Publishers expressing confidence in combined Microsoft/aQuantive entity…
“Microsoft is taking solid aim at a business that is arguably outside its core competence: Advertising. And it is deliberately facing off against a specialist, Google.”
Redmond, Wash., — Microsoft Corp. recently announced that it has added more than 20 new advertising clients to its portfolio since its acquisition of the internet advertising company aQuantive was completed six weeks ago.
“More than 20 publishers have switched from other ad serving providers or solutions to the “Atlas Publisher Suite,” since the company acquired aQuantive Inc., marking a major milestone for Microsoft’s newly formed Advertiser and Publisher Solutions (APS) Group.”
“The software maker also announced it has signed a new advertising-related deal with The Associated Press’ Online Video Network.”
Microsoft Corp. said that it has built a world-class video ad serving solution for the Associated Press Online Video Network (OVN) using MSN Video and Atlas AdManager.
“The company said that with its combination of Atlas ad serving technology with MSN Video platform enables AP media-member and customer Web sites to sell and deliver local video advertisements with local content to maximize revenue opportunities.”
Microsoft said SmartBrief, Reunion.com and Entrepreneur.com are among the sites that have signed on to use Web advertising management tools it acquired when it bought aQuantive.
In another sign of strong momentum for the business, the Redmond-based company also disclosed that three IAC properties including CollegeHumor, Vimeo and 23/6 have gone live on Atlas AdManager. IAC, one of the Web’s largest premium publishers, selected the Atlas Publisher Suite in July. Additional IAC properties are expected to begin integration before the end of the year.
“Atlas AdManager provides clients such as SmartBrief with exceptional flexibility in scheduling and targeting their ad campaigns, to help them more effectively reach their target audience segments. This helps publishers generate more revenue due to innovative ways to price and package inventory and enhanced inventory forecasting.”
The general in charge of part of Microsoft’s assault, Brian McAndrews, joined the company just last month and is still learning its way of doing things. But he does know the Internet ad business, having run aQuantive, the advertising company that Microsoft purchased for $6 billion earlier this year, adding the largest interactive advertising agency in America to its operations.
Karl Siebrecht, president of the Atlas business, said aQuantive’s display advertising technology was “suffering from a lack of visibility” before the Microsoft buyout.
Using technology from aQuantive’s Atlas division, Microsoft will be able to provide advertisers with a log of all the places on the Internet where people see ads before going to the advertisers’ Web sites. The data is based on individual computers’ electronic signatures, not individual people.
Atlas, which delivers online ads to Web sites, has been working on such a system for more than a year and is running pilot tests with it. DoubleClick introduced a similar technology in July.
“Atlas has given us exceptional ease of integration and various new monetization avenues, and that is why we put our trust in Atlas over other providers,” said Chris McNeilly, vice president of technology at SmartBrief. “In comparison to other solutions in the marketplace today, we feel the Atlas Publisher Suite is a better value, period.”
Siebrecht would not name any other new customers but said the wins are “a great proof point that this capability is very valuable relative to other options in the marketplace.” Siebrecht was referring to DoubleClick, a dominant online advertising company that is in the process of being acquired by Google Inc.
“We are extremely pleased with how quickly the market has embraced Atlas as part of Microsoft and the value provided by the Atlas Publisher Suite,” said Siebrecht. “Publishers are voting with their dollars. They are choosing Atlas because it can create quantifiable value, more control and increasingly effective ways for them to monetize their ad inventory.”
“Microsoft recognizes that in order to get TV dollars and traditional advertising dollars, you need this type of measurement to really show this value; otherwise the answer over and over again is: ‘buy more searches,’” said Young-Bean Song, a vice president of Atlas. “All the portals, including MSN, have a lot to gain from this.”
Separately, Microsoft said its online ad tools have been incorporated into the Web video service that The Associated Press sells to 1,800 newspapers, radio stations and TV affiliates around the country.
“Video advertising is growing in popularity, and the ability to attach local ads to local content is something that customers like the AP is seeing as a tremendous competitive advantage for their business,” said Siebrecht. “This solution for AP is a great example of several Microsoft teams coming together to deliver real value for a customer, and we are thrilled to have created this solution for one of the most dynamic news agencies on the planet.”
Powered by a “white-labeled” version of the MSN Video player and featuring exclusive AP content produced specifically for the Web, the AP OVN provides high-quality, in-depth reports from the world’s largest news-gathering agency, reaching 61 million unique visitors and serving more than 1,800 affiliates across the United States.
The hybrid ad serving platform will use Atlas AdManager to serve local video ads that will be sold directly by the OVN affiliates such as WCBD-TV in Charleston, S.C., and The Knoxville News Sentinel in Knoxville, Tenn., to drive deeper audience engagement in their sites and generate additional advertising revenue.
The AP, a not-for-profit cooperative, already uses Microsoft’s MSN video player to distribute video to its members’ Web sites and allows those local media outlets to add their own video. Currently, Microsoft places ads in front of both AP video and the local segments, and the AP, Microsoft and the member split the advertising revenue.
Under the new deal, the local news outlet will be able to use the Atlas ad management tools to sell advertising space against their own videos and keep all the ad revenue. National video ad inventory will be served by Microsoft adCenter and sold exclusively by the Microsoft advertising sales force.
The news outlet will pay the AP $750 to set up the new service and will be asked to meet certain Web traffic goals each month, said Jessica Hawk, director of the AP Online Video Network. The new service is being tested by a handful of media outlets now and will go live in early October.
Since announcing the deal to buy aQuantive, Microsoft has been expressing its online advertising ambitions more loudly. “We are hell-bent and determined to allocate the talent, the resources, the money, the innovation, to absolutely become a powerhouse in the ad business,” said Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, at the company’s financial analyst meeting in July.
Both aQuantive and DoubleClick have built pipelines that send ads to Web sites each time someone logs on. The companies serve as middlemen between advertisers and Web site owners, exporting banner ads, videos and text ads to land on the right Web sites at the right times.