Dentsu Aegis has secured the exclusive rights for The Huffington Post's inventory for an undisclosed period of time.
The deal gives Dentsu Aegis clients the first, and only, access to advertising across the site, which launched in Australia 10 days ago. This means no other agency will be able to access the inventory for the local arm of the US-founded site.
Brands currently advertising on the site include: Freedom Furniture, Microsoft, Citibank, UBET, Pernod Ricard and Defence Force.
Paul Brooks, managing director of Amplifi, group investment and partnerships for the Dentsu Aegis Network, told AdNews that deal represents a great deal for the network's clients.
“The Huffington Post represents a great opportunity for our clients at Dentsu Aegis Network. It is a further proof point around our philosophy in creating unique offerings for our clients by creation of partnerships such as this with the HuffPo Australia,” he said.
Fairfax is still selling native advertising for the site, which is open to everyone.
The site in Australia is a joint venture with Fairfax Media, with ad sales and all commercial dealings for HuffPo Australia in this market being handled by Fairfax's sales team.
Speaking about the deal at the IAB Leadership Summit this week, Dave Osborn, vice president, Asia-Pacific for AppNexus said: "This forward position by group represents a clear execution of a strategy around publisher partnership, around generating exclusive benefits for the group and from a technology perspective. I think it creates phenomenal opportunities to give people around the world a view at what the future allocation in inventory inside an agency looks like."
The isn't the first time that an agency has gained exclusive access to inventory, with GroupM inking a deal that saw it become the exclusive partner of the Google Preferred program for 2015.
This deal follows the launch of Fairfax and Nine's mobile programmatic offering APEX, as well as The Guardian's Pangaea Alliance, which both aim to provide advertisers seamless access to the publishers' premium inventories as well as offering a brand-safe environment.
When asked about the rationalel behind publishers setting up such alliances with one another, Duncan Arthur, commercial director for Guardian Australia told AdNews previously that it's about future-proofing their businesses and that sometimes it's better to work together, rather than against each other.
“I suppose they all suffer from a similar paranoia, about what the big guys could do to their business, the really big guys, like what can a Google do?” he said.
“It's really those big powerful digital players which could make life really difficult for traditional publishers, who are big and have really established brands with huge reputations, but they're often coming from legacies that have a print background. They want to make sure that their future is protected.
“I suspect there’s some logic there where you all realise that you share some common ground and that, as difficult as the conversations are going to be, they're definitely worth having. To all win together, is better than all being taken apart by the big guys.”
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