ExchangeWire rounds up the week’s biggest stories in ad tech, and in this week’s edition: Why the EU's anti-Google charge is doomed; HiMedia's promise of growth; Burberry trusts in programmatic.  

A message to the EU: Breaking up is hard to do

So European law makers want to deconstruct Google, with the European Parliament backing a motion this week that called for the break -off of its search arm from the rest of its commercial business, in a bid to place pressure on anti-trust regulators, but ExchangeWire sources sources insist the politicians have not exactly thought things through.

The European Parliament has passed the non-binding calling for the break up the US ad tech giant's search arm in a move aimed at sending a message to anti-trust regulators that have been probing Google's dominance of the online (search) advertising market, a move that many viewed as being backed by rivals such as Microsoft and TripAdvisor, among others, auspices of FairSearch.

Google's earlier attempts to placate anti-trust regulators – and avoid a potential $5bn fine – have been rebuffed, and the latest vote is one of the more dramatic developments in the four-year saga, but ExchangeWire sources are adamant it amounts to little more than sabre rattling, as reaching up the search arm of the company is ultimately unworkable.

Consulting a number of sources, a common point to be brought up was: 'This is fine in theory initially, but where do you draw the line?'

For instance, if Google is forced to break out its search data from the rest of the business, will rival full service online advertising firms (namely Microsoft and Yahoo) be forced to do likewise? In addition, does this mean that traditional publishers that have their own internal search engines will have to break out this data from the rest of their businesses?!

As long as such question marks hang over the case Google will be able to shoulder the lawyers' fees necessary to make the move a lost cause. And as politicians are voted in and out of office across the continent, it could fall by the wayside. Ultimately, the passing of this vote has the ring of a pyrrhic victory for the 'Let's get Google' movement.

HiMedia promises growth after 'year of transition'

The French ad tech firm announced its latest financial results earlier this month, reporting turnover of €38m, a fall of 9% year-on-year, amid an even steeper (12%) tightening of its profit margins, but it did note that its ad business was in a period of transition. ExchangeWire caught up with Cyril Zimmerman, HiMedia Group, CEO  on how he envisages mobile and video ad formats will play an instrumental role in this transition process.

He explained: "So, we were  in a period of transition in 2013 and 2014, with these aggressively growing new businesses (mobile and video) and a decreasing legacy business (display). Thus far, the new business lines were not big enough to compensate for the drop in our display business, but 2015 will be a different story."

Talking about how his companies plan to increase revenues from video and mobile, he added: "I think programmatic functionalities have accelerated the commoditization of digital ad inventory. It is now obvious the value lays in the targeting capacity and the product design. It terms of targeting French companies like Criteo, Ezakus have shaken the market and led the game."

Even luxury brands are trusting in programmatic

Luxury fashion house Burberry this week lifted the lid on a pan-European programmatic campaign as part of a partnership with Dentsu Aegis and Yahoo as well as European ad tech firm AdForm.

The campaign featured a range of exclusive formats that were traded through an entirely programmatic execution via Adform’s DSP and leverage Yahoo’s premium homepage environment combined with Amnet’s rich audience intelligence.

This initiative will further pave the way for brands like Burberry to become one of the first luxury brands to move towards a richer programmatic digital initiative.

 Nick Hugh, Yahoo, VP, audience network & programmatic platforms, EMEA, said: “Yahoo is keen to offer unique ad formats to our valued clients and brands seeking to expand their market share and reach new customers.

“Yahoo has long adopted programmatic selling as key to the future of digital media and this availability of rich media formats represents the next step in our evolution. All of our inventory, including our most premium formats, is now available programmatically offering brands the chance to run fully programmatic campaigns cross market.

Curtis Nishijima, Global VP, Commercial Development & Operations for Amnet, Dentsu Aegis stated: “At Dentsu-Aegis, our guiding principle is about “Reinventing the way brands are built.” Through Amnet, we continually re-engineer our approach to innovation within the programmatic space.  By leveraging Adform’s DSP capabilities to access exclusive Rich Media placements across premium publishers such as Yahoo, we are able to deliver on behalf of Burberry, a truly digital first client    This partnership demonstrates how we collaborate with best in class partners to transform global marketing initiatives and unlock the potential of delivering campaigns in a programmatic manner at scale”.

David Fulton, Chief Commercial Officer at Adform said: “We are delighted to be able to facilitate such an ambitious partnership between such accomplished brands, and hope that the pioneering nature of all of the involved parties will inspire others to follow suit in future, in order to further establish Programmatic Brand Advertising as the future of successful advertising”.

Mobile video marketplace makes Euro debut

Vdopia this week unveiled its mobile video marketplace Chocolate, a move it claims will bring previously unavailable scale and transparency to the space, as advertisers increasingly call for such inventory.

The inventory includes more than 10,000 mobile apps and websites and reaches over 200 million unique users. The company also claims Chocolate removes any ‘blind’ buying so advertisers can choose exactly what device, what operating system or in what location, ads are served, with audience verification also provided through measurement partner comScore (vCE) with Nielsen (mobile OCR) being added soon.

Farzad Jamal, Vdopia's European Vice President. “Chocolate capitalises on three key video ad trends – the shift of TV pounds to online, the rise of programmatic and the emergence of mobile native advertising. It unifies a fragmented mobile video market space and addresses key issues, such as the lack of quality mobile video inventory, standards and brand safety.”

He adds: "Chocolate has an artificial intelligence ability so that advertisers who bid for publisher inventory are only shown relevant inventory based on the success of previous campaigns. This optimises the whole process, saving advertisers time and money.”

The launch comes after ExchangeWire's latest programmatic survey of ad tech professionals in France (one of the largest programmatic markets) identified mobile and video inventory as two of the most in-demand ad formats in the coming 12 months.

PubMatic eyes Germanic push

US-based PubMatic this week announced the appointment of Florian Hanke to the newly-created role of director of advertising solutions, DACH, plus Jürgen Hernadi, formerly at Yahoo! Deutschland GmbH, joined as senior account manager DACH, after witnessing 250% growth in the region in the last 12 months.

Eric Hall, Pubmatic, country manager DACH, said: "Publishers and sales houses are increasingly shifting their digital advertising strategies to a programmatic model and relying on PubMatic to maximise their digital revenues. Over the past twelve months, we’ve focused on hiring the best talent to drive our growth, making several senior appointments to support publishers from our Munich office throughout the DACH region. These investments have led to significant growth for us in one of the leading markets in Europe.