At a time when the ad industry is increasingly embracing online
marketplaces, start-up Media Market Makers on Tuesday will unveil plans for
a new business-to-business site for the buying, selling, and planning of
online advertising.
The site is expected to launch in the second quarter, but the McCann-Erickson Worldgroup has already
jumped in with its support, saying it will offer the services to clients of
its member agencies.
Arie Ruttenberg, founder and former chief executive officer of the
McCann-Kesher-Berrel advertising agency (an investor in the new firm) is
taking the job of Media Market Makers chairman. Dennis Wong, formerly
managing director of the McCann-Erickson Venture Group, will run day-to-day
operations at the new company as president and chief operating officer.
“We’re trying to revolutionize this market, offering an advanced e-business
approach which provides a real alternative to existing online ad networks like
DoubleClick (DCLK)
, FlyCast (FCST)
and 24/7 (TFSM),
” said Dennis Wong, Media Market Makers president.
The ranks of sites offering the buying and selling of online advertising
has swelled in recent weeks, with the launch of Media Post’s immediabuy.com
and the re-launch of AdFlight.com. AdAuction.com and AdOutlet.com have been
running marketplaces for media buying and selling for more than a year.
On the planned Media Market Makers site, advertisers will be able to
specify what they’re looking for in terms of demographics and other
audience characteristics, and say what they’re willing to pay. They then
choose from the Web sites the filtering technology presents them and
“offer” these sites the opportunity to participate in the campaign. The
publishers who want to run the ads then select creative (which the
advertiser has posted on the Media Market Makers site) that they think
would be most effective on their sites.
The advertiser and publisher will also be able to negotiate on terms like
compensation, campaign timing, or creative.
“Media Market Makers gives advertisers a new level of control,” said Ira
Carlin, chairman of Universal McCann, the worldwide media operation of
McCann-Erickson Worldgroup.
“It makes it easy for them to evaluate hundreds of sites, place ads, then
carefully monitor the results.”
There won’t be any fees to participate, but Media Market Makers will take a
cut from every transaction that occurs on the site.
Initial investors in Media Market Makers include Odeon Capital Partners, IPEX, and
McCann-Kesher-Berrel, Israel’s largest advertising agency.
