Audience Square Set To Launch French Private Exchange In September, Offering 44 premium Site and 20 million uniques to RTB mix

As reported by ExchangeWire several weeks ago, a number of top-tier premium French publishers are looking to roll out a publisher exchange. Le Collective was initially made up of the country's top 20 publishers. It has since split into two groups, Le Collective and Audience Square. The latter (made up of Liberation, Le Monde, Les Echos, Nouvel Observateur, L’Express, Le Point, M6) has now gone public and announced its publisher exchange will go live in September, with over 44 porperties and over 20 million uniques. It has been reported in the French press that this new exchange will be powered by The Rubicon Project. It is likely that more publisher exchanges will appear across Europe this year, as publishers seek to capture more dynamic spend and offer data-enriched dynamic inventory to buyers.

VivaKi Nerve Center Elevates Kurt Unkel to President & Marco Bertozzi to Executive Managing Director of EMEA

VivaKi announced this week that Kurt Unkel has been named President of the VivaKi Nerve Center, a research and development center, dedicated to creating new technologies and approaches that connect VivaKi’s brands’ clients with their audiences.

Unkel assumes responsibilities from Curt Hecht, who moves to a new role at The Weather Channel. Unkel will report into Frank Voris, global chief financial officer for VivaKi. Rishad Tobaccowala, chief strategy and innovation officer of VivaKi, will serve as advisor to Unkel and the Nerve Center leadership.

Prior to assuming the role of president, Unkel had been EVP/general manager of Audience on Demand™ (AOD) - one of the Nerve Center’s fastest growing practices and largest revenue-drivers. Today the practice services 350+ clients and manages over 15,000 daily campaigns across display, search, video, mobile and social.

Unkel has been a member of Publicis Groupe for more than a decade and among the Nerve Center’s first employees. Prior to joining the Nerve Center, Unkel created and led digital strategy, investment, analytics and ad operations teams across Publicis Groupe, with a special focus on General Motors (GM). Unkel resides in Detroit and will be based there.

Jack Klues, VivaKi CEO, comments: “Kurt Unkel is just the right person to drive our vision forward. Kurt has shown great leadership in building and developing AOD from one of the first agency-led ad trading platforms, with two clients and three employees, to a world-class practice that has been replicated in markets all over the world, and leads the competition.”

Maurice Lévy, Publicis Groupe Chairman and CEO, adds: “The Nerve Center is comprised of some of the sharpest minds in digital ad tech. With Kurt at the helm, we look forward to more aggressively pursuing new opportunities in arenas such as data, mobile, social and technology.”

Marco Bertozzi has also been elevated to Executive Managing Director of Nerve Center EMEA, focusing on continued expansion of the Nerve Center throughout the region. Bertozzi will be speaking at the upcoming ATS Stockholm event on May 24.

The Nerve Center was formed in 2008 to provide tools, technology and offerings that give VivaKi agencies and their clients an edge when it comes to digital media and marketing solutions. The Nerve Center currently employees more than 250 employees worldwide, with a presence in Australia, China, France, Germany, India, the Netherlands, Spain, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the United States.

nugg.ad Expands Data Management Platform to Address Data Protection

European targeting platform, nugg.ad, is expanding its data management platform to enable channelling of external data for the online ad market, offering a solution for challenges encountered with data protection in connection with real data, with the aim towards maximum reach. nugg.ad’s platform has a EuroPriSe privacy seal certification, conforming to privacy laws above the legal requirements.

Uli Heimann, nugg.ad Director Data Solutions, comments: “We have a Europe-wide network of data partners. They have deep insight into consumers, for example purchasing behavioural patterns, and guarantee absolute accuracy. Using data in conjunction with our prediction technology we also get around coverage problems often encountered in the use of real data; we offer the ad market much greater efficiency and scalability.”

Different data providers deliver real data from seven European markets in various sectors, including automotive, telecoms, finance, travel and consumer electronics. Leading portals in Germany partner with nugg.ad, as do further companies in the UK, France, Denmark, Italy, Poland and Romania.

nugg.ad’s data solutions enable publishers and portal operators to make their data available - in line with privacy laws - to the advertising market to drive profit. The data provider specifies what kind and scope of data is sent to the potential customers. All data is anonymised and cannot be traced back to any individual.

AdAudience Teams up with AudienceScience

AudienceScience announced this week that from now on AdAudience will use the AudienceScience Gateway platform in an effort to provide more effective targeting.

AudienceScience is a digital marketing technology company enabling access to audiences through the AudienceScience Gateway, which is a proprietary audience delivery platform. AudienceScience drives digital marketing for advertisers, agencies, publishers and technology partners.

AdAudience was established in 2010 as a joint venture between the ad marketing companies G+J Electronic Media Sales (EMS), IP Germany, SevenOne Media and TOMORROW FOCUS. All four partners market parts of their inventory through AdAudience, giving AdAudience a reach of approximately 80 per cent among all of Germany’s Internet users.

Stefan Krötz, CEO of AdAudience, comments: “Our goal is to expand AdAudience’s offer whilst also advancing the quality of targeting. We will offer stand-alone solutions built on the AudienceScience technology platform, under the AdAudience brand.”

Frederike Voss, AudienceScience’s Director Account Management Europe, adds: “The fact that AdAudience has chosen AudienceScience as its preferred partner is a reflection of the globally-led targeting standard being firmly established in the German market. As we join forces with AdAudience, we have the clear goal of helping advertisers increase the efficiency of their marketing spend by further optimising media planning in Germany. We are very excited to be working with AdAudience.”