• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, August 9, 2007

Omnicom's Zimmerman Advertising has added a critical new component to its burgeoning "virtual advertising agency" concept: Media planning and buying services. The new product, dubbed the "Z-Media Exchange," enables local retailers and mom-and-pop outfits to buy radio and TV spots online. The effort is the latest move by the Omnicom shop to facilitate a marketplace in mass customized, automated advertising services. In January, the retail specialty agency launched Pick-n-Click, an automated Web-based system for creating customized local retail ads for TV, radio, print, outdoor, online, direct mail and collateral based media.

The Z-Media Exchange attaches the Zimmerman brand to a system run by SoftWave Media Exchange, which launched a radio online marketplace, SMWX Radio, in 2005 and moved into TV a year later.

The Z-Media Exchange could customize aspects of SoftWave's technology for Zimmerman, notably in the ROI area. Within TV, plans call for it to facilitate purchasing of both local broadcast and cable inventory.

The brand is a twist on the term "e-media exchange," which has been used for some time to describe initiatives such as the eBay Media Marketplace. That system has only recently launched and operates in the radio and national cable areas, though major cable networks have declined to serve as sellers.

The Z-Media Exchange will allow agency executives to graze the available inventory in a particular market and make an offer, raising its bid if necessary. When a deal is cut, the buy is executed and the spot is delivered.

Zimmerman represents some 2,000 local auto dealers and could use the system to snap up unused inventory at the last minute at bargain prices.

"Let me give you an example of how it used to work up until now," said Fred Zuckerman, a media services executive at the Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.-based agency. "Wickes Furniture finds out on a Friday afternoon that the competition is having a big sale that weekend. My agency calls the local station to try and buy spots for Saturday and Sunday, and we're told to call back on Monday, because no one can turn our buy around fast enough to get it on air. This will never be an issue for our clients again."

The launch of the Z-Media Exchange appears to be the next logical progression for Zimmerman, following the successful introduction of Pick-n-Click, and puts it into direct competition with Spot Runner, the online advertising and media buying service backed by Interpublic and WPP Group.