The newspaper industry backed by its industry body, The Newspaper Works, has launched a private online exchange to buy print advertising, named Bid on Print.
The exchange, which begins trading today with more than 140 newspaper titles, including The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, is available to media buyers to book advertising opportunities online for the first time.
The Newspaper Works CEO Mark Hollands told AdNews that the site is not a programmatic or real-time bidding exchange, rather the publisher selects inventory, applies a floor price and then sets a time frame in which the ad must be bought.
“Every publisher gets to put a floor price or a minimum price, so there’s no question of a race to the bottom, there’s no question of programmatic,” Hollands said. “This is very much an environment that allows publishers to state their minimum price and state their buy now price, it's a lot like consumer site eBay,” he said.
Hollands explained that the platform created by The Newspaper Works and Sydney-based company Publisher’s Internationalé, simply provides another way for media agencies to buy print inventory. There is no obligation to use the site if they don't want to.
“All we have done is lay a new channel to market for print advertising,” Hollands said.
“We're simply just trying to facilitate and the board of The Newspaper Works was in favour of it, but whether each publisher wishes to do it and the extent to which publishers choose to do it is entirely up to them.”
Bid on Print has already taken more than $350,000 during publisher trials with agencies.
Mediabrands chief investment officer Victor Corones said: ”I’m a big fan of encouraging industries to find ways to improve and streamline the buying process for agencies and their clients. Bid on Print is a great initiative.”
Media agency TMS is one of the agencies piloting Bid on Print and TMS retail engagement director David Lodge said: “TMS is proud to be the pilot agency on Bid On Print and to have worked with Publisher’s Internationalé in its development. Bid On Print brings ‘old school’ buying nous together with a ‘new world’ open market mentality. If this is embraced by the industry as a whole, we will see a new era in efficient and transparent transactions in print and potentially in other channels.”
Bid on Print will feature emma readership data to provide important demographic information for every purchase, plus CRM calculations.
Bid on Print chief technology officer Ganesh Prasad said: “This new exchange offers advantages to all players because it creates a liquid market that offers transparent deals.
“By making the purchase of newspaper advertising faster and simpler, we hope Bid on Print will grow revenues for all publishers as well as reduce cost of purchase for agencies. With suitable yield management techniques, publishers can use the platform to make their aggregate yield targets achievable.”
For more news on newspapers see below:
News and Fairfax agree, readership is a better measurement than circulation
ABC figures: Newspaper sales continue to fall but can digital save the day?
SMH still number one, but digital continues to bolster numbers
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