Nextdoor’s Michael Kiernan: Most Local Platforms Give You A Zip Code. Nextdoor Gives You The Neighborhood
CANNES, France — National advertising reach and neighborhood-level relevance have long been treated as competing priorities. Nextdoor’s pitch to brands is that the tradeoff is a false one.
“We’re not necessarily running local budgets. We’re helping you take your national message and really personalize it across every neighborhood, across the globe,” Michael Kiernan, CRO of Nextdoor, told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan at Cannes Lions. “Most platforms, when they think of local, they give you a zip code. Nextdoor gives you the neighborhood. We’re in 350,000 neighborhoods.”
The distinction matters because of who is actually using the platform and what they are thinking about when they do.
Household state of mind
Nextdoor’s user base skews heavily toward heads of household: the person who signs the lease, manages home services, and makes major purchase decisions on behalf of the family. That audience is already in a neighborhood mindset when they open the app.
“When they’re using Nextdoor, they’re already in a neighborhood state of mind. They’re thinking about what’s going on in their home, around their home, in their community. Usually when you’re at home, that’s actually where you tend to make big decisions and big purchase decisions,” Kiernan said.
Sentiment data reveals what DMAs can’t
For categories like telecom, where word-of-mouth heavily influences switching decisions, neighborhood-level sentiment signals unlock intelligence that traditional geographic targeting cannot surface.
“Think about what a telco wants to know. It’s not how many people in this DMA are interested in my services? It’s what does each community think? Are they loyalists where maybe I have an advantage versus a competitor? Is there sentiment in the neighborhood related to perhaps an outage?” Kiernan said.
Dynamic local lifts engagement
Nextdoor’s dynamic local substitution capability goes beyond city-level personalization, weaving local imagery, community context, and neighborhood events into national creative to drive a 15% engagement lift over standard messaging.
“It’s not just making the message specific to your city. It’s using local imagery, local context, maybe events that are happening in the community. We weave that into the message to make it feel more personal. When it feels more personalized, it tends to resonate more,” Kiernan said.
Fifteen years of neighbor recommendations
Nextdoor has accumulated 15 years of neighbor-to-neighbor recommendations spanning local restaurants, hikes, preschools, and home services. It’s a trust layer that Kiernan said no star-rating system can replicate.
“A local recommendation we believe is the most trusted form of recommendation. The fact that it is coming from your neighbor — we believe that’s the most trusted form of recommendation you can find,” Kiernan said.
For brands that have historically had no way to participate in neighborhood-level word of mouth, that accumulated trust represents an entirely new channel for authentic consumer influence.
“The most important question is asking yourself where is the consumer when they’re making a decision? They tend to be at home. It’s when they’re the most focused on what truly matters to them,” Kiernan said. “Nextdoor is completely oriented around where people are and what they think around their home.”
You’re watching Beet.TV coverage from Cannes Lions 2026. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.
CANNES, France — National advertising reach and neighborhood-level relevance have long been treated as competing priorities. Nextdoor’s pitch to brands is that the tradeoff is a false one.
“We’re not necessarily running local budgets. We’re helping you take your national message and really personalize it across every neighborhood, across the globe,” Michael Kiernan, CRO of Nextdoor, told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan at Cannes Lions. “Most platforms, when they think of local, they give you a zip code. Nextdoor gives you the neighborhood. We’re in 350,000 neighborhoods.”
The distinction matters because of who is actually using the platform and what they are thinking about when they do.
Household state of mind
Nextdoor’s user base skews heavily toward heads of household: the person who signs the lease, manages home services, and makes major purchase decisions on behalf of the family. That audience is already in a neighborhood mindset when they open the app.
“When they’re using Nextdoor, they’re already in a neighborhood state of mind. They’re thinking about what’s going on in their home, around their home, in their community. Usually when you’re at home, that’s actually where you tend to make big decisions and big purchase decisions,” Kiernan said.
Sentiment data reveals what DMAs can’t
For categories like telecom, where word-of-mouth heavily influences switching decisions, neighborhood-level sentiment signals unlock intelligence that traditional geographic targeting cannot surface.
“Think about what a telco wants to know. It’s not how many people in this DMA are interested in my services? It’s what does each community think? Are they loyalists where maybe I have an advantage versus a competitor? Is there sentiment in the neighborhood related to perhaps an outage?” Kiernan said.
Dynamic local lifts engagement
Nextdoor’s dynamic local substitution capability goes beyond city-level personalization, weaving local imagery, community context, and neighborhood events into national creative to drive a 15% engagement lift over standard messaging.
“It’s not just making the message specific to your city. It’s using local imagery, local context, maybe events that are happening in the community. We weave that into the message to make it feel more personal. When it feels more personalized, it tends to resonate more,” Kiernan said.
Fifteen years of neighbor recommendations
Nextdoor has accumulated 15 years of neighbor-to-neighbor recommendations spanning local restaurants, hikes, preschools, and home services. It’s a trust layer that Kiernan said no star-rating system can replicate.
“A local recommendation we believe is the most trusted form of recommendation. The fact that it is coming from your neighbor — we believe that’s the most trusted form of recommendation you can find,” Kiernan said.
For brands that have historically had no way to participate in neighborhood-level word of mouth, that accumulated trust represents an entirely new channel for authentic consumer influence.
“The most important question is asking yourself where is the consumer when they’re making a decision? They tend to be at home. It’s when they’re the most focused on what truly matters to them,” Kiernan said. “Nextdoor is completely oriented around where people are and what they think around their home.”
You’re watching Beet.TV coverage from Cannes Lions 2026. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.
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