Australian Publishers Team To Launch Private Mobile Exchange

Fairfax Media and Mi9, two of Australia’s largest media companies, on Monday announced they have come together to form a mobile ad exchange, dubbed the Australian Premium Advertising Exchange (APEX). The exchange will be powered by AppNexus.

APEX is expected to launch in early 2015, per a release, and will feature inventory from mobile properties owned and operated by Fairfax and Mi9, as well as inventory from third-party publishers such as Daily Mail Australia.

“Advertisers have told us they want the efficiencies of real-time bidding, but they want certainty that their ads will appear in brand safe environments next to quality Australian content,” stated Marc Barnett, Mi9’s chief operating officer and chairperson of APEX. “This new mobile exchange gives advertisers a single platform to execute campaigns to a valuable premium and engaged audience, on a scale offered nowhere else in the local market.”

Tom Armstrong, commercial director of Fairfax Media, stated, “The publisher coalition model has been proven effective in Europe and we are delighted to bring it to Australia at a time of dramatic growth in this market.”

Similar European consortiums include Denmark’s Danish Publisher Network, the Czech Republic’s Czech Publishers Exchange, France’s La Place Media and others.

Participating publishers will maintain their direct sales operations while putting “a portion” of the inventory on the new exchange, according to a release. No definitive sense of scale of the new exchange has been given, other than noting that inventory will come from “more than 50 well-known locally created mobile sites and apps.”

Pippa Leary, Fairfax Media’s director of strategy and market insights, market division, will serve as CEO of APEX.

“Pippa is an experienced media executive with a strong understanding of the Australian digital market,” stated Barnett. “The board members and I will work closely with Pippa as she leads the launch of Australia’s premium exchange.”

"Australia" image via Shutterstock. 
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