With its
deal to buy Time Warner complete, AT&T is making moves on some new, smaller acquisitions.
The first of those acquisitions is the purchase of AppNexus, an advertising technology
company that operates a global advertising marketplace and provides enterprise products and services for marketers.
News of AT&T’s interest in AppNexus surfaced last
week in multiple news outlets, which pegged the price of the deal at around $1.6 billion. Now the deal is official.
Once the acquisition closes (expected in the third quarter),
AppNexus will become part of AT&T’s advertising & analytics team, led by CEO Brian Lesser. The company plans to integrate AppNexus’ technology into the company’s first-party
data, and with its content and distribution platforms, such as Turner and DirecTV.
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Speaking at a forum presented by Wells Fargo last week, Lesser and AT&T CEO Randall
Stephenson laid out their goals for AT&T’s advertising ambitions, a plan AppNexus would fit into cleanly.
Stephenson said the company was looking to build a
real-time exchange for premium video advertising coordinated across mobile devices and TV screens, ultimately hoping to deliver a value proposition for premium video advertising similar to that of
digital advertising.