• by April 6, 2007

Long before news about DoubleClick's online ad auction system broke, Havas' Media Contacts not only knew about the trading floor-style platform, but offered feedback and briefed clients on it. The digital media buying and planning shop got an early peek at the system and signed on to participate in a test driven largely by the work of its Global Trading Team.

"The group drove the agency's participation in the [forthcoming] DoubleClick test and the importance of being part of it," said Ed Montes, managing director, Media Contacts. "We thought, 'We absolutely have to be part of this.'" Formed last June, Media Contact's Global Trading Team has eight people in the core group and representation in Spain, France, the U.K., U.S., and Latin America.

Apart from involvement in testing new digital platforms, participating in studies and co-branded research, the Global Trading Team is tasked with gathering as much intelligence as possible for clients across geographies, according to Montes.

Media Contacts' network extends to 23 countries. The term "Trading" comes from the British term for buying, although Montes said the group doesn't focus on trying to standardize pricing: "There's no one price fits all."

"The purpose of the group is not about pricing per se, though we have had great success working with publishers to get the best pricing possible for our clients--it's much more about insight into the marketplace and what the publishers are doing," Montes explained.

In addition, the group also recognizes that regardless of the fact that online media pricing differs from market to market, it's focused on deepening relationships with publishers--Yahoo, Google, MSN, AOL, etc.--on a global level.

"What we want is the intelligence, insights and familiarity with products and services," Montes said. However, with respect to the group's relationships with online publishers: "We know it can't be [all] about price or you're never going to win with the publishers," Montes said.

The group, which talks monthly and meets quarterly on an in-person basis, shares intelligence and data and tries to scope out the best opportunities for clients to test new platforms in the beta phase.

"The onus is on us to bring the right opportunities to the right client," said Rob Griffin, senior vice president, head of search, Media Contacts.

The agency's Global Trading Team partnered with Yahoo on online travel studies and a financial tool study with Microsoft's MSN. In the search space, the group was instrumental in spurring a sharing of intelligence with regard to its global data platform.

"There's a lot of intelligence that comes out of global relationships [with publishers], site analytics, impression-related data, publisher-side data as it relates to a specific client campaign. We want to know how best to optimize it," Montes added.

With respect to online advertising auctions, "we wanted to be there form the beginning. It's a new trading platform, and if you think of display advertising being commoditized by these platforms, the importance of relationships and intelligence becomes paramount," Montes said.

While the DoubleClick system rolls out in the U.S. first, the insights taken from the test will allow Media Contacts to extend its know-how to other geographies. The same goes for Panama, Yahoo's new ad system. The service debuted in the U.S., and the agency migrated clients Fidelity and Vonage to it quickly. When it's time to launch in other markets, the agency will already have had experience with it.

When MSN's AdCenter first debuted in France, Media Contacts leveraged its relationships there to gather as much meaningful data as possible to prepare for the U.S. launch. Montes said the agency is so keen on its global network that it's expanding its services to offer U.S.-based companies that have no presence in a country, guidance to entering the market, say Spain or the U.K. He declined to offer specific details: "We are consulting and showing that their model works in particular geographic regions."