Platform-A: Is There Any Value?

February 18, 2008 | By Marc Porcelli | No Comments »

Last September AOL announced that they were creating a whole new entity, or what is now known as Platform-A. Platform-A is collaboration of Advertising.com, Tacoda, Third Screen Media, Ligningcast, AdTech global ad serving and Quigo. It should also be noted that just last week buy.at was also acquired by AOL which will be under the advertising.com umbrella.

Platform-A now has CPM and CPA distribution through Advertising.com, behavioral capabilities through Tacoda, a mobile network through Third Screen Media, video ad serving through Lightningcast, global ad serving through AdTech and of course an affiliate network through buy.at. So what does Platform-A lack? A proven model that can deliver proven ROI for advertisers.

AOL’s parent Company Time Warner sure does like mergers and acquisitions, but how about making them work? AOL was arguably one of the worst acquisitions in the ad-space. How is Platform-A going to be any different?

As an advertiser and avid fan of the online media space I am excited by the vast offerings. On the reverse side, I am reserved about Platform-A’s ability to deliver an affective ROI. Can Platform-A actually deliver, how is it even going to focus with such vast offerings?

In an article published today, “Why AOL Matters” through iMedia Connection, Dawn Anfuso interviews Curt Viebranz, President of Platform-A and EVP, AOL. In the article Viebranz stats, “As online advertising becomes more mainstream, advertisers and agencies continue to face a market that is more complex and harder to manage. At the same time, their expectations are growing — they want better, simpler and cheaper solutions. All of this creates a significant opportunity for AOL.

By bringing these companies together under one roof, we can offer advertisers what they want most: reach (Platform-A reaches more than 91 percent of the online audience), analytics, targeting and ROI and one-stop shopping. Our goal is to make it easy for advertisers and agencies to meet their online marketing needs.”

Here is my take. Platform-A is focused very much on branded advertisers, thus the reach. They are also very much presenting themselves as the one stop shop. All they are missing now is the acquisition of a social network (stay tuned)…perhaps if the rumors about Bebo.com being acquired are not true AOL will buy them.

How does a company with such vast offerings stay focused on provide tangible value? The answer is simple: not very easily. Platform-A no doubt will be appealing for branded advertisers and the media buyers in the advertising agencies, but what about the direct response advertisers that are focused on backing out into a specific acquisition cost? My initial guess is that Platform-A will not fare well in this space, at least not initially.

As the country continues to move through the current recession, Platform-A will have to provide more than just broad distribution. Platform-A will have to provide proven ROI especially as branded spending budgets come under the microscope and CEO’s look for proven value to the dollars allotted to marketing. Further to this point, if Platform-A doesn’t formally launch their offerings into the mainstream advertising market anytime soon they will find themselves in a very competitive and largely scrutinized environment.

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Category: Advertising Agencies, Affiliate Marketing, Mergers And Acquisitions, Online Marketing, Social Networking

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