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Time, Inc. Unveils Vertical Network

  • Ad Age, Tuesday, April 21, 2009 12 PM
Time Inc. is building a vertical ad network that will allow advertisers to make targeted buys across its properties, according to Ad Age. Called Time Axcess, the new package combination of inventory and targeting abilities lags the debut of similar vertical networks by rival media owners like Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and Conde Nast by more than a year. But Ad Age says Time Axcess will offer "impressive scale" with the company's own well-known properties, including People.com, which attracted 13 million uniques in March, according to research firm Compete, and Time.com, which attracted 4.8 million uniques and SportsIllustrated.com, which received 4 million. In all, the 26-site network reaches 27 million unique visitors per month.

Advertisers welcomed the news. "First off, I know who Time Inc. has," said Michael Hayes, exec VP-managing director at Initiative Digital. "Even if I don't know the exact placement of the inventory, when I go to talk to Dr Pepper or Ikea or Bayer, that creates comfort for them. When I tell them it's running on an ad network and it's blind, they get incredibly uncomfortable, and rightly so."

As Kirk McDonald, president of Time Inc. Digital, said, "Ad networks buy inventory today from companies like us at pennies on the dollar," he said. "We're going to take the same impressions that today we're getting pennies on the dollar for, and get dollars for those."

Read the whole story at Ad Age »

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