Hi-Media and Weborama announced this morning that they are merging their business units in the UK. Mathieu will now head the new operation for the UK market. Here he discusses the particulars of the deal and whether or not it will lead to a bigger merger of the two companies down the line.

Can you give some overview of the deal on the joint venture with Hi-Media?

Sure, Weborama and Hi-Media have been working together for a few months in the UK, and they have decided to strengthen this relationship. Weborama and Hi-Media will combine their UK online advertising sales activities into a joint venture operating under the Hi-Media UK brand. This move will improve Hi-Media UK’s service offering and scale on the market. Weborama UK will still operate its Data and Technology business separately, but this deal will reinforce the business relationship between the two entities.

Is this a European deal - or just UK focused?

Hi-Media UK only operates in the UK, so the deal is limited to this market.

What was the motivation for doing this deal?

The UK is the biggest online advertising market in Europe, so size matters. This deal is firstly about size, about putting together a multi-million pound business, a great publisher portfolio and 20 people on the ground to service our clients. The UK is also very much about technology and data, which have been the focus of Weborama for over 12 years. Thanks to this partnership, Hi-Media UK will have access to Weborama’s rich media platform and services to offer more branding solutions to advertisers and agencies across its premium websites. Hi-Media will also integrate Weborama’s data and targeting technologies, to improve its performance offering, which will be key when we launch the Hi-Media Ad Exchange in the UK in the coming weeks. So this deal is about offering more solutions and a better level of service to UK agencies, and in return increasing revenues for the premium publishers that Hi-Media UK represents.

What value will this add to the current Weborama and Hi-Media clients in the UK?

Agencies and advertisers will have more ways to plan, deliver and optimise their online investments across a range of technology, data and media solutions. They will be able to access premium inventory for branding and performance campaigns, leveraging state-of-the-art data and technologies to optimise their budgets. And publishers will benefits from this partnership by having access to more expertise, more capabilities –and ultimately more revenues.

Will Weborama and Hi-Media look to merge the rest of their business in the near future?

No, this is not in the plans –Weborama and Hi-Media are developing separately and successfully in many countries across Europe and this partnership is and will remain limited to the UK.