Aol, Yahoo!, Microsoft May Be Partnering For Display; RTB Game Changer; Reviewing Walmart's Acquisition

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

Your Remnant Is My Remnant

All Things D’s Peter Kafka reports that a new view on how to monetize remnant inventory may be percolating as an unholy collection of not-Google publishers may be looking to merge an element of their display strategies. Kafka writes, “AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft hope to convince big Web properties to share some of their ad inventory as well, and to get big ad holding companies to funnel some of their purchases through the consortium.” Agency trading desks at work! Read it. In response, a Yahoo! spokesperson told AdExchanger.com, “Choice in the digital marketplace is critical. As the media world continues to fragment, the value that premium publishers deserve also fragments. We believe strongly in the premium content ecosystem and the importance of matching publishers, agencies and advertisers with premium formats. At Yahoo, we’re fortunate to have deep, longstanding relationships with brands, publishers and agencies, and are working on dynamic and innovative ways to put value where value is due. We also have longstanding relationships with AOL and Microsoft and will continue to partner and compete in the years to come.”

A Microsoft spokesperson said, “We believe that choice, openness and competition help drive innovation in the market. As such, we are always looking for ways to partner with others in the digital advertising ecosystem to offer innovative solutions that benefit advertisers and publishers. However we have nothing specific to share at this time.”

It’s official! No comment!… but something real is definitely afoot. And, ClickZ’s Zach Rodgers says that he’s confirmed a deal, “Under the arrangement, which was formalized in the last week, each company’s sales force will have the ability to dip into its rivals’ unsold inventory – selling ads on each other’s sites.” Rodgers says AppNexus may be the platform to provide the ad serving. Read more. What happens if all of these big pubs – plus a few more – are running on AppNexus? Does AppNexus get acquired by a consortium of companies looking to secure a competitor to the Google juggernaut? Or does AppNexus go public in spite of the stormy public market seas? Oh, the intrigue!

The RTB Game

UK’s Marketing Week explores “Why RTB Is A Game Changer” and the UK real-time biddable market momentum in a feature article. MW’s Nicola Smith writes, “The space is still young and advertisers are still learning. [Daphne Sacco, director of internet marketing at eBay International] says eBay has learnt the importance of detailed evaluation. ‘Bidding at an impression level, you are paying a different price for each impression, so you really need to review the data and your results at a granular level to see what works.'” Read it.

About That Acquisition

Editors of alarm:clock question the acquisition of OneRiot by Walmart on Tuesday: “What doesn’t add up is that these companies don’t seem to help in the business of eCommerce and competing with Amazon.com. We understand if Walmart.com went out and bought small startups to buy talent but Kosmix and OneRiot are well-funded companies that cost a lot to buy but don’t seem to add anything to Walmart.com’s core strategy.” Read a bit more. Over on GigaOm, Matthew Ingram is a believer in the acquisition and takes a different tack and says the acquisition is about “making sense of all the data coming in from users on social networks and their sharing activity.” Read it.

The Two Sellers

On his Upstream Group blog, Doug Weaver breaks down the predicament of the digital seller. It’s not just about selling placements anymore as Facebook may have inadvertently helped create two distinct types of digital sellers… the Audience Seller and The Experience Seller… Read what he means. An interesting take on how selling in digital has become complex enough to merit new roles – yet again!

Donnez-Moi Ad Networks

Ari Paparo returns to his digital quill and encourages the ad network ecosystem to go forth and multiply in an opinion piece on Ad Age. The AppNexus product chief frames his thesis as follows: “Over the past month I’ve had conversations with three entrepreneurs leading successful start-ups outside of advertising, all of whom were contemplating an entree into the display ad space. (…) Voila! An ad network is born!” Read more.

Marketer As Media

The Wall Street Journal profiles Kmart, among others, which is creating a 6-episode series for Web viewing only. The series centers around teen girls at a high school and all of them wear Kmart clothes. Read more. Looking at the branded entertainment strategy from a data-driven perspective, now the marketer can own the publisher data, too, and further enhance its consumer insights.

Privacy