• by Michael Shields , April 14, 2004

A top media sales rep Wednesday unveiled plans to begin packaging two distinct media--radio and online--as a single combination buy. Not surprisingly, the rep--Interep--has two separate divisions that until now have dealt exclusively with those two media. But while the move may be logical from the rep's internal perspective, it raises questions about how mixes of media should be planned by ad agencies and packaged by media sales organizations, and how such packaging might ultimately impact actual advertising schedules.

"The time has come to put our resources to use to make it happen," said Adam Guild, president of Interep Interactive, the unit of radio sales juggernaut Interep that until how had specialized in repping sales for Web sites exclusively.

That Interep has the wherewithal to put radio and online sales packages together is clear, said Guild, boasting that the company has the "size and depth" to create bundled media deals covering online and offline media. What was less clear is why such cross-media buys should be driven specifically by combinations of radio and online.

Radio, for example, has historically been planned mainly as a local media buy, while the Internet--until recently--had been considered a national buy. It also isn't clear what the synergistic effects of radio and online are, other than the fact that growing body of radio broadcasters have launched Internet-based stations. In fact, radio usually is more aligned with outdoor media in terms of its synergistic effects, which explains why some of the biggest radio companies--Clear Channel Communications and Infinity Broadcasting--also have historically been some of the biggest players in outdoor media.

But Guild touted ease of use as a key benefit of Interep's one-stop approach to radio and online media packaging. He also claimed that radio and online "are the perfect complement to each other," citing recent research showing that more than half of Internet users listen to the radio while online--many while at work.

In fact, the recently released BIGresearch SIMM Survey found that when listening to radio, 57.3 percent of respondents said they simultaneously go online. Thus, radio ads may be particularly well-suited to drive users to advertisers' Web sites for further information, deeper content, etc. "We want to use radio to turn ears into eyeballs," he said.

And despite the fact that the Internet is more commonly considered a national medium, Guild said that by examining site logs by region and by employing geotargeting when possible, advertisers can work around that issue.

The efforts will be overseen by Sheila Kirby, who was recently tapped to serve as senior vice president of Interep Innovations. Kirby, former CEO of the media consulting firm Morrison and Abraham (now owned by Interep), has been tasked with managing an extensive training program for Interep's disparate media sales forces to develop new integrated marketing programs aimed at Fortune 1000 companies and agencies.

The idea is to go after a different set of dollars than those apportioned to brand and marketing executives to use for national advertising. Rather than the usual agency media buyers, salespeople would target advertisers directly--although in a non-traditional way, such as contacting local corporate salespeople or senior vice presidents. Agencies would be looped into the buying process down the road.

Kirby's previous work includes extensive experience in creating on-site and in-store promotional events for clients, which would also factor into cross-media buys.

Guild meanwhile, wants to nudge the independent sales teams at Interep to work more closely together. "It's more and more important to have traditional sellers to speak the language of online, and to have online sellers to speak the language of traditional media," he said.