MDC Partners Launches "Media Hedge Funds"

(MoneyWatch)  Via superspy over at MediaBistro's AgencySpy, yet another sign of the changes tech brings across the ad industry. Portoflio company MDC Partners is launching Varick Media Management, which will let interested parties trade across every online exchange, ad networks and websites. Quoting AgencySpy quoting the website:

"Similar to the way that hedge funds pool investment and algorithmically trade, we'd like to think we are extremely similar. Instead of investing in the financial markets, we're investing our clients money within the media markets aiming to return a very solid ROI for each individual client. Think of us as the first advertising hedge fund."

This is a bit similar to the remnant ad exchanges that the New York Times reported on in the end of July, but Varick seems to be something much more ambitious overall. While the remnant ad exchanges seem more geared towards short-term investors looking to flip unused ad space, Varick wants to become something like an investment house for marketers. Again, from the company's announcement:

Just like there are stock traders, we have media traders. Our traders are trained to spot inefficiencies in the market and make investments on behalf of our clients that will generate an additional lead, sale, conversion, or other instrument that will add positive results to your mix of KPIs. By going after the market inefficiencies, we'd like to think that we're fairly efficient in turn, saving you money and lowering your acquisition costs.

According to the accompanying press release, Verick will "have access to multiple ad exchanges including Google / DoubleClick AdX, Yahoo! RightMedia, Microsoft AdECN, AOL Spot Market, TraffiQ, AdBidCentral and over 110 million users across 65,000+ publishers," which is certainly the type of reach you'd want. Whether the reach exceeds Verick's grasp remains to be seen.