Tech Platform Plans to Refresh and Rejuvenate Legacy Brand
NEW YORK, April 1, 2020 — Media buying platform Adwanted Group today announced it has acquired SRDS, the industry standard for locating and comparing digital and traditional media across business, consumer and geographic audiences.
Adwanted Group CEO Emmanuel Debuyck said the acquisition is designed to create a critical mass marketplace where media planners and buyers can engage in automated, one-stop planning and buying for traditional media on a single platform.
Adwanted purchased SRDS, a unit of data, insights, and consulting company Kantar Media, in an all-cash agreement; specific terms were not disclosed. Bain Capital recently acquired a controlling stake in Kantar. Prior to the acquisition, Adwanted had exclusive rights to license SRDS data on more than 6,700 U.S. business-to-business and consumer magazines and integrate it with the Adwanted platform.
“Merging SRDS with Adwanted creates a compelling new product where customers can not only select and compare media opportunities, but now they can also purchase media quickly with just a few clicks,” Debuyck said. “The move also helps Adwanted increase it footprint in the U.S. and adds to the company’s marketplace credibility due to SRDS’s reputation in the U.S. media industry.”
Debuyck stressed that the newly merged service is particularly accommodating to scores of media planners, buyers and sellers now working from home due to government restrictions imposed by the coronavirus crisis.
“We noted for the past few years the growing trend in the marketplace seeking a simpler, more efficient way to plan and buy,” he said. “And now that we are in the this new ‘work from home’ age, we think the Adwanted-plus-SRDS offering fills that need perfectly. Adwanted now allows all parties in the media ecosystem to stay in touch and complete deals on a timely basis via a single platform.”
For the past 101 years, advertising and media agencies and major brands have relied on SRDS’s extensive dataset of U.S. media to make informed decisions and initiate contact with media reps directly from the planning platform. Adwanted plans to bring SRDS’s product and services under the Adwanted umbrella as it reinvents and invests in the company while positioning it at the center of the U.S. media planning and buying ecosystem.
Debuyck said Adwanted will update all current SRDS data and modernize its entire operation with the goal of expanding its business.
“The new SRDS will continue to allow users to select and compare media, but now they will also be able to execute a purchase order all in the same environment,” he said. “That is the key benefit and the major difference of a combined Adwanted and SRDS.”
Debuyck said all current SRDS employees will be retained, most of them based in the company’s Chicago office, and that no layoffs are planned as a result of the acquisition. He added that both Adwanted and SRDS will retain their current branding.
“Just as it was under Kantar, SRDS will remain its own brand, but it will now exist under the Adwanted banner,” he said. However, he added that Adwanted plans to refresh the SRDS brand with a new logo, graphics and collateral materials as part of its brand renovation.
ADWANTED
After serving media buyers and sellers in Europe since 2012, the Adwanted Group was founded in France in 2012 and launched its U.S. operation late last year. Its key mission is to use technology to bring the process of buying print advertising into the 21st century.
Adwanted brings offline ad buying online by making the method of buying print ads in newspapers and magazines as automated, quick, and simple as buying programmatic ads for digital media platforms. It’s a revolutionary service that helps print media easily and quickly sell their inventory online to buyers on one unique digital space.
A merged Adwanted and SRDS will offline print inventory from more than 125,000 media properties (magazines, newspapers, TV and radio stations, and websites throughout the U.S. and will later include ancillary programs like conference/event sponsorship, email marketing and more. Adwanted is focusing mainly on non-programmatic media inventories but will also provide some degree of capabilities for digital media buying.
To begin work, publishers simply need to create their account by going to Adwanted.com (hyperlink) to activate their private marketplace. After a free trial period, publishers pay a minimal transaction fee, while most media buyers will utilize the Adwanted platform at no cost.
Buyers select the media according to their criteria in a planning tool, consult its file and a “Shop Now” button takes them to a publisher’s private marketplace in one click. Buyers then choose the advertising format and publication date they want. Publishers can set pricing parameters on their inventory and buyers can access data, such as current pricing/rate cards, marketing insights and audited circulation information. The Adwanted platform makes the entire process seamless: from media selection to customization of terms and conditions to issuing insertion orders.
“We believe the buying and selling process must be a matter of speed, efficiency and independence,” said Debuyck. “Adwanted offers media companies a quick and easy way to market their advertising space, while giving advertisers and their agencies the ability to access, book and purchase advertising opportunities online.”
Adwanted is the first online marketplace connecting legacy U.S.-based print publishers with media buyers, who—along with publishers—get access to Adwanted’s platform for no charge with registration to efficiently conduct transactions in a completely transparent marketplace.
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ABOUT ADWANTED GROUP
Adwanted Group, founded in 2012 and operating in Europe, Asia and North-America, is an independent and international portfolio of cross-channel media and advertising technology platforms and advertising sales firms. In addition to the Adwanted platform, Adwanted Group operates subsidiaries including Carthage, Affinity Media, Audience Media, Media Opportunities and Access Outdoor. More information is available at https://www.adwanted.com/, on LinkedIn or by following @AdWantedCom.
MEDIA CONTACT
John Wolfe
Phone: 914-659-8663
Email: [email protected]