This is a very smart move for Spot Runner: Spot Runner Gets Media Investment. For those of you that haven’t heard of them, the company is a very interesting cross between online and offline advertising. Basically, they have an online interface where small to medium advertisers can create TV commercials on the cheap (think templates, stock video, voiceovers, etc.), and then they handle buying from local stations to drive down the cost.
They are part of a fascinating trend of leveraging online strenghts in aggregation and automation, and then applying them to offline channels. NextMedium is also in the same functional category, for product placement. DS-IQ is such a company for outdoor/digital signage, and dMarc is such a company for radio.
Anyway, since obviously TV is most brand focused (minus those 1-800 infomercial or Girls Gone Wild type commercials), it’s clear that Spot Runner needs the support of a lot of brand advertisers to make their business viable. What’s a better way of doing this than getting one of the world’s largest brand agency conglomerates to buy a chunk of your company? Spot Runner is doing all the right things to build those deep, Midtown Manhattan relationships… other companies focused on brand advertising (in particular all those video ad networks) should watch them to learn a thing or two.