AOL is preparing for its spinoff from Time Warner on Dec. 9 with a new look and go-to-market strategy.

The company has unveiled a new logo - or rather, a set of interchangeable logos - to promote the breadth of the company's content and digital assets.

"It's one consistent logo with countless ways to reveal," AOL said in its announcement. More details about the strategy will be revealed on Dec. 10, when its common stock begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Campaign on the Cheap

AOL tapped the Wolff Olins consultancy to develop its new identity. Other than that investment, the company will not be spending huge sums on its re-introduction, according to an interview with AOL CEO Tim Armstrong (via Paid Content).

Armstrong said the company will promote its new identity, for the most part, on its own pages. The campaign will be "very, very, very inexpensive because we’re focused on just improving the products and services. I would say the marketing budget is the budget we’re using on product development and the changes we’re making."

Local Ad Push

A more unified brand - one that is more inclusive of all its digital assets - should help AOL as it competes with other platforms for local advertising market share. PBS, ESPN, Huffington Post, The Knot, Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL, among others, have all recently announced plans to immerse themselves in local ad sales, writes MediaBuyerPlanner.

Online media buys currently hold a 13.8% share of all local advertising, according to a report and five-year forecast from Borrell Associates. The research company predicts it will peak at a 16% share by 2013. "The game in 2010 will center more around stealing market share than growing the market. Local advertisers have had plenty of time to assess the effectiveness of banner ads, search, streaming video and e-mail advertising peddled to them over the past decade," the report said.

"They will abandon programs that just do not work, and embrace those that produce measurable results."