@ Ad Week '08: Yahoo Introduces APT Ad Management System
This story was written by David Kaplan.
[In progress] Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) unveiled its new ad targeting solution as "a seminal event" and a "tranformative development" in online advertising. Seeking to tie the new product to the time when TV went from black and white to color, Jon Hamm, who plays "Don Draper" on AMC's Mad Men, was picked to emcee the event. Noting the contrasts between the 1960s where his character lives and today, Hamm said, "if Don Draper were standing before you today, he would still be smoking and drinking. But he'd recognize that what my friend Jerry Yang is about to share with you will rock the media world in the way that radio and TV did."
-- Yang: Take you back 18 months ago. We had launched Panama, because it led us to the next platform code named Nirvana. Yahoo has the largest audience, largest network in search and display. We pulled together Yahoo's best and brightest in 2007. We put ourselves in the shoes of the people we were designing for: advertisers, designers, publishers. One of the key moves we made was the investment in ad exchange Right Media. The acquisition is a core part of the new system we're launching today. We asked partners in the Yahoo Newspaper Consortium. They said it was taking too long to find advertisers and connecting them to their audience. Initially called Apex, them AMP, we promised to deliver in the Q3. Newspaper Consortium will receive it first, then early next year, it will be widely available.
-- Sue Decker, Yahoo's president was next up to describe why "APT is apt." Decker: The current ad delivery system is broken. It takes 30 steps and multiple requests for proposals that can take up to six weeks. APT offers a simplifed workflow process. This new platform will deliver business results and provide whole new level of control. More to come.
By David Kaplan