Too many sales reps are dull in their sales conversation. You can blame this on onboarding processes that gaslight reps into believing that their company and solution are the most important things. This establishes parity with competitors, meaning one salesperson is no better than another. Instead of being average and turning yourself into a commodity, aim to be a more dynamic, engaging salesperson.

Miles had just been promoted to his first position at the director level after two short years of working for a large manufacturer in a complicated, heavily regulated industry. What surprised him most about the culture of the company is how project oriented the firm had become during his tenure as a manager. Common practice was to assign a project team to study the details to the nth degree. Miles felt the phenomenon of analysis-paralysis was slowing down decision making, and he was not alone in this opinion.

AI Overviews are accelerating a shift toward “Google Zero,” where users get answers without clicking through, weakening the value of organic search traffic. That is a warning sign for publishers and marketers, but also an opening for local media sellers and agencies to reposition radio, TV, cable, print, outdoor, and digital as channels that build top-of-mind awareness, trust, and demand before a search ever happens. In a world where discoverability is increasingly controlled by answer engines, advertisers may place greater value on media that makes brands known, remembered, and hard to ignore.

Despite radio rsquo;s strong audience reach and cost-efficiency, major misperceptions among advertisers are causing significant underinvestment in the medium. These challenges mdash;and how the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) is addressing them mdash;offer critical insights for all local media sellers, including newspapers, billboards, TV, magazines, and digital. Like radio, these platforms often face outdated assumptions that affect their share of ad budgets. This article outlines key data, strategies, and messaging that local sellers can adopt to better position their value in today rsquo;s competitive media mix.

As media inflation cools across the U.S., local media sellers mdash;across newspapers, magazines, billboards, TV, and digital mdash;are entering 2025 with a more stable pricing environment. The latest ECI Media Inflation Report projects just a 2.5% increase in media costs, with radio ad rates rising only 1% and digital video (CTV) seeing continued price declines. For local media sellers, this presents a key opportunity: while national and global uncertainties persist, local advertisers may find more room to buy and plan confidently. Stability in pricing can help unlock conversations with cautious advertisers, especially in sectors pressured by tariffs and consumer belt-tightening.

Traditional media—radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, cable, and outdoor—continues to play a vital role in building brand awareness and trust, even as digital platforms dominate the advertising landscape. Despite the rise of programmatic and targeted digital ads, traditional channels offer unmatched transparency, broad reach, and credibility. Growing concerns over digital ad fraud, which costs advertisers billions annually through tactics like click fraud and domain spoofing, are prompting marketers to rebalance their media strategies. Leading brands are integrating traditional and digital media to create full-funnel campaigns that combine mass exposure with precision targeting. As younger audiences rediscover analog experiences, traditional media is proving its resilience and relevance in a hybrid advertising future.

Retailers are moving beyond AI chatbots and beginning to deploy “agentic” AI that can take real actions, from marketing execution to customer-service workflows. As that shift accelerates, many are discovering that broad, general-purpose large language models often struggle with retail’s rule-heavy, SKU-level realities—where accuracy matters more than eloquence. Smaller, domain-specific language models trained on a retailer’s own verified data can deliver more reliable outputs for tasks like product content, attribute extraction, recommendations, and support automation. For local media sellers and agencies, the opportunity is to help advertisers turn first-party product and customer data into scalable, compliant creative and smoother campaign workflows—positioning themselves as operational partners, not just inventory vendors.

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Digital ad spending is showing signs of recovery, with display retargeting and prospecting CPMs rebounding significantly in Q3, according to AdRoll. AI-driven traffic to retail sites has surged over 4,700% year-over-year, signaling a major shift in how consumers discover products. Marketers are being urged to invest earlier—September and October—to build brand recognition ahead of the holiday season. For local media sales teams and agencies, this presents an opportunity to pitch awareness-focused campaigns across connected TV, radio, and digital. The takeaway: early, visibility-driven advertising strategies could secure more revenue as advertiser confidence returns.

Industry Press Highlights, Media, Retail, Advertising and the Economy

AI may be transforming advertising workflows, but it’s not ready to control the highest-risk levers—spend authority, brand meaning, and accountability—so humans will remain “in the loop” for the foreseeable future. While generative tools can produce endless creative variations, they can’t replace taste, lived experience, or the ability to read cultural context, and audiences increasingly detect and distrust “AI-feeling” work. Trust and liability are the real brakes: consumer skepticism, brand safety, bias, hallucinations, privacy, and governance requirements make “lights-out” automation unrealistic and risky. The practical path forward is human-led orchestration—use AI to accelerate ideation and optimization, but keep people responsible for budgets, judgment, disclosure, ethics, and the final decisions that define outcomes.

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When brands cut advertising, the immediate savings can look good — but the long-term damage can be devastating. Two major brands that slashed their ad budgets across channels like TV, print, digital, and search saw short-term efficiency gains quickly followed by steep declines in revenue, profits, and customer acquisition. Even when they returned to spending, rebuilding was slow and expensive, with much higher costs per acquisition than before. For local media sales professionals, this case study reinforces the value of maintaining consistent ad presence — and the critical role media reps play in helping advertisers understand the long-term consequences of pulling back.

The future never waits for anyone or anything. It is eager and enthusiastic, even obsessed, with becoming the present. The future is an express train through history – and we’re all on board. The future never waits for anyone or anything. It is eager and enthusiastic, even obsessed, with becoming the present. The future is an express train through history – and we’re all on board.

Leo Burnett, born in 1891 in Michigan, rose from humble beginnings to become one of the most influential figures in advertising history. He founded Leo Burnett Company in 1935 during the Great Depression and built it into a global powerhouse by championing emotionally resonant, character-driven campaigns like the Marlboro Man, Tony the Tiger, and the Pillsbury Doughboy. Known for his belief in the “inherent drama” of products, Burnett emphasized simplicity, sincerity, and storytelling in advertising. Despite early skepticism and economic adversity, he built a legacy rooted in trust, creativity, and consumer connection. His philosophy—“Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read.”—continues to shape the industry today.