How Does Remnant Advertising Work?
Remnant media & low-cost advertising are wonderful implements in the toolbox of successful companies everywhere. Remnant media is simply explained as advertising space or time that is unsold by the company that sells it.
Look at it like this: a Local TV station in NYC has 100 ad units available each week. Their local sales team does a great job and sells 87 of those ad units for the upcoming week. Well, what happens to the other 13 commercials that didn’t get sold?
There are a few answers. First, those spots often get bonused or gifted to clients of that TV station. But that doesn’t serve the TV station’s bottom line. More often, they are sold on a “Remnant Media” basis: stations will sell the inventory in a last-minute buying paradigm.
In order to sell this on short notice, and without a long-term commitment, TV stations will discount this inventory – almost like a fire sale. Once the week starts, if no spots run on those 13 vacancies, they can never be sold again.
Thus, media companies of all types have embraced partnerships with select companies, such as The Remnant Agency, to help move their expiring inventory. The inventory available is not better or worse, but equal. Our goal is to grab the highest targeted reach, by volume, at the best available price.
Think about this: A plane flies from Chicago to San Francisco. There are 300 seats, but only 200 tickets purchased. Wouldn’t the airline make more money by selling those 100 open seats at a deeply discounted fare rather than just leaving them empty? Once the gate closes, and the jet taxis, those seats can never be sold again. Much like an airline seat, advertising time is an expiring commodity. Once its flight window has passed, the opportunity to generate revenue is gone.
Every seat on the plane brings you to the same destination, and sure there’s first-class (premium media options), but in terms of a standard flight getting you from A to B, really all seats are equal, even if they don’t all cost the same.
