Late last year, we asked a handful of senior execs at platform companies to answer the question, “What will happen next year in marketing and advertising that hasn’t happened before?” This year we invited some of those same contributors to evaluate their earlier forecasts and update them for 2014. The below is from Mark Grether, chief […]
WPP Group’s 24/7 Media – which will soon be absorbed into Xaxis – has acquired 12-year-old semantic ad-tech company Crystal Semantics and its 15 employees from previous owner Ad Pepper Media. London-based Crystal’s technology can be applied a few ways, said Rob Schneider, 24/7 Media’s SVP of corporate strategy and platform development. First, it offers straightforward […]
In 2007, that WPP Group made big waves with its acquisition of display media technology firm 24/7 Media, worth $649 million. By bringing a publisher-facing ad server and network in-house, the holding company had staked out a tech ownership strategy that continues today. Today that premise lives on at WPP, but the 24/7 Media brand does […]
A panel covering RTB and “viewability” played to a packed room atop the Gansevoort Park Hotel in New York last night. What commenced was a (congenially heated, at times) meeting of the minds between James Green, CEO of Magnetic; Anne Hunter, SVP of global marketing strategy at comScore; Brian Gleason, managing director, North America, Xaxis; […]
Is big data “too big” a challenge for marketers? This was a question posed to panelists today at the Financial Times’ Future of Marketing Summit, where a crowd of brand advertisers, agency execs and marketing and ad-tech vendors converged at The Metropolitan Club in New York to talk industry trends. “There’s never too much data […]
Accuen, Omnicom Media Group’s trading desk, is officially opening trading desk operations across 20 markets in Latin America, giving the programmatic unit coverage in 60 countries. Much of the focus on the nations that comprise Central and South America has tended to revolve around the rise in consumer spending by Hispanics in the US and […]
Last week in Cannes, global leaders from the five biggest holding company trading desks convened for a panel discussion hosted by the Rubicon Project. The event took place on a rooftop against the backdrop of the Mediterranean Sea, while on the sidewalk below creatives scurried between beach parties and celeb-packed sessions at the Palais des […]
WPP Group’s trading desk Xaxis is known for its proprietary approach to technology. The GroupM unit has incubated numerous ad platforms, a legacy of WPP’s 2007 acquisition of 24/7 Media. It offers these products to clients as an alternative to licensing from vendors. By contrast, trading desk rivals VivaKi AOD (Publicis), Cadreon (IPG), and Accuen (Omnicom) are […]
WPP Group has shared some new details on revenue performance and strategy for its Xaxis trading unit. Xaxis grew its revenue by 28% during the first quarter, said Pivotal Research Analyst Brian Wieser in a research note. WPP had previously stated the business had 2012 media billings of $270 million and a headcount of 200. […]
Some companies claiming to be “mobile demand-side platforms” are veiled mobile ad networks, or at least they’re mobile ad network-like. Which is to say they may be taking margin without disclosing price paid to the client. Others may be more transparent, buying on a per-impression basis and charging licensing fees as a standard DSP would […]
Although the major internet ad players – e.g., Pandora, Spotify, Last.fm – all swear by their direct sales, Xaxis, WPP’s audience buying unit, is looking to leverage audio ads as a way to get more brand campaign ad dollars within its programmatic system. “The appeal [of internet radio audio ads] is that we want to […]
As a WPP Group agency, MediaCom works closely with the holding company’s Xaxis trading desk to execute data-driven media strategies. In such relationships between agencies and trading desks, it can be hard for a client to know where the desk stops and the operating agency begins. That creates a tricky problem, since first party data […]
Programmatic media arrived in force this year, and brought with it a few surprises. (Facebook Exchange anyone?) To get a sense of what might be waiting in 2013, we’ve reached out to a number of industry all-stars to answer a single question: “What will happen next year in marketing and advertising that hasn’t happened before?” […]
Top dogs from the four dominant agency trading desks took the stage at the BB King Blues Club this morning. They hit on a bunch of topics new and old, including “education” fatigue, incursions made by DSPs, and making audience trading part of the “fabric” of all agencies. We’ll present this one lick-by-lick in honor […]
Agency trading desks are understandably eager to ramp up with the Facebook Exchange, which promises to broaden the reach and frequency of their programmatic buying efforts. But right after the FBX launch they weren’t equally able to use it — which has led to some hand wringing. WPP’s Xaxis had a direct seat, while Publicis’s Vivaki […]
Facebook today removes the “beta” label from its fledgling real-time-bidding ad exchange (official blog post), and has given its 15 platform partners permission to crow about their early results. And crow they have… Here are two big takeaways from the wave of FBX data coming out this morning: (1) Facebook Exchange dramatically increases the amount […]
Facebook’s nascent real-time bidding marketplace is steadily ramping up. The Facebook Exchange continues to add new RTB partners and may be close to publishing a list of approved Facebook Exchange vendors to its Preferred Marketing Developers directory. The list of approved Exchange RTB partners now includes 14 firms, up from 9 in late June – […]
GroupM has promoted North America CEO Rob Norman to run its digital kit and kaboodle on a global level. Among his objectives is closer management of dealings between GroupM’s thousands of digital specialists and the spangled array of ad technology partners. The WPP-owned media agency network has never had a Chief Digital Officer before. Speaking […]
As AKQA’s media team stares into the maw of WPP and its Xaxis audience buying unit, what does it see there? Scott Symonds, Managing Director of AKQA Media, is certainly aware of Xaxis’s reputation as the most controlling of the holding company trading desks – an entity that has been known to force its solution […]
Brian Lesser is CEO of Xaxis, a digital partner of GroupM agencies, and WPP Group company. To learn more, visit the new company website here. Lesser, previously GM of WPP’s Media Innovation Group, discussed Xaxis and its implications. AdExchanger.com: What is Xaxis? And how will it differentiate itself within the marketplace? BL: Xaxis is a […]
