Ad Makers Post Five: Balihoo

At Balihoo, the focus appears to be localization of national creative -- where a dealer or franchisee can create localized creative and buy media across TV, radio, print, outdoor, and online from a central control panel.

In addition, the local organizations can also manage lead gen, DM, and email efforts from the same platform. Here's how they present their benefits on their website:

Built upon Balihoo’s AnyMedia™ Database containing a vast collection of media properties spanning all mediums, the Balihoo Marketer Edition provides franchisors and co-op marketers and their agencies multiple tools to take their local marketing efforts to the next level:

Centralized Creative Asset Management – Store logos, POP in-store material, photography, package designs, ad layouts, collateral material, audio, video or any other digital file. Balihoo Marketer Edition makes digital assets easy to access and download - ensuring brand consistency, reducing costs, and increasing productivity.

Full Creative Customization – Dealers can quickly and easily on-the-fly customize all stored creative assets for usage in their local market. Add custom photos, logos, copy, pricing, video/audio and other variables to corporate-approved creative to create market-ready materials on the fly.

Media and Marketing Planning – Plan local media and marketing activities within an eighteen month window with a simple, calendar-based utility giving single-view visibility into the complete plan. Planning can be done within the tool by the dealer or by an authorized third-party service provider.

Media and Marketing Buying – Full implementation, media buying and creative trafficking of all approved plans is handled seamlessly by your chosen authorized service provider.

Direct Marketing Engine –Complete direct marketing engine for planning and implementation of direct mail and email campaigns that leverage national pricing rates at the local level.

Mailing List Services – Upload or purchase mailing lists and manage all existing customer lists. Plan and implement targeted direct mail and email marketing campaigns targeting customers at unique stages in their buying cycles.

Reporting – Complete visibility into marketing activities at the local, regional or national level including total spend, media selection and results reporting.

Importantly, you don't need to be a local outlet of a national retailer to realize benefits from this option. This can work for localization of almost any brand where such regional versioning can be of benefit in getting leads and sales.

Here's an excerpt of a podcast about Balihoo from ScribeWire:



Interestingly, Balihoo makes an effort to present itself as a good solution for local agencies as well -- so this is definitely not a solution hell bent on taking us out of the equation.

I have to say that I think that these guys have a great take on the appropriate positioning of an offering like this: easy but with total creative control at HQ. I think we are going to see a lot of these guys and gals over the next months and years.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.