Yahoo announces partnership with Publicis Groupe on mobile advertising - Update

(RTTNews) - Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) said Wednesday that along with France-based communications company Publicis Groupe's VivaKi Nerve Center, it has launched innovative technology initiatives designed to help Publicis' clients tap the global opportunities in mobile advertising. The company noted that the initiatives also aim to drive greater efficiency in the way advertising is bought and sold online.

Publicis' new strategic initiative called VivaKi is designed to boost performance in the fast-growing digital advertising market. The company noted that VivaKi would spur growth at its units such as e-marketing company Digitas and media agency Zenith-Optimedia. The company intends to generate 25% of its sales from the Internet by 2010. Publicis, the world's fourth largest communications group, is the owner of advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi.

Yahoo! and Publicis' VivaKi intend to leverage Yahoo!'s mobile platform to enable the increasing number of brands that are going mobile to broaden their reach and more deeply engage mobile consumers with advertising solutions. The two companies will also work to integrate Publicis' current media buying systems with Yahoo!'s Right Media Exchange, and with AMP! from Yahoo! on its introduction.

Yahoo said that the mobile initiative would help brands tailor their messaging and make it possible for them to reach their target customers on both the PC and the mobile technology. Phonevalley, the mobile marketing agency of Publicis, will integrate Yahoo's mobile developer platform language, Blueprint, as a tool to help clients scale brand messages globally, speed their time to market, and remove barriers of scarce development resources and high costs.

Yahoo! intends to leverage its Smart Ads technology for the mobile platform to allow several versions of a given brand's message, while Publicis will utilize the system to develop correlating, personal microsites relevant to these "smart mobile ads".

Publicis will work to integrate its current media buying systems with Yahoo!'s Right Media Exchange, an open exchange platform featuring over 50,000 buyers and sellers, including advertisers, agencies, publishers and networks. The company noted that the integration will enable its clients to apply their deep insights to their Exchange buys in order to help their clients more effectively and efficiently reach specific demographics and purchasers online in a single campaign buy.

Yahoo! said that Publicis also intends to leverage the capabilities of Yahoo!'s forthcoming advertising management platform, AMP!. The company noted that AMP! is designed to simplify the process of buying and selling ads online and will rely on data about people's preferences that will be collected by Yahoo! at its own web site.

Sue Decker, President of Yahoo! Inc. said, "Our goal in working together with advertisers and agencies is to help them build brands, reach consumers and increase sales in new ways. Through this relationship, Yahoo! and Publicis will empower the next generation of innovative advertising solutions."

David Kenny, Managing Partner of Publicis Groupe VivaKi said, "This partnership with Yahoo! takes the biggest challenge facing marketers today - the need for hyper-personalization on a massive scale - and turns it into a scalable, direct opportunity for Publicis Groupe clients."

Publicis announced earlier on Wednesday the launch of VivaKi, a new strategic initiative aimed at significantly improving the performance of advertisers' marketing investments as well as boost the company's growth in the context of fast-growing digital markets. The company noted that VivaKi would take advantage of the combined scale of the autonomous operations of Digitas, Starcom MediaVest, Denuo and ZenithOptimedia to develop new services, tools and partnerships.

As part of its just-launched VivaKi Nerve Center, Publicis also announced the creation of a new technology platform that will deliver the largest "Open-Source Audience on Demand Network" in the digital advertising industry. The company said that the Audience on Demand Network would build upon tools provided by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating), Google Inc. (GOOG | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating), Yahoo! and AOL's Platform-A, to enable clients to connect with well-defined global audiences in a single campaign buy across the multiple networks. The company noted that to date, agencies and clients have had to work through a highly fragmented media environment of networks, exchanges and direct publisher relationships.

In January, Publicis and Google said they were working on new advertising technology, but provided very few details on their co-operation. The companies said that Google would exchange its technological know-how for Publicis' analytical and media planning expertise. Google also said it established a dedicated global account team for Publicis, the first of its kind with a global advertising group.

In Wednesday's regular trading session, YHOO is trading at $22.14, up $0.10 or 0.45% on a volume of 5.15 million shares. The stock has been trading in a range of $18.58-$34.08 in the past 52 weeks.

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