It’s an odd paradox…people who are in the advertising business seldom advertise.

But that’s the current reality for many of our old and new media products (When’s the last time you saw an ad for Facebook?).

Take radio for example. When local owners and smaller groups ran the stations, you saw the significant presence of station call letters and music video 30′s on local TV, billboard campaigns and sometimes the newspaper. Big promotions and contests like “live in it to win it” and the birthday game were frequent and became water-cooler conversations in the community.

These marketing efforts expanded cumulative listening and made the radio stations more valuable. Then the big groups moved in and what’s the first thing that went toward paying the mortgage? Marketing. What’s the end result now after several years? Fewer listeners; less advertiser value and ultimately less revenue, leading to less shareholder value.

It’s not just radio…every other medium has cut or eliminated real money spent on marketing. And running promos on your own air or newsprint doesn’t count. How do you tell that car dealer or restaurant to go after that new demographic niche when you aren’t willing to do the same?

It’s painful to see local time spent listening or viewing or circulation keep decreasing. Where are the brilliant marketers who can creatively stop the tide of fleeing consumers of local media, and who will be the brave managers that will resource them?

I’d like to hear from you. Let’s talk about growing local media or anything else in the world of pixels, frequencies, or copy. Leave a comment in the box here, or you can e-mail me at joel@nataliemedia.com, or by tweeting @pressandtower.

Embrace the chaos.