AD AGENCIES PARTNER ON WEB EXCHANGE
The world’s three largest advertising and marketing agencies — London’s WPP Group and New York City-based Interpublic Group of Companies and Omnicom — last week announced a plan to jointly construct an online advertising exchange.
Expected to launch over the next few months, the exchange is designed to connect buyers and sellers of Web marketing materials and offer research and data marketers can use to make knowledge-based media buys. The three ad giants will invite other agencies to join the exchange.
“Technology presents a great opportunity to create a platform from which the billions of dollars now spent on media every week can be transacted much more effectively and cost efficiently. We expect that the platform will both improve service and cost-efficiency to our clients and simultaneously benefit media sellers,” the companies said in a statement.
Michael Lotito, chief operating officer of Interpublic’s Initiative Media arm, will serve as ceo. The new company will be based in New York City.
