matching them with local retailers, and motivating sales reps to close the deal.
Resources: What are the best resources to identify co-op programs and brand retailers who are likely to participate?
2:45PM How to Tap Political Advertising 2016 is forecast to be the first year digital political advertising will crack $1 billion. But it's still less than 10% of the $11.4 billion that's expected to be spent overall. Three sessions will offer practical information on what media companies can expect as the presidential, state and local races heat up, and tips on how to tap that spending.
Overview:With the debates over and the primaries under way, how did 2015 end and how is 2016 shaping up? What was bought? Who benefited?
Front-Line Tips: Three managers of political advertising offer front-line examples of dealing with the trading desks and what their staffs are doing to position their buckets for the political bounty of 2016.
Resources: There are several new resources available to help local media tap into political advertising, from online dashboards that monitor broadcast buys in real time to contact lists of political advertising buyers and program desk managers. This session will point the way to useful tools you may not be aware of.
3:30PM How to Find (and Keep) the Best Sales Reps One of the most critical tasks of any media organization is finding and keeping a good sales rep. Intense competition has made the job even harder. There are some tricks, and fortunately we've found several recruiting experts willing to share them.
Session 1: Tricks and tips on identifying and recruiting prospects. Speaker: Heather Monahan
Session 2: A 24/7 approach to finding/sourcing talent. Speaker: Matt Sunshine
4:30PM Facebook is Your Frenemy Social Media can be your best friend and your worst nightmare. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest have built insanely large communities, invented invaluable marketing tools, and cultivated an insatiable desire to disrupt the world. How do you connect your advertisers with amazing technology even while working with companies who are plotting to assassinate your reputation, take your lunch money, and steal your boyfriend?
2:00PM Track II: Streaming Video & Online Classifieds: Recruitment, Real Estate, & Auto
2:00PM Tapping the Video Advertising Boom In the past (2010) business owners wanted to be a TV star but couldn't afford commercials. Now, thanks to YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, everybody's becoming one.
Overview: What are the fastest-growing categories in local markets? What formats are advertisers buying?
Front-Line Tips: Tips from the most aggressive and successful efforts to drive video revenue at the local level.
Creating & Sustaining a Local Channel, Sans FCC License: Several local media companies have launched efforts to compete with TV stations. They've skipped FCC licenses and created their own video programs, whether via OTT (over the top) or buying program time on cable channels. This examines their strategy and viability.
2:45PM "Killing It" in Recruitment Best-practice companies talk about how partnerships are faring with big job boards like Monster and CareerBuilder, and how new, innovative approaches are reinvigorating recruitment revenues. Are TV and radio forays into this space successful? What programs and tricks top performers are using to tap the online help-wanted space? Moderator: Terry Baker, RealMatch. Speakers: Tom Cottingham, InsiderLouisville.com; Travis Cundy, WHEC-TV
3:30PM "Killing It" in Real Estate Zillow is a category killer, unless you're one of these panelists, who've approached the real estate space in very innovative ways. This session offers an overview of what's working and what's not, and hears from two companies who've found new ways to tap this multibillion-dollar ad category. Moderator: Jay Horton, Digitalme.
4:00PM "Killing It" in Automotive Who's making the most money, and how are they doing it? This session lays out innovative ways that several best-practice companies have found to deliver highly targeted advertising and leads in a way that trumps the traditional automotive sites. Speakers: Nate Breindel, Serendipity Insight; Jesse McCambridge, Cox Media; Stephanie Boggins, The Commercial Appeal.
8:30AM Radical Changes in Local Advertising for 2016 Digital media has radically changed how businesses market themselves. The result is a radically different way of looking at "advertising," where the average SMB's budget isn't $13,000 per year but $133,000. In a one-two punch, Borrell VPs Corey Elliott and Jim Brown lay out the significant changes in Borrell's local-market data and how companies have been mining that data to craft highly profitable, "successor" media companies.
8:50AM The Ad-Blocking Effect: A Boon for Smart Publishers & Agencies About one-third of U.S. adults use ad-blocking software; for millennials, it's closer to 40%. Is the interactive advertising industry, as some have suggested, about to collapse under its own technology? Interactive Advertising Bureau CEO Randall Rothenberg reviews the latest stats on ad-blocking and outlines where things are headed in 2016, showing how this latest industry disruption is actually benefiting smart agencies and publishers.
9:30AM Successor: The Dallas Morning News and DMNmedia How difficult is it to transform one of the nation's largest metro newspapers into the go-to company for advertising and marketing in Dallas? Through a series of acquisitions and internal restructuring, CEO and publisher Jim Moroney has built DMNmedia, a marketing solutions group that goes beyond print and banner ads to offer 80 different marketing solutions.
10:00AM Successor: Townsquare Media Becomes a Radio, Event & Digital Powerhouse Townsquare didn't start out as a radio company and evolve into something else. Co-founder and CEO Steven Price first envisioned a market opportunity. Then he built a company around it, consciously selecting radio as the best fit to bring it all together. Today, that company spans 66 small and mid-size markets served by a live-events business, 325 websites, 309 radio stations, a digital services business, and even a carnival company.
10:45AM Successor: GateHouse Media Doubles Down on Digital Through aggressive acquisition of print and digital media, GateHouse Media has become one of the largest local media companies in the U.S. It owns more than 400 newspapers, six yellow pages directories, 350 websites, and a fast-growing digital services unit, Propel Marketing. Describing GateHouse's vision is CEO Kirk Davis, who was Borrell's 2013 Innovator of the Year Award.
11:10AM Successor: Nexstar Broadcasting When it comes to building digital assets, it's hard to think of another TV company as aggressive as Nexstar Broadcasting. The digital jag actually began in 2007 when founder and CEO Perry Sook began recruiting former Yahoo! executives to form Nexstar's digital unit. He doubled down over the past two years, spending more than $50 million to acquire Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inergize Digital, and a digital video and programmatic company called Yashi. Sook describes his vision for Nexstar.
11:40AM Successor: Building the Media Company of the Future, From Scratch If you had no experience whatsoever in media and decided to build the media company of the future, what would it look like? Ken Pustizzi sold his equipment-leasing business and pursued what he saw as a wide-open opportunity. He set up shop in a small town in southern New Jersey, pieced together a marketing agency, and acquired key analog-media assets to complement it. Pustizzi offers a fascinating look at what the media & marketing company of the future might look like.
12:10PM Sure Your Reps Sell Digital, But Are They Qualified? About 90,000 reps are selling local advertising, and many of them have been asked to add digital to their product set. But are all qualified to sell it? Buyers and agencies have been clamoring for an industry benchmark to differentiate reps who are truly educated in selling digital media. The IAB has met that concern in 2012 with its Digital Media Sales Certification program. While 8,500 have participated in the program so far, there's a long way to go. Christa Babcock, Sr. Director of learning & development of IAB, discusses how the program is faring, and its affect on the digital advertising marketplace.
12:20PM Award of Merit/Innovator of the Year Presentation This is our 7th annual award. We select a local media executive who's driven remarkable transformation in his or her company. Past recipients have included Colleen Brown, CEO of Fisher Communications; Clark Gilbert, CEO of Deseret Media; Ezra Kucharz, president of CBS Local Digital Media; Kirk Davis, COO of GateHouse Media; Adam Symson, chief digital officer for The E.W. Scripps Co.; and Chris Hendricks, corporate VP of The McClatchy Corp.
Speakers to be announced.
12:30PM Lunch Sponsored by
1:30PM Dessert with Sponsors
2:00PM Will Your Car be the Ultimate Mobile Device Fred Jacobs of Jacobs Media, one of the foremost experts on what's happening to car dashboards, offers a detailed look at what dashboards look like in cars rolling off the line today. He'll also describe what manufacturers are likely to incorporate into vehicles over the next three years. Will local radio stations become obsolete? As dashes become ports for smart phones, should local media be developing dashboard-compatible apps?
2:30PM Podcasting: Is This Radio's "Next?" Several longtime radio executives have exited the business, only to re-enter it by starting podcasting companies. One of them is former Saga Communications executive Steve Goldstein. His Amplifi Media is mining the podcasting opportunity. Goldstein examines where podcasting - or on-demand audio programming - is headed, with an eye toward how local media companies can take advantage of this trend.
3:00PM Make Money While You Sleep: How Programmatic is Driving Revenue Two local media managers and two programmatic network managers are featured in this session. The media managers will discuss how they're tackling the programmatic opportunity, and the network managers will discuss what's available, at what rates, and to whom?
3:45PM WrapUp: Highlights & Conclusions, and a Checklist of Action Steps This interactive session will offer key observations from the past two days of LOAC2016, but spend more time compiling an action list for attendees. What's the first thing you'll change when you get back at your desk?
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