Kantar Media Moves Into Programmatic Media Buying

In the US, WPP's Kantar Media has launched an initiative which uses its subscription-only media planning platform, SRDS.com, to help advertisers find and buy suitable digital media slots for their campaigns.

The system aggregates, standardizes and integrates the availability of programmatic digital ad inventory from various third-party buy-channels into SRDS, which can then be used by digital media planners and buyers to locate and buy premium guaranteed and private marketplace inventory. The data will be available to brand planners from more than 1,000 US agencies, Kantar says, including the four largest advertising holding companies.

Initial partners are Rubicon Project, PubMatic, OpenX, iSocket, Adslot, BuySellAds and Shiny Ads - publishers working with any of these can now showcase their inventory in SRDS. Dina Srinivasan, Kantar Media's SRDS Managing Director of Emerging Media, says the initiative means SRDS.com can now 'revolutionize how digital media is found and ultimately purchased', becoming 'a centralized tool that media decision makers can use to discover avails and pricing across programmatic channels, and be one-click away from transacting.'

SRDS provides key data on more than 125,000 media brands, including digital, paper publications, out-of-home, TV and radio. Web site: www.kantarmedia.us .