ExchangeWire rounds up some of the biggest stories in the European digital advertising space. In this week’s edition: Equinix takes another step towards completion of Telecity acquisition; Mobile native mediation tool by PubNative; Sizmek opens Frankfurt data centre; WFA issues guidelines against ad fraud; Mediaocean acquires INVISION; Xaxis and Scoota collaboration; and Southeast Asia VP for Adform.

Equinix divests data centres in order to acquire telecity

In a bid to keep the European regulation authorities happy, Equinix has sold eight of its own data centres in order to acquire Telecity. The new owner of Equinix’s data centres is Digital Realty Trust.

The USD$3.8bn (£2.93bn) acquisition of Telecity had been only been greenlit by the European authorities on the condition of selling Equinix's European data centres assets. These are TelecityGroup's Bonnington House, Sovereign House, Meridian Gate, and Oliver's Yard data centers and Equinix's West Drayton data center in London; TelecityGroup's Science Park and Amstel Business Park I in Amsterdam; and TelecityGroup's Lyonerstrasse data center in Frankfurt.

The acquisition of Telecity’s 34 data centres more than doubles Equinix’s capacity in Europe and adds seven new markets, including Dublin, Helsinki, Istanbul, Manchester, Sofia, Stockholm, and Warsaw.

"Equinix's acquisition of TelecityGroup added critical network and cloud density to better serve our global customers. Completing this last milestone in the acquisition process paves the way for us to focus fully on helping our enterprise customers leverage our highly interconnected, global data centers for accelerated business performance and innovation", says Steve Smith, president and CEO, Equinix.

In addition to selling data centres to Digital Realty, Equinix is also keeping a foot in the Paris market by buying Digital Realty’s operating business in St Denis, Paris, as well as its real estate and data centre, for USD$211m (£163m). This acquisition is expected to be completed in Q3 2016.

New mobile native mediation tool by PubNative

PubNative has been online with their mobile SSP for native ads for a while. Now the Germans are launching a native mobile mediation tool, aimed at allowing publishers to manage ad placements across native sources.

According to PubNative, the solution provides unified access to native demand sources, including Facebook, and is built to work seamlessly with its mobile-specific user segmentation options. Thus, mobile publishers can customise ad-delivery by country, platform, and demographics, in addition to other targeting criteria based on app usage, engagement, and behaviour.

PubNative argues that the solution is “democratising this technology” in order lower the barriers for mobile publishers who require more relevant, bespoke advertising solutions – and sell all their inventory.

"PubNative is currently the only player in the native mobile display space offering such a granular and advanced segmentation", says Ionut Ciobotaru, managing director and co-founder, PubNative. "We're operating at the crossroads of monetisation and analytics, where publishers will earn the most revenue."

Sizmek opens new global data centre in Frankfurt 

Sizmek have announced the launch of their new global data centre in Frankfurt, Germany, to support their next-generation ad serving and campaign management platform, MDX NXT, and enhance Sizmek’s capabilities to comply with coming changes in the European data collection and processing laws.

With the EU GDPR continuing to apply to the UK, despite its decision to exit, as well as the invalidation of the Safe Harbour Agreement, marketers and tech providers need to be on top of how they, and their partners, collect, protect, and process personal data. According to the release, Sizmek's new facility provides capabilities for compliance with the GDPR, as well as the more stringent data localisation preferences in Germany and France. The data centre will provide Sizmek's clients with real-time data processing and analytics – a market leading offering.

"As the second-largest global ad server and campaign management platform in the industry, we believe it was critically important to ensure that Sizmek meets and exceeds the new regulatory environment for data privacy and management", said Neil Nguyen, CEO at Sizmek. "The fact is, our entire industry needs a greater amount of transparency when it comes to this issue; and Sizmek is fully committed to its global advertising clients requirements for data security and compliance."

Anti-ad fraud guidelines by WFA

With the increase of ad fraud comes the need for guidelines for advertisers how to combat and reduce vulnerability to fraudulent ads. To that end, the World Federation of Advertisers has teamed up with the Advertising Fraud Council and issued a document which identifies clear actions to help brands battle ad fraud.

Divided into four key areas, the guidelines provide practical steps for advertisers in order to protect their ad budget.

On the most basic level, brands need to develop in-house expertise in order to make informed decisions on vendor selection, choice of cyber security partners, and how to demand and understand full transparency when it comes to analysing the websites which are used to promote their products or services.

Secondly, brands have to be clear about their own expectations from their partners, including appropriate metrics, and demanding open information sharing related to ad fraud prevention.

The WFA argues that advertisers should avoid run of exchange buys in favour of databases of safe sites, and choose in favour of digital safety rather than investment targets.

Lastly, existing contracts with agencies and vendor partners ought to be revised, taking the potential risks of ad fraud into account. The WFA recommends introducing penalties for misallocating spend to ad-fraud-related inventory, where prevention could have been reasonably achieved. Those elements of the ad tech chain that have benefited from fraudulent activity in the form of commissions and fees should be requested to return them to the advertiser.

“Advertisers are the sole victims of ad fraud and the WFA wants to equip them with the tools to minimise their exposure. There is much that advertisers can do to improve the situation in terms of setting new standards, contractual changes and increased transparency; but, ultimately, behaviour change is required across the industry”, said Stephan Loerke, CEO, WFA.

Mediaocean acquires cross-device, sell-side workflow solutions provider, INVISION

INVISION, a sell-side workflow solution for broadcasters and MVPDs (multichannel video programming distributors), serves the cable, broadcast, syndication, satellite, and MVPD markets through its suite of products including DealMaker, DealMaker Digital, and ProPost, that automate the end-to-end advertising sales workflow and provide advanced inventory management and stewardship tools.

INVISION marks the fourth acquisition by Mediaocean since Vista Equity Partners acquired it in August 2015. Since January, Mediaocean executed three acquisitions, including BCC AdSystems, the leading provider of media-buying workflow software in Australia and East Asia, ColSpace, a leading provider of media planning tools, and INVISION.

"As marketing transforms into multi-screen, IP-based cross-media, the futures, spot and real-time markets are converging”, said Bill Wise, CEO of Mediaocean. “It is crucial for us to provide integrated platforms that bring buyers and sellers closer together in a neutral and open way. We will accelerate automation and reduce inefficiencies. INVISION is a great business by itself, but integrated more tightly into the agency workflow, it’s a win-win for agencies and broadcasters.”

Xaxis collaborates with Scoota for UK industry-first programmatic rich media offering

Xaxis has selected creative technology company Scoota to roll-out an industry-first programmatic-rich media offering in the UK, combining Scoota’s tech solutions, creative ad formats, and Xaxis’ audience data capabilities. 

It will see Scoota and Xaxis work together to deliver highly targeted, impactful, rich-media campaigns programmatically for some of the biggest brands in the world. The collaboration is already in motion, with Jaguar having launched a successful campaign. 

Ed Fanning, director of product & technology at Xaxis, commented: “Our decision to work with Scoota as a rich-media partner rested on their programmatic-first approach to rich-media creativity. For the first time, our brand clients will be able to activate powerful audience-targeted rich media advertising programmatically and deliver at scale on Xaxis directly-sourced premium inventory.” 

Adform announces Southeast Asia VP

Adform is on a hiring spree. Following the appointments of Jay Stevens and Oliver Whitten as CRO and COO, respectively, of the Danish ad-tech provider, the company has now announced a new Southeast Asia VP. Joining the leadership team is Sukesh Singh, who will be based in Adform’s Singapore office.

In his new position, Singh will leverage his expertise gained in 17 years within the business, to spearhead Adform’s efforts to provide its advertising technology to agencies, trading desks, advertisers, and publishers throughout Southeast Asia.

Singh is the founder of Conduit Consulting, a strategic consulting firm that offers strategy, marketing, sales, and business development to digital brands across APAC. Prior to Conduit, he served as vice president APAC for Phunware and as regional sales director for BBC Worldwide.

“Mr. Singh’s appointment is a direct result of Adform’s commitment to expanding its global footprint by offering its independent and open buy-side and sell-side platform to agencies, advertisers and publishers in every market”, said Jay Stevens, chief revenue officer at Adform.

“I’m thrilled to be working with the Adform team to build a compelling and customisable offer for customers in the region”, adds Singh. “As the complexity of digital advertising increases, ad-tech providers need to work as partners with their clients; and that is precisely Adform’s approach. With a team of more than 700, Adform has shown a clear commitment to not only supporting clients, but driving support for the latest media.”