Publicis partners with AOL Inc; to deliver live Internet Ads on global scale

Publicis Groupe and AOL Inc. has announced that they will launch the industry’s first global live advertising partnership for today’s multiscreen marketing era – PAL (Publicis AOL Live). PAL will be co-managed by AOL and Publicis Groupe and will offer marketers an end-to-end solution to deliver and manage live advertising on a global basis to digitally connected consumers.

Bob Lord, who will join AOL from Publicis Groupe on Aug. 1, will manage the partnership as part of his new role as CEO of AOL Networks. He will co-chair the partnership with three top Publicis Groupe executives: Rishad Tobaccowala, Chair of Razorfish/DigitasLBi; Laura Desmond, Chief Executive of Starcom MediaVest Group; and Tom Bernardin, Chief Executive of Leo Burnett Company. PAL, which will include dedicated employees from each company, will provide clients (advertisers and publishers) a full suite of live advertising services:

Creative, planning, serving, syndication, measurement, analytics, andglobal windowing distribution;
Content creation within AOL’s ecosystem of brands, content partners and syndication network, reaching more than 223 million global AOL consumers and hundreds of millions of global consumers through the AOL Networks
Real-time consumer connection tools and metrics;
Four-screen distribution (Mobile, Tablet, Desktop, Smart TV) including connected over-the-top (OTT) devices, including direct OTT connections with major global device companies; and
A set of leverage-able technology platforms spanning all Publicis Groupe companies and the AOL Live, AOL On and Be On platforms. These platforms will have the combined ability to reach more than 1 billion video views a month and 100 billion web impressions.

“Publicis Groupe has become the global leader in digital marketing by building strong, client-driven solutions in the fastest-growing areas of the Internet: mobile and social,” said Maurice Lévy, Chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe. “Live advertising gives brands the immediate live connections that consumers expect in our digitally connected world, and AOL is the ideal partner for this partnership precisely because live advertising is such a core part of its strategy. Together, AOL and Publicis Groupe have impressive scale, talent and technology solutions, and a deep understanding of how to develop and drive content. By creating a shared development team – and leveraging VivaKi as a Groupe accelerator – we can ensure advertising and marketing travel at the speed of consumers.”

“Live advertising is the future of marketing on the Internet,” said Tim Armstrong, AOL CEO and Chairman. "Maurice and Publicis Groupe have been at the forefront of live advertising, and we have been testing live advertising together for more than a year. Based on the consumer and brand demand, we formed PAL and identified Bob to manage a cross-agency team that will aggressively build out the first live advertising platform for the Internet on the planet.”

Publicis Groupe and AOL began testing live advertising on AOL’s leading content brands earlier this year. The two companies are currently running live advertising across AOL, The Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Engadget, Patch, Mapquest, and more than 250 publishers in the AOL Networks syndicated network. Publicis Groupe’s leading digital agency DigitasLBi partnered with Huffington Post in 2012 to bring its live advertising solution exclusively to the agency’s real-time content platform, BrandLIVE™; and its media network Starcom MediaVest Group has been testing live advertising with AOL for several months.

PAL will move the partnership from testing to the development of a global platform that will offer live advertising to all Publicis Groupe clients through the exclusive partnership for the first six months, beginning on the launch date of the partnership, currently anticipated to be Sept. 1.

PAL will operate in New York and Paris and will hold a live advertising symposium during 2013 Advertising Week in New York City.