After acquiring two programmatic guaranteed players last month, Rubicon Project has bolstered its Sydney team and launched a new API to address fragmentation in the digital advertising ecosystem.
The company, which allows marketers and publishers to buy and sell advertising in real-time auctions via real-time bidding (RTB) – a space advertisers in Australia are increasingly exploring and adapting, has hired ex- Microsoft and Google employee, Ken Ji, as it's new sales manager Australia for its Buyer Cloud area of the business.
Based in Sydney, he will improve efficiencies and working practices with all of Rubicon Project’s buying partners in Australia and New Zealand, including media planning and buying agencies, online advertising networks, mobile media agencies and Demand Side Platforms (DSPs).
Ji spent a year at Google in Australia as a display specialist in the agency team working with media planning and buying agencies to increase their display and video advertising investment. This followed a stint as a sales executive at Mi9 - also working with agencies.
Former publisher development director at Komli Media, Ryan Baynes, has also just joined Rubicon Project as account director, Seller Cloud, Australia. He will be reporting into country manager, Australia and New Zealand, Adele Hanzlicek.
Former senior account director APAC, Hanzlicek, has just moved up the ranks to be promoted to country manager.
Hanzlicek has worked at Rubicon Project for more than two years, starting as account director. This followed five years at Yahoo!7.
In other job moves Rubicon's senior manager, Buyer Cloud APAC, Liam Lucas, has moved from the Sydney office to Singapore to drive relationships with the agencies, online advertising networks, and DSPs across South East Asia. The company is also recruiting for a head of JAPAC.
In addition to the new appointments, the real-time bidding platform has this week announced its own exchange application programming interface (API), which will allow the platform to communicate better with publishers and app developers to ensure they get the most out of their advertising inventory.
The company is aiming to address fragmentation in digital advertising with its Exchange API. It says the API connects mobile, desktop and video ad servers and platforms, as well as sellers that have built custom ad servers, directly to Rubicon Project’s exchange to access additional buyer demand and provide allocation across media inventory.
Jay Stevens, general manager international at Rubicon Project, said: “Digital media companies seek to optimise revenue holistically across their inventory. But if their ad servers are not integrated with an auction-based advertising exchange, they’re still failing to achieve maximum value,” he said.
“Exchange API puts sellers in control, enabling advertising campaigns to compete in real time for placement across both direct and indirect-sold media.”
Already e-planning, Leonardo ADV and Adhese have integrated or begun technical integration of this Exchange API.
In November Rubicon Project acquired two of the three big ‘programmatic guaranteed’ players in the market: Programmatic direct advertising platform Shiny Ads, and iSockets, a tech platform that facilitates direct online advertising by allowing programmatic buying of direct display ad inventory.
This method of buying, which is prevalent in the television market, allows sellers to set prices for guaranteed audience impressions and buyers to discover and buy those guaranteed audiences.
It enables marketers to buy ad space from publishers on an upfront basis. So just as you would buy a book for a fixed price on Amazon, an ad buyer can log on to iSocket or Shiny Ads to buy a specific number of ad impressions for a predetermined price. The idea is that software helps streamline the sales process, saving time and costs for both buyers and sellers, and allows marketers and publishers the ability to buy and sell ad space in whichever manner they choose.
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