Major Media Agencies and Owners Try Out MediaEquals

• Advertising Age, Tuesday, July 28, 2009 11:21 PM

MediaEquals, a new U.K.-based player, wants to create an automated online trading system that covers all media buying and selling, not just distressed sales. It is currently running trials with six major media buyers -- Omnicom, WPP, Publicis, Aegis, Interpublic and Havas -- and with media owners, including BBC Magazines, The Guardian Media Group and Bauer Publishing.

MediaEquals' system, which has been in development for three years, claims to offer something more than rival auction-based or pure transaction systems. The founders say it replicates the way media is bought and sold in the real world and acts as a vehicle to free up time that can be invested in creativity and developing contacts.

MediaEquals is headed by entrepreneurial executive chairman Martin Banbury, founder of media and marketing group The Mission, and former brand manager at Procter & Gamble. Banbury recently expanded the MediaEquals board of directors to signal his international ambitions beyond the U.K., with a focus on the U.S.

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