JUSTIN LUND
Creative Director & Brand Storyteller
Very Local Week | Very Local (2024)
A Full-Channel Local Marketing Blitz Across 25 Broadcast Markets
Overview
COMPANY: Very Local, Hearst Television
ROLE: Campaign Coordinator, Creative Producer, Writer, Editor
PROJECT TYPE: Multi-Market Streaming Growth Initiative
PARTNERS: 25 Hearst leading broadcast stations
PRIMARY GOAL: Grow app installs, active users, and local audience engagement
STRATEGIC FOCUS: Turn the strongest findings from the previous year's projects into a scalable national campaign
KEY WORK: Localized scripting, station partner support, broadcast promotion, digital creative versioning, newsroom integrations, weather integrations, on-air package editing
UNIFORM BRANDING PACKAGES
The Challenge
The 2023 Big Idea Project helped clarify which local marketing tactics had the greatest potential to drive audience action. One model stood out: the station takeover week.
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A takeover week created a focused campaign window where nearly every available channel at the local station pointed audiences toward Very Local. It was concentrated, repeatable, and easier for stations to understand than a fully custom one-off campaign.
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The challenge in 2024 was scale. We needed to turn that successful idea into a repeatable campaign structure that could work across 25 station partners while still feeling local in each market.​
BROADCAST PROMOS
The Markets
Albuquerque, Baltimore, Birmingham, Boston, Burlington-Plattsburgh, Cincinnati, Des Moines, Fort Smith-Fayetteville, Greensville, Jackson, Kansas City, Louisville, Manchester, Milwaukee, Monterey, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Omaha, Orlando, Pittsburgh, Portland, Sacramento, Savannah, Tampa, West Palm Beach, and Winston-Salem.
NEWSCAST CONTENT
The Strategy
Very Local Week was built as a coordinated national campaign with local customization at the center.
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Each station partner selected one week in June to run a full-market promotional push for Very Local. The campaign combined broadcast promos, digital display, website branding, outdoor signage, newsroom integrations, weather mentions, original programming plugs, talent-driven messaging, and in-person app download opportunities.
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The strategy was simple: surround each local audience with one clear message for one focused week.
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Very Local was not positioned as a generic streaming app. It was positioned as an extension of each station’s trusted local brand: a place to stream local news, weather, original shows, and market-relevant stories on demand.
INTERVIEW SEGMENTS & SET VISITS
My Contribution
I helped translate the national campaign strategy into usable creative for all 25 participating markets.
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That included writing customized broadcast scripts for anchors, reporters, meteorologists, and station talent. These scripts promoted Very Local in a way that felt natural inside a news environment, often presenting original programming like a story worth checking out instead of a traditional app advertisement.
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I also wrote weather integration copy, giving meteorologists simple language to promote local forecast availability on the Very Local app after weather segments.
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Beyond scripting, I customized co-branded digital display campaigns, adapted web artwork for station-specific usage, and edited localized on-air packages that stations could run throughout their campaign week.
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The work supported a wide campaign footprint across broadcast, digital, web, outdoor, newsroom, weather, original programming, and community event activations.​
PAID DISPLAY ADS
What I Gained
Very Local Week strengthened my understanding of how to scale a campaign without flattening the local voice.
The project showed me how important structure is when working across a large partner network. Local customization mattered, but so did consistency. Stations needed enough flexibility to sound like themselves, but enough shared direction to make the campaign easy to execute.
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It also reinforced that local streaming growth works best when the message comes from trusted local voices. Viewers were more likely to understand the value of Very Local when anchors, meteorologists, and station personalities connected the app to familiar behaviors: checking the forecast, watching local news, discovering community stories, and streaming original programming on their own schedule.
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This project sharpened my ability to turn campaign insights into scalable marketing execution. It showed me how to build the system behind the creative, not just the creative itself.
DIGITAL
