Google is currently in negotiations with media agency networks over how it sells its Google preferred advertising inventory, but is quiet on just how much of that inventory is available – or how much has been sold since it was introduced.
Google introduced Preferred a year ago at the first Australian Brandcast event. At the same time, it unveiled a priority deal with GroupM which gave the network’s agencies Mindshare, MediaCom, MEC and Maxus first dibs on the top 5% of premium inventory across the YouTube network.
In the US, Google has openly discussed how the top 5% of inventory in the Preferred platform has “sold out”, however in Australia, Google was reticent to disclose any information about how much of that top tier of premium inventory had been sold – or even how much is available, and across which channels.
Bart Jenniches, Google’s industry lead, told AdNews ahead of the Brandcast event there were no figures he could provide on how much inventory was available via Preferred and how much of that was sold at any one time, however he did say that there was “strong demand” from Australian advertisers.
So far, 36 advertisers throughout the year have run more than 200 campaigns across Google Preferred. On average, advertisers have experienced 14% uplift in Brand metrics measured by Google’s Brandlift, which according to Kerry Merryman, YouTube's VP of content partnerships, is way in front of the single digit increases in brand metrics TV delivers.
GroupM’s year-long deal continues to run until the start of 2016, and Google says it is in negotiations for what happens next. It’s unlikely the deal will be renewed by GroupM or another party, or whether there will be no priority deal put in place, with a broader range of agencies able to participate. When asked by AdNews about what opportunities there will be around Google Preferred, all Jenniches offered was that negotiations were currently underway.
It’s been speculated that IPG MediaBrands could push for some kind of deal as Danny Bass, former group investment officer at GroupM, was behind the initial Preferred deal, and is soon to take up his post as CEO of IPG.
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