Fairfax, a leading publisher in the Australian media market, has announced a partnership with Adx to provide audience extension across video inventory to agency partners. The move is being seen a precursor to the emergence of fully-formed publisher trading desk in the region, as local publishers begin to leverage owned and operated sites and proprietary data.

Through Fairfax’s owned and operated drx audience platform, advertisers are now able to serve highly targeted instream video ads across DoubleClick Ad Exchange inventory, to Fairfax’s qualified audiences.

For example, knowing a consumer is male, aged 34-45 and interested in buying a car allows Fairfax to serve relevant motoring ads to that person when they watch video on a YouTube channel.

Ed Harrison, Fairfax Metro Media Commercial Director, comments: “Through our proprietary audience platform, Fairfax has a unique understanding of who our audiences are and where their interests lie. We are offering clients new ways in which to reach these audiences at scale through our sales teams.”

ZenithOptimedia in Sydney was the first to trial Fairfax’s audience extension product.

Emily McConnell, ZenithOptimedia Digital Account Director, adds: “DrinkWise wanted to maximise awareness and reach parents within Fairfax Media’s premium audience, so we decided to trial Fairfax’s new audience extension product as part of our overall buy. We saw an immediate uplift in performance. Compared to standard contextual placements, the product delivered a 75 per cent increase in click through rates for Drinkwise.”

Toby Ross, Fairfax Media Head of Strategic Alliances, concludes: “Since its launch in late 2010, drx has evolved from a premium direct response network to a sophisticated audience platform, providing marketers access to valuable consumers across multiple devices, using highly engaging ad products,”