RNC Plans Spending In Digital; Facebook's Local Opportunities

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Value Buys

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has committed $150 million to reserve digital video ad space, Kate Kaye reports for Ad Age. Taken alongside a recent $35 million reserved buy from Hillary Clinton’s largest supporting super PAC, the money suggests digital media is bouncing back from a slow primary ad season. (Never mind that most of it will go to Google.) The RNC wants “to ensure it can compete with the Democrats especially in reaching key voter groups, many of whom are easier to find online.” More.

Local In The Wings

More than 3 million businesses advertise on Facebook, but 20 times that number have accounts, which makes Facebook a strong contender for dollars in the $115 billion local ad market, writes the Motley Fool. Online advertising is “prohibitively expensive for most small businesses to reach people digitally,” said Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. Google recently rolled out a massive new suite of services for top-end, enterprise customers, but Facebook has a lot to gain from its big pool of small fish. More.

Amazon-Made

The Atlantic considers Amazon’s latest private label product expansion, which will bring the company into food, baby supplies and fashion. Those products will join its footprint in other areas like consumer tech, home goods and batteries. Lesson for CPGs and others: Once Amazon knows your business better than you do—thanks in part to its access to your data—sleep with one eye open. More at the Atlantic.

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