Superpages.com has inked a deal with TurnHere and Denver Multimedia to create video profiles of local businesses. The plan is to leverage the Superpages sales force to upsell clients to the video packages, and the clips will appear alongside directory listings. Recently, Yellow Book and CitySearch have begun similar video efforts.
While most agree there’s a big business opportunity here, local TV stations aren’t players despite long track records of innovation in video advertising. And in some cases, it may already be too late. Why? Stations haven’t invested in building innovative local directory/search products that have succeeded in achieving a large enough audience. Without an audience, there’s no video worth upselling. If you try to post the same video profiles on a TV site, smart advertisers won’t buy it — there’s no targeting, no context. You don’t visit a TV site to find something. You Google it. Or CitySearch it. Or Yelp it. Or visit the local newspaper’s entertainment site. But never a TV site, unless you’re looking for the forecast, traffic report or the day’s news.
Put simply, TV hasn’t made local business directories and search a priority. And with well over half of local online advertising dollars moving to search, directories and lead-generation, this lack of investment will prove to be a key strategic mistake in the years to come.