STAMFORD, CT--(Marketwire - March 18, 2009) - LOCALE Media and MunicipalBonds.com announced today that the companies have jointly launched an innovative marketing platform for municipal bond issuers. Retail marketing is more important than ever for issuers that want to reach retail investors and reduce their overall borrowing costs.

The flagship client for the New Issue Marketing Platform is the State of California for California's upcoming $4 billion General Obligation bond issue.

"We're thrilled that we're launching our platform with the top issuer in the United States. California is known for being extremely innovative in making their bonds accessible to retail investors," said Bhu Srinivasan, President of MunicipalBonds.com.

Locale Media is uniquely positioned to help market new municipal bond issues. The company has strong expertise in local online advertising with access to advertising space on top financial sites. With local bonds exempt from state income taxes, local marketing can significantly increase demand for new issues.

MunicipalBonds.com is the premier site for municipal bond investors. The site is visited monthly by tens of thousands of municipal bond investors that are looking for real-time prices, analytics, education, new issues, and bonds for sale. Through the New Issue Marketing Platform, issuers can have unprecedented access to the savviest and wealthiest municipal bond investors on MunicipalBonds.com.

Through Locale Media, issuers can buy online advertising on top financial and news sites targeted on a state or zip-code level. This means that a State issuer can choose to reach only the investors that are living in a particular state or target high net-worth zip codes in a particular state. In addition to the state of issuance, Locale Media can deliver advertising in neighboring states or states without an income tax such as Texas, Florida, Washington State and Nevada.

At an issuer's request, Locale Media can also target high net-worth zip codes around the country. "There are targeting capabilities with online advertising that are simply not possible with print or radio advertising. Issuers need a partner that understands the new landscape of retail marketing," said Srinivasan.

When people search for "municipal bonds" in any of the 50 states, MunicipalBonds.com is often the first result to appear on the top search engines. This is a substantial advantage that allows MunicipalBonds.com to reach interested municipal bond investors in every state.

The New Issue platform leverages all of the following elements:

- Search engine traffic from people searching for "municipal bonds"

- Advertising on top financial sites

- E-mail marketing to MunicipalBonds.com's list of investors

- Target marketing to high net-worth zip codes reaching wealthy investors

- Advertising on MunicipalBonds.com

- A full webpage dedicated to the issue with offering statements and phone numbers for all syndicate and selling group members

"Retail investors want and need access to new issues more than ever before. MunicipalBonds.com is creating the bridge between retail investors and municipal bond issuers," said Srinivasan.