Brian O’Kelley wrote an interesting piece for Clickz this week on why ad nets are an essential part of the online ad eco-system. He argues that ad networks are entitled to earn good margin on ROI delivered to agencies and advertisers, highlighting proprietary technology, performance delivery and quality service as grounds for excelling ad nets to charge top dollar. He’s right, you know. But the comments below O’Kelly’s article indicate some of the concerns among agencies and advertisers – with regard to ad network inventory and pricing transparency. All is not well in ad land – and tensions are beginning to appear in the traditional buying chain.
Google’s partnership with Omnicom to build out the agency’s trading desk with the view of putting hundreds of millions of display dollars through automated channels (Google’s mostly) could well be a transformational moment for the display market. I could be accused of a certain degree of hyperbole here, but you have to look at the size of this deal and take note of the other significant relationships Google has already established with the biggest media buying agencies. It is slowly bringing the dsplay market under its control. You also need to recognise the significance of how details of the story were released: instead of giving the “scoop” to a trade press journo, it was given to Emily Steel at the WSJ. Google is serious about display, and bringing order to a ridiculously chaotic and opaque market. And it wants Wall Street to know this. Google maybe chasing profit, but in doing so it is pushing innovation in this space. This might be unpalatable for some in our industry who fear change, and would rather keep this innovation at bay. But change is upon us and we, as an industry, must act now.
If there was a honeymoon period for the Google acquisition of Invite, it is well and truly over – a mere two weeks in total. In a post yesterday, on his ReactionWheel blog, Jerry Neumann, discussed some of the industry’s concerns around the deal. He begins his post by informing us that Google wants to own the display market. That’s a given. Google’s a public company with ambitious growth targets. It has unbelievable resource, which no company in this space comes even close to. Display is a mess, and Google sees opportunity in chaos.
It’s been a busy weekend of news and speculation. The rumour mill is in overdrive among the New York advertising digerati. Peter Kafka has heard from “sources” that Google is about to buy Invite Media – and the number being thrown around is reported to be between sixty and one hundred million dollars. Here’s why I think this deal will not happen? Most agencies are using DFA. Would it not make sense to integrate RTB into DFA and make it easier to buy from other inventory sources? Wouldn’t a souped-up DFA with “DSP” capabilities be cheaper to develop? I suspect that Google are already thinking about this – and we likely to see it very soon. As for these rumours, I have heard similar chit-chat earlier this year of DSP-related deals. M&A speculation is built into the DNA of this industry. I’ll stick my neck out here, and make a bold prediction. Google will likely build out its own DSP capabilities. Invite will likely be bought by one of the big holding agencies that it already has a strong relationship with. But we’ll see if I’m wrong soon enough. The other thing to consider here is whether big holding agencies will want to cede anymore control to Google. How relevant can they remain to advertisers if this happens? In that eventuality I can see most of the holding companies looking to buy a “DSP”.
Martin Kelly is Managing Partner at Infectious Media, an exchange-trading specialist based in London. Martin took time this week to speak to ExchangeWire about the company’s rebrand, the evolution of the UK exchange space and the continued growth of the data market.
You’ve recently went through a rebranding and a repositioning of the Infectious offering. Can you explain the Infectious Media proposition in more detail?
MK: Yes, it’s simple, we make display advertising work for our clients. Clearly there’s a lot more to our business in terms of how we do that but that is our proposition and how we sell our services. We operate exclusively in the ad exchange space and offer these services to both advertisers direct and to agencies. We’ve purpose built both a team and trading platform, Impression Desk, to service this opportunity in the UK and Europe.
Marco Bertozzi is the Managing Director, EMEA, VivaKi Nerve Center. Vivaki is a strategic unit within Publicis Groupe that helps agencies leverage the scale of the group’s media and digital operations to improve campaign performance for its clients. Marco took time this week to speak to ExchangeWire about the Vivaki operation in more detail, the industry’s move to automated audience-buying, and the evolution of the agency model.
There’s much confusion about what Vivaki does? Is it buying platform? Is it a crack exchange trading unit? Can you explain the Vivaki proposition in more detail?
MB: Vivaki is the strategic entity created by Publicis Groupe to leverage the combined scale of its media and digital operations, which represent nearly $60 billion dollars in global ad spend and influence. VivaKi aggregates the marketplace influence of five autonomous brands, including: two global media agencies, Starcom MediaVest Group and ZenithOptimedia; two leading digital marketing agencies, Digitas and Razorfish; and a premiere futures practice, Denuo.
Michel Juvillier is CEO of Improve Digital, France. The platform is now the biggest supply side platform in the market: it works with 15 of the top 20 Comscore publishers; and is now optimizing two billion ad impressions per month.
Can you give an overview of the size of the French exchange marketplace? And the role Improve Digital plays in the market?
MJ: At this moment there is no ad exchange or demand platform in France with significant volumes. Some global players have not yet started in France or if they did, are at a beginning stage. There have been some announcements by the likes of the Doubleclick Adx and Weborama – which declared, during an IAB conference in January, its intention to become an ad exchange – but I have not seen any real traction in the market.
» There was an excellent article yesterday on Imedia about the necessity of the DSP within the current exchange eco-system. Written by Eric Prichard, advertising technology advisor at Microsoft, it explores the pivotal role DSPs will play in buying inventory in real-time for agencies and advertisers. The blog post also covers some high level subjects including the idea of low density bids and asymmetric bidding in second place auction and how this might result in low CPM prices paid for impressions. To counter this, Prichard believes that dynamic floors will be introduced on RTB inventory whereby platforms will price ad impressions accordingly based on historical trends (how much much buyers paid for inventory in past auctions?) and past performance. It would seem likely that if publishers are to open up inventory through RTB they are going to have to work closer with the SSPs and Google. Publishers will probably not have the resource or the financial muscle to build out their own platforms. Great piece for the more progressive thinkers among you. [Imedia]
Mendel Senf is CEO of Yieldivision, an exchange trading specialist based in Amsterdam. Yieldivision operates in the Dutch and German markets and is now looking at offering its exchange-buying expertise to advertisers throughout Europe.
Can you give an overview of the service Yieldivision offers advertisers and agencies?
MS: We are a new breed of agency with a technology which allows us to buy inventory across multiple sources (exchanges, adnetworks, direct pubs and ssp’s). Our technology enables us to base our media buying strategy on enriching the impression with data. This data is provided by our direct relations with data partners – direct and third party. We see technology as differentiating between the current market for traditional media agencies and ad networks. We are a media agency but our technology resembles that of a DSP. Our clients are Direct Advertisers in various industries like Travel, Finance, Telco. Also we are a strategic supplier for media consultants and creative agencies.
Today’s guest post is wirtten by Paul Silver (@thepaulsilver)
Late last year I did a piece for ExchangeWire about some of the exciting changes happening in display advertising. Given the number of blog posts and op-ed pieces that have since been published on the subject, I am sure everyone is now tired of hearing the “exciting times ahead” mantra. Let’s take a reality check and see what’s actually happening NOW in the space:
Brian O’Kelley wrote an interesting piece for Clickz this week on why ad nets are an essential part of the online ad eco-system. He argues that ad networks are entitled to earn good margin on ROI delivered to agencies and advertisers, highlighting proprietary technology, performance delivery and quality service as grounds for excelling ad nets to charge top dollar. He’s right, you know. But the comments below O’Kelly’s article indicate some of the concerns among agencies and advertisers – with regard to ad network inventory and pricing transparency. All is not well in ad land – and tensions are beginning to appear in the traditional buying chain.
Google’s partnership with Omnicom to build out the agency’s trading desk with the view of putting hundreds of millions of display dollars through automated channels (Google’s mostly) could well be a transformational moment for the display market. I could be accused of a certain degree of hyperbole here, but you have to look at the size of this deal and take note of the other significant relationships Google has already established with the biggest media buying agencies. It is slowly bringing the dsplay market under its control. You also need to recognise the significance of how 
If there was a honeymoon period for 
It’s been a busy weekend of news and speculation. The rumour mill is in overdrive among the New York advertising digerati. 
Martin Kelly is Managing Partner at 
Marco Bertozzi is the Managing Director, EMEA, 
Michel Juvillier is CEO of 
» There was an excellent article yesterday on Imedia about the necessity of the DSP within the current exchange eco-system. Written by Eric Prichard, advertising technology advisor at Microsoft, it explores the pivotal role DSPs will play in buying inventory in real-time for agencies and advertisers. The blog post also covers some high level subjects including the idea of low density bids and asymmetric bidding in second place auction and how this might result in low CPM prices paid for impressions. To counter this, Prichard believes that dynamic floors will be introduced on RTB inventory whereby platforms will price ad impressions accordingly based on historical trends (how much much buyers paid for inventory in past auctions?) and past performance. It would seem likely that if publishers are to open up inventory through RTB they are going to have to work closer with the SSPs and Google. Publishers will probably not have the resource or the financial muscle to build out their own platforms. Great piece for the more progressive thinkers among you. [
Mendel Senf is CEO of 
Today’s guest post is wirtten by Paul Silver (
