Consolidation or Decentralization?
Posted by Shanthi Sarkar on Mon, May 21, 2007 @ 09:16 AM
The internet is the perfect conduit for decentralizing control in ways that has not been possible before. The blogosphere gives the control to individuals to express and share their opinions and ideas with ease and has gained phenomenal popularity. The immensely popular social networking space gives the control to the individuals to express themselves and control who they connect to.
So wouldn’t it make sense for the online advertising space to also move towards decentralizing control by putting individual bloggers, content creators, publishers and advertisers in the driver’s seat?
If you look at the recent series of acquisitions, the exact opposite seems to be happening in the online advertising space. Last week Microsoft announced its plans to acquire aQuantive for $6 Billion and WPP announced its purchase of 24/7 Real Media for $649 Million. Last month Yahoo! announced it will pay $680 million to acquire the remaining 80% of Right Media and Google announced the acquisition of DoubleClick for $3.1 Billion.
Each of these acquisitions enable a single entity to own both the media properties that sell advertising space as well as the agencies that buy advertising space on behalf of their clients. These acquisitions place the control of the online advertising spend in the hands of the few, rather than in the hands of the large number of publishers and advertisers that create the content and products that enable the existence of the thriving online advertising marketplace.
Will the media plans proposed by Avenue A| Razorfish (interactive advertising agency owned by aQantive) soon start favoring Microsoft owned web properties? Likewise, will the many interactive agencies under the WPP umbrella (e.g. OgilvyInteractive, Beyond Interactive etc) stay neutral with respect to the media properties in the 24/7 Real Media advertising network?
Tameka Kee writes in the mediapost article about the Yahoo! acquisition of Right Media: “Some on the agency side, however, are waiting to see whether this partnership, like the GoogleClick deal, affects the ad exchange’s neutrality.”
In the same article, Jeff Ratner, North American digital director of MindShare Interactive is quoted as saying regarding the Right Media acquisition: “Now that they’re owned by one of the largest sellers of space on the Web, does that make Right Media less of a middleman? Will I find more of my inventory winding up on Yahoo as opposed to somewhere else?”
Looking for a truly independent Advertising Exchange who’s only goal is to give the control back to the publishers and advertisers who enable the existence of the online advertising space? Check out ADSDAQ!
-- Shanthi Sarkar
