• The Wall Street Journal et al., Thursday, July 15, 2010 1:21 PM

Boosting Google's non-search-advertising-related efforts, Omnicom has agreed to channel hundreds of millions of display ad dollars through the search giant over the next two years.

"Under the deal, Omnicom ... is expected to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to buy display ads for its clients through Google over the next two years," reports The Wall Street Journal, citing a person familiar with the deal. "In return, Google will work with Omnicom to build a global 'trading desk' that allows the company to buy display ads more easily on Google's ad exchange, an auction-like system that matches ad buyers and sellers to advertising space across large groups of websites."

"We've turned the engineering fire hose at Google toward display advertising," Google VP Neal Mohan tells The Journal. "That means that other players in the display ad space had better watch out," writes Econsultancy.com. "Google's hunger to do more with display ads is clearly very serious, and by successfully courting Omnicom, there can be no doubt it will be aggressive in pursuing opportunities."

In what MediaMemo calls "a lovely bit of timing," it writes that Google has "primed today's pump" with news of the Omnicom deal on the same day that it's expected to announce second quarter earnings.

PaidContent is reporting that the deal is global. "And by buying display inventory through Google's exchange, it will also represent a major boost to the revenues of YouTube and Google's partner sites," the industry blog writes.

Moreover, "For the ad industry, the deal demonstrates the huge changes taking place in the way display media buys are handled by the major ad agency holding companies," paidContent adds.

Also of note, "Omnicom owns SEM firm Resolution Media, among many other ad agencies," reports Search Engine Land. "As part of this relationship Google will probably be able to wrest new or additional search-ad dollars from Omnicom's more than '5,000 clients in more than 100 countries.'"

Omnicom, the world's top ad holding company, was already buying ads on Google's exchange using its own technology system. Per the deal, Google will provide analytics services to Omnicom to help it understand how its display ads are performing.

Read the whole story at The Wall Street Journal et al. »