Think Globally, Serve Ads Locally

Max Kalehoff, vice president of marketing for Clickable and author of Attention Max, has some interesting things to say about small business and local online ad markets.

“Small to medium” is actually huge.
For example, I became acutely aware that half of the online advertising market is comprised of small and midsized businesses. The advertising trade press tends to cover the mega brands most — the head of the tail, not the torso nor the long tail. However, digital innovations are having just as profound an impact on the lower to mid foundation. It’s exciting and there’s incredible disruption and innovation going on.
I’ve also become more aware of the great significance of local online advertising. It’s complex, but a sizable and growing opportunity. When you work in the big-brand world of national advertising, it’s easy to forget that a lot of business-customer interaction happens in person, in your own neighborhood. Digital is steadily transforming the way businesses think about local.

I’m intrigued by this last bit. It seems like there are several ad networks and content aggregators dedicated to big topics like investing, for instance. But I’m not sure the same can be said for metropolitan markets.
Can you think of a firm who is servicing local markets by bundling online ad buys on local publishers’ sites? It seems like a service that would benefit national brands looking to advertise locally and local retailers and service providers looking to get the word out.
[via MediaPost’s Online Spin]
[UPDATE] outside.in looks to be doing a nice job of bundling local content.