Expanding upon its vision to provide the advertising industry with a world-class, Internet-wide advertising platform, Microsoft today announced that it will acquire aQuantive, Inc.
The aQuantive acquisition helps Microsoft to enhance relationships with advertisers, agencies, and media owners/publishers by strengthening its world-class advertising platforms and services. It also gives Microsoft increased abilities in building and supporting next-generation advertising solutions, environments, and platforms such as cross-media planning, video-on-demand, and IPTV.
Pairing aQuantive’s technologies and services with Microsoft’s portfolio will provide value for many groups:
- Advertisers and ad agencies will benefit from the creation of a media planning, buying, and campaign management solution to drive maximum ROI and optimize their reach.
- Media owners/publishers will gain access to inventory optimization and monetization solutions across a full suite of rich media, video, and targeting capabilities via Atlas Publisher and DRIVEpm.
- The broader advertising industry will benefit from the leading interactive agency, Avenue A | Razorfish, bringing the voice of the marketer into Microsoft’s advertising platforms and services.
“Today’s announcement represents the next step in the evolution of our ad network from our initial investment in MSN, to the broader Microsoft network including Xbox, Windows Live and Office, and now to the full capacity of the Internet,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “Microsoft is intensely committed to creating a thriving advertising business and to partnering closely with all key constituencies in this industry to help maximize the digital advertising opportunity for all.”
Founded in 1997, aQuantive, Inc. is the parent company of one of the industry’s most successful families of digital marketing service and technology companies, encompassing three main brands: Avenue A | Razorfish provides agencies and advertisers with digital marketing and measurement services that help them use the Internet to build relationships with customers. Atlas provides advanced tools and services for marketers, agencies, and publishers that help them manage and measure digital marketing campaigns. DRIVEpm is an ad network providing services to publishers and advertisers to maximize ROI.
aQuantive, which has approximately 2,600 employees, will continue to operate from its Seattle headquarters as part of Microsoft’s Online Services Business. The mission of this group is to build the ad platform for
MSN,
Windows Live,
Xbox, and
Office, as well as for third-party publishers and applications such as
Facebook.
