Orange is planning to leverage its position as one of the largest advertising sites in Europe, by signing a deal with OpenX, an open source advertising server software company, to build a European wide interactive advertising auction. Orange has also just agreed to offer interactivity to some of the adverts on the French TF1 channels when carried on Orange TV.
The two will set up a marketplace, not unlike Google Adsense, but with some important differences. In Adsense the customer has no say in the rates that adverts are placed at, whereas in the Orange network publishers can set minimums and keep their advertising price per impression consistent with what their brand is already making on advertising. Publishers can also continue to sell their own adverts and simply allow any remnants to be sold by auction.
OpenX is like an open source version of Doubleclick’s DART, the software acquired by Google which pioneered ad serving globally during the dotcom years.
Orange says that Orange Ad Market will be the first marketplace launched by a leading European advertising player, creating the first European exchange ecosystem, which will be open to all buyers and sellers of online display advertising. The deal is exclusive, so OpenX can’t partner for a similar marketplace elsewhere in Europe and it should eventually be European wide, but start in the second quarter of 2010 in the UK and France. Orange says that it already reaches 343 million users through its Orange Ad Network and OpenX servers already service 250 million unique users a month.
Luc Tran Thang, Vice President of Orange Advertising, said: ‘The Western European online advertising market was worth an estimated €10.7 billion in 2008 and will grow to €12.4 billion in 2011. But it is a complex and cumbersome market to navigate.’
Orange Ad Market will enable publishers to enter a real time auction against a minimum ‘floor price’ set by publishers, who will also be able to veto any adverts they don’t like (such as those from direct rivals).
The system will come with all of its tools in local language, pricing and billing in local currencies and all technical and customer support is provided by local teams.
Meanwhile TF1 and Orange have just signed a partnership agreement to make TF1 advertising campaigns interactive on Orange TV. This firms up cooperation which began last autumn and a trial will be launched by the two partners at the beginning of May 2010.
TF1 viewers on Orange TV will see that the ad is interactive by way of a superimposed banner. By clicking on the Orange remote control, viewers will be able to access an interactive advertiser mini-site, showing product presentations, photos, demonstration videos, interviews, etc.
It shows the ambition of the French Group that it is prepared to rub shoulders with the Google’s of this world and go up against conventional broadcast media advertising leaders such as News Corp and its subsidiaries, but we reckon that publishers will flock to this idea.