Locality’s Keith Kazerman on why local needs both broadcast and streaming

As advertising becomes more fragmented across platforms, devices and audiences, Locality’s Keith Kazerman sees clarity in convergence. For Kazerman, the path forward isn’t choosing between linear and digital – it’s building smarter campaigns that span both.

“We’re in an ‘and’ world, not an ‘or’ world,” said Kazerman, president of streaming at Locality. “To replicate the scale advertisers once got from a single medium, they have to plan across both broadcast and streaming.”

That viewpoint underpins Locality’s model. With a footprint across all 210 DMAs, relationships with more than 400 local stations and integrations with over 150 streaming publishers, the company positions itself as a unified local video solution. Its clients include more than 6,000 advertisers, ranging from national brands executing geo-targeted campaigns to regional businesses aiming to boost foot traffic.

From local context to national scale

While the national ad market has spent years moving toward audience-based buying, Kazerman sees local campaigns catching up – with some unique advantages.

“Every shopping decision happens locally,” he said. “Whether visiting a store or ordering from your couch, local is where the action and the measurement happen.”

To that end, Locality leans into market-level nuance.

Through a platform called Reach Plus, the company leverages ACR (automatic content recognition) data from 25 million smart TVs to map real-time viewership behavior across broadcast and streaming. This return-path data helps advertisers tailor campaigns to local consumption patterns, whether that’s prioritizing streaming inventory during cord-cutting surges or boosting linear placements around local news and sports.

“It’s the foundation of our planning,” Kazerman said. “Not every market behaves the same. ACR lets us see what viewers are watching, which apps they use, and how long they stay engaged.”

Advertisement

To streamline execution, Locality recently launched LocalX, a platform designed to give broadcasters and advertisers a shared, flexible workflow for planning local campaigns. Built with both direct-sold and programmatic models in mind, the platform integrates AI tools to help users make faster, data-informed decisions.

LocalX also helps address an increasingly familiar problem in digital video: the creative gap.

For advertisers without ready-made local video assets, Locality now offers AI-powered creative tools to generate or customize spots in minutes.

“A lack of creative has historically been a barrier,” said Kazerman. “Now we can localize existing content or build a campaign from scratch, fast.”

That speed and adaptability align with broader advertiser demands, he added.

“They want flexibility. They want faster turnarounds. They want results.”

Local relevance pays off

According to Locality’s own research, those results increasingly depend on how relevant the message feels to the viewer. In its “Local Lift” study conducted with the Harris Poll, 71% of U.S. adults said they prefer ads tailored to their local community. That figure rises to 81% among Gen Z and younger millennials.

The study also found that viewers are six times more likely to view a brand as part of their community when its messaging is localized and more than four times as likely to trust it. Purchase intent jumps dramatically as well: 53% of viewers exposed to localized ads said they were likely to buy, compared to just 13% for national spots.

“Localized messaging drives engagement and action,” said Kazerman. “That’s what advertisers are ultimately looking for—proof that their investment is working.”

The missing links around measurement and data

Despite growing capabilities, Kazerman acknowledged that challenges remain – particularly around measurement. Walled gardens still limit the ability to unify data across platforms, and local markets continue to lack the cross-screen currencies now emerging at the national level.

Still, he’s optimistic about where the local market is headed.

“We’ve come a long way in holding advertising accountable,” he said. “It’s no longer just about delivering impressions, it’s about how hard those impressions are working.”

Advertisement

As streaming options expand, with FAST channels, AVOD apps and OEM-driven content hubs creating new inventory, the role of data in navigating this complexity will only increase.

For Locality, the priority remains combining scale with service.

“Our technology is built to reduce friction,” Kazerman said. “But the real differentiator is our ability to have informed conversations with advertisers—to understand their goals, use data to inform planning, and deliver campaigns that meet those KPIs.”