CNN, Guardian, Reuters, FT launch online ad alliance

Politics and policy

The Google signage is seen at the company's offices in New York January 8, 2013. Photo: Reuters/Andrew Kelly 

By BDAfrica.com REPORTER

In Summary

• The Pangaea Alliance will give advertisers access to the pooled global audiences of The Guardian, CNN International, Financial Times, Reuters and The Economist through the latest programmatic technology.
• Together these publishers promise an audience of 110 million users made up of highly influential and affluent individuals — one in four in the top income segments and one fifth senior management executives.

Four of the world’s most influential digital publishers have unveiled an online advertising alliance they hope will counter the growing dominance of players like Google, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Dubbed the Pangaea Alliance, it will give advertisers access to the pooled global audiences of The Guardian, CNN International, Financial Times, Reuters and The Economist through the latest programmatic technology.

Together these publishers promise an audience of 110 million users made up of highly influential and affluent individuals — one in four in the top income segments and one fifth C-suite/senior management executives.

The alliance is being launched in beta from April 2015, partnering with ad-tech company The Rubicon Project.

“During the beta phase, Pangaea will offer display (advertising) solutions both as a standalone product and alongside existing publisher initiatives, including native advertising programmes and publisher trading desks,” the publishers say in a statement put out by the Guardian Wednesday.

The beta phase will be managed by a central team, which includes commercial leadership and operational resource from all the member publishers. On full launch, later this year, Pangaea will be managed by its own sales team.

Mr Tim Gentry, global revenue director at Guardian News & Media and Pangaea Alliance project lead, said: “As the world becomes more networked, Pangaea will give advertisers one single programmatic solution for driving influence at scale, allowing them to get cut-through in an increasingly fragmented market using the latest ad serving technology. Pangaea’s uniqueness lies in the quality of its partners. We know that trust is the biggest driver of brand advocacy, so we have come together to scale the benefits of advertising within trusted media environments, which are geared towards delivering cutting-edge creative campaigns in technically advanced formats.”

Pangaea, by the way, is the name of the continent thought to have formed approximately 300 million years ago and began to break apart after around 100 million years, when dinosaurs roamed the earth.