The launch of the AdAudience last month was the first of its kind anywhere in Europe: a collaborative effort by some of the EU's biggest sales houses (namely, G+J Electronic Media Sales, IP Germany, SevenOne Media and Tomorrow Focus) to leverage their own data and ad inventory in order to build out a premium audience-buying proposition for agencies and advertisers.

As it looks to bring its offering to market, ExchangeWire took the opportunity to speak this week to Frank Herold, the new Managing Director of AdAudience. Here Herold talks about the new audience-buying product in more detail, the motivation behind the AdAudience partnership, the threat of sales cannibalisation and how this model might be replicated in other European markets.

Can you tell me how the new AdAudience platform will work?

FH: AdAudience is an initiative by four of the biggest sales houses in the German market. Our objective is to deliver a premium audience solution for German agencies and advertisers. AdAudience will be selling premium audience segments across the properties of participating publishers. Wunderloop is our technology partner, and it will provide the platform for the new proposition. There are two key things to highlight here: one, Ad Audience is selling targeted audiences across premium sites; and two, it will give agencies and advertisers a relevant audience reach.

Will AdAudience run alongside existing online sales operations in the four member publishers? Are there concerns that AdAudience might conflict with member publishers’ existing online sales operations?

FH: There will be no sales cannibalisation. The individual sales teams for the partner publishers will continue to sell site-specific and contextual display advertising - while the new AdAudience team will sell a premium audience buy. There is clear lineage between the two, and I expect both sales channels to complement each other. Any unsold ad inventory will be passed back to individual publishers – and most will have a remnant sales strategy for any remaining unsold ad space.

This is the first publisher exchange of its kind in Europe. Do you think publishers in other European markets might look to work together in the same way?

FH: There is no reason why this couldn’t be replicated across other European countries. Audience buying is becoming a major part of the display advertising buy. Publishers need to realise the value of their data, and look for ways to more for their ad inventory. Working together not only provides scale but also presents a powerful media buying propositions to German agencies and brands.

What was the motivation behind the AdAudience platform?

FH: AdAudience came about because of market demand, and repeated requests from German agencies for a premium audience-buying solution. They told us they were looking to move more of their display budget into audience buying, and our platform is looking to put their marketing message in front of the right people. We also realised that data was becoming more and more important to our business. The relationship with Wunderloop helps us unlock the value of our data, which is enabling us to deliver more value to advertisers.

Will other German publishers be allowed to join AdAudience?

FH: AdAudience is open to any premium publisher. And we will look to add more German publishers in the coming months.

Will you be selling premium ad inventory to agencies and advertisers? Or will it be exclusively remnant (or unsold) ad inventory?

FH: AdAudience is a premium audience-buying solution. We are selling audience segments across some of Germany’s top content sites. Any unsold ad inventory is returned to individual publishers where they will execute their own remnant strategy.