ITV has launched its first advertising campaign for regional web TV service ITV Local.

The campaign, which uses the tag line "The internet's more useful with ITV Local", will use a mixture of regional radio and targeted online advertising to promote the service in the ITV regions of London, Central and Meridian, where it is currently available.

ITV Local's campaign, which has been developed by the broadcaster's ad agency M&C Saatchi, will be rolled out to the Wales and Granada regions when ITV Local goes live in those areas.

"Our campaign aims are to raise awareness of the service and to encourage people to visit their regional site," said Mohammed Raja, the managing director of ITV Local.

The ad campaign promotes ITV Local as an internet ally for users, helping them to cut through the plethora of websites and identify helpful, local information.

Radio ads for the ITV Local campaign will run on major stations including Magic, Kiss and Heart. The online version of the campaign will run for the remainder of the year.

ITV local was first launched in the Meridian region in October 2005, and combines local news and weather with community-orientated services such as classified ads, property and battle of the bands video features.

The service was rolled out to ITV's Central and London regions in March this year.

In April, ITV Local partnered with Mediabox, the government's £6m media fund for young people, to expand its "grass roots" user content to include documentaries, short films, TV programmes and podcasts.

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