The London Evening Standard has appointed ad sales house Unanimis to exclusively sell its mobile inventory for its Android, Blackberry, iPhone, Java, Palm and Windows mobile apps.

Unanimis will work with the title’s in-house ad sales team to promote sponsorship packages and homepage takeovers the title’s mobile products among advertisers.

The updated Evening Standard’s apps have been downloaded 91,000 times since launching in May, while its iPhone app, which launched in February, has been downloaded over 115,000 times, according to both companies.

Unanimis recently underwent an internal restructure, which saw its head of mobile depart and its mobile team assimilated into its wider brand sales team only a few months after its numbers were bolstered (nma.co.uk 1 June 2010).

Damon Reeve, Unanimis CEO, said, “Our business is in two parts: network and brand sales,” he said. “The areas where we’ve refocused are very much around the brand side of the business. We’re bringing together all parts of the business as we want to create cross-platform opportunities, which hasn’t been happening enough.”

Click Here to view the New Media Age article.

A&N Media is to dissolve its Associated Northcliffe Digital division, resulting in the departure of CEO Richard Titus and multiple job losses.

Commercial digital assets including Primelocation, Teletext Holidays and Motors will cease to exist as a standalone division and will instead be subsumed into A&N Media.

The dissolution is expected to impact plans for a raft of mobile apps planned by Titus.

Earlier this year, new media age reported that AND was to ramp up its mobile strategy, launching as many as 17 apps, including updates to existing apps such as Teletext Holidays and Localpeople.

It tied up with Orange-owned ad network Unanimis in March to sell ads exclusively across its mobile properties.

A&N Media CEO Kevin Beatty said, “In light of the current economic conditions, A&N Media has decided to streamline the organisational structure around its digital activities. The CEOs of The Digital Property Group, Jobsite Group, Travel Group (including Teletext Holidays) and Motors Group will now report to me with immediate effect.

“As part of this change, Richard Titus, previously CEO of AND, will be departing the organisation, although he will remain engaged with both A&N Media and DMGT as a consultant and advisor on various strategic, digital and consumer issues,” he added.

The restructure will leave regional multimedia business Northcliffe Media, the national paper portfolio Associated Newspapers, which includes Mail Online, and A&N International Media under the auspices of A&N Media, which comes under the DMGT umbrella.

Click Here to view the New Media Age article.

No need to bother with crowded pubs, street standing and restricted views when Unanimis hosts a BBQ! We invited our publishers and agencies to come watch the match on our 3 big plasma screen TV’s. There were ice-cold refreshments and food cooked on ‘Big Bertha’.

It was an intense game and England made their presence felt by securing the win they needed over Slovenia. It was a great afternoon shared with co-workers, colleagues and friends.

Tell me more! Email events@unanimis.co.uk

Everywhere these days you see cyclists on single-speed bikes, weaving among people and traffic with stripped-down insouciance. But while such fixies may be ideal in town, can they get you from one city to another? Unanimis’s Tim Collier, Ian Gallaher and Ben Isaacs, together with Mike Roberts from Carat (left), recently rode from London to Paris on single-speed bikes, all the way from Buckingham Palace to the Eiffel Tower to raise £3,000 for Cancer Research. It took three days, apparently, but sensibly the lads came back on Eurostar – standard class only, though.

Click Here to view New Media Age article.

Sony Pictures Entertainment has launched its multi-platform video portal Crackle in the UK, featuring ad-funded short- and long-form TV shows and movies.

The Crackle Player content is also available on sites including AOL, Bebo, Boxee, Break, Dailymotion, Friendster, Metacafe and YouTube, and on Sony’s Bravia web-enabled TVs.

Pre-roll and display ads around the service will be handled by sales house Unanimis.

Eric Berger, Sony’s senior VP of digital networks, said, “Crackle has built a proven distribution and ad network in the US that we’re now replicating around the world. Our content is chosen and programmed for the true video buff who loves movies and TV shows and also wants to discover the best new content on the web.”

Crackle first launched in the US in 2007,and has also launched in Australia.

Click Here to view the New Media Age article.

Here at Unanimis our Lead Generation team has been busy working on two new portals; DIY improvements and My Higher Education.

Over the years our in-house design team have built premium portals in the automotive & beauty sectors with our new focus on education & home improvement.

These sites are built to mirror the clients brand and corporate identity while our best converting form structure sends the red hot data directly back to the advertiser’s call centre or marketing data base for immediate use.

In addition we have also launched a number of in-banner lead gen campaigns that resulted in conversation rates eight times higher than more traditional campaigns!

Bottom line, we don’t use incentives or co-registration paths so we’re collecting premium leads and seeing results.

Want to find out more, email our Lead Gen team – leadgen@unanimis.co.uk

Some say it’s an endurance test to sort the men from the boys, others say it’s just down right foolishness!

But our brave Unanimis soldiers, who go by the name of Tim Collier and Ian Gallaher will be ripping up the roads and battling with the forces of nature all in the name of charity.

These brave / foolish lads will be riding single speed (yes fixed gear bikes) all the way from Buckingham Palace, London to the Eiffel Tower, Paris to raise money for a very worthy cause, Cancer Research.

Setting off on the 13th – 16th May, the lads will be joined in the challenge by Mike Roberts an Account Manager from Carat and two other friends.

Give us some more details… why is this a big deal?

This trip is 220 miles – Challenging but achievable on a normal road bike. However, as die hard commuters that ride Fixie in London (because we are cool), we wanted to push ourselves to the extreme by taking this trip on with one gear….fixed.

Tell us more! What concerns you most about this journey?

Rain is going to be a major issue as it will be zero fun navigating and cycling for four days in torrential rain! I am quite confident about our fitness now so not sure that will be an issue but we do have to climb the South Downs on day one which we are all quietly bricking it about.

Saddle sore will play a part in this ride and I guess just four days of straight riding. That said, out first beer in Paris will taste pretty sweet afterwards! We also have to do about 75 miles on the first day and start riding at 3.30 in the morning straight off the ferry, potentially around 120 miles in 24 hours!!!!!

How much have you raised so far? How much more to your goal?

Ian and I have got about £1300 from work and mates so far, with 10 days to go there is still a fair bit more to get. We would be happy with £2K between us.

Help support Ian and Tim

http://www.justgiving.com/london-paris-fixed-cruk

Good luck lads!

Mobile ad spend rose 32% between 2008 and 2009, with brands from the entertainment, media and telecoms sectors spending the largest amounts on the medium, according to the IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Figures showed mobile ad spend in the UK rose to £36.7m despite a contraction in the wider advertising market. The total spent on mobile advertising in the previous year was £28.6m. Mobile ad spend also grew consistently throughout 2009.

Entertainment and media companies contributed 61.5% of all mobile ad revenues and traditional telecoms companies contributed 14.7% in 2009.

Search accounted for 54% (£20.2m) of all mobile ad spend after a 41% annual rise. Mobile display advertising peaked at £5.5m in the final quarter of 2009, representing a 28% quarterly rise and totaling £17.4m for the year.

Jon Mew, head of mobile at the IAB, said the growth in mobile advertising in the context of the downturn in the wider advertising market was unexpected. “The growth was better than we had hoped for. The first thing you expect to be cut from ad budgets [during an economic downturn] are experimental things such as mobile,” he said.

Alex Rahaman, head of mobile at ad sales house Unanimis, said media and entertainment companies contributed so much to the overall figure because the definition included a broader number of companies, such as ringtone providers, mobile video providers and games. “I think mobile gaming would have driven that a lot,” he said.

Paul Constantine, MD of media agency Zed Group, said the growth in mobile advertising was to be expected but the figures were growing from a low base. “I thought it would have been a bit higher,” he said.

The burgeoning mobile ad market has been under increased focus in recent months following significant moves by major companies including Google and Apple.

Google is hoping to ramp up its mobile ad offering through the $750m (£467m) purchase of mobile ad network AdMob, subject to a possible anti-trust challenge from the US government, while Apple launched its own mobile ad platform, iAd, earlier this month.

NMA 9 April 2010.

Click Here to view New Media Age article.

Orange’s push into the ad exchange market makes sense but, despite the size of the brand, its success isn’t a given. It’s moving into an increasingly crowded market, with the likes of Google and Yahoo offering exchanges. But with AOL and Microsoft yet to offer rival propositions, there’s still room in this sector, so it does have a chance.

This quarter the brand will partner with US platform provider OpenX to launch Orange Ad Market. This enables media agencies to bid on publishers’ ad inventory and is a common way of monetising ad space in the US, where the market is valued at $7.5bn.

Despite the fact Right Media has been established in the UK for several years, ad exchanges are still in their early days here. Many agencies have yet to invest significant amounts in this sector, with many saying they’re still testing it. It was hoped Google’s move into the market with the launch of DoubleClick Ad Exchange would cause agencies to boost their spend significantly, but even this sparked little change.

As last week’s new media age highlighted, the success of Orange’s entry also depends on its ability to attract enough ad inventory from publishers (nma 1 April 2010).

But Orange has a trusted heritage and with the acquisition of ad sales house Unanimis last year, not only does the company have plenty of relationships with publishers to make sure it gets enough inventory, it’s obvious it’s serious about online ad sales.

NMA 6 April 2010

Click Here to view New Media Age article.

Unanimis, a digital advertising network which specialises in mobile, brand and performance display advertising, has today announced that it has been appointed by AND (the digital consumer division of A&N Media – part of DMGT plc), to represent the company’s rapidly growing mobile advertising division. Unanimis won the account in a competitive pitch and will support AND in its plans to grow its mobile business.

Working alongside their in-house sales team, Unanimis will be responsible for promoting AND’s entire portfolio of mobile and application properties to clients and digital agencies. AND has recently launched iPhone applications across a range of its businesses, starting with Teletext Holidays, Metro, FindaProperty, Jobsite, localpeople, Motors, ‘this is’ sites and Daily Mail puzzles. These applications have been downloaded over 300,000 times since their launch in January. Teletext Mobile expects to grow its portfolio of applications rapidly over the next 6-12 months as they begin to publish applications with 3rd party businesses.

This move will create a direct sales point for advertisers, giving them immediate access to AND’s entire mobile application inventory, as well as access to 3rd party applications as Teletext mobile expands its portfolio.

The major win comes just weeks after the advertising network announced the expansion of their mobile sales team, who manage Orange mobile advertising properties, including the recently launched interactive SMS/MMS mobile advertising service, ‘Orange Shots’.

Alex Rahaman, Director of Mobile at Unanimis, today commented:
“We are delighted to have won AND as a client which will allow the agency marketplace to have one central point of contact to buy ANM mobile properties. Our heritage in strong brand sponsorship advertising combined with mobile experience was integral to the deal.”

Richard D. Titus, CEO of AND, commented:
“We’re thrilled to have partnered with Unanimis in order to drive AND’s mobile publishing business forward. Unanimis’s unique targeting technology will prove essential for monetising our creative applications, services and content on mobile and portable devices.”

Neil Johnson, Managing Director of Teletext Mobile, added:
“AND has a great portfolio of brands offering an effective mix of reach with apps like Metro, with some really valuable verticals from our classified businesses. This combination of properties makes us unique in the market and we look forward to taking our offering out. Of all the agencies we spoke to, we felt that Unanimis offered us the most complete solution. We feel that they understand the needs of a big publisher and we look forward to developing a really vibrant network.”

Click Here to view New Media Age article.