DDS and MediaBank complete merger to form Mediaocean

The US Department of Justice has approved the merger of Donovan Data Systems and MediaBank, which will now launch as Mediaocean.

The company launches today with a mission of “creating the first global operating system designed specifically for the advertising industry: Mediaocean OS”.

Mediaocean OS will be an open platform with universal APIs – enabling advertisers, agencies, media sellers, and third-party application builders to integrate with it seamlessly, according to the press release.

“We’re living through a revolution in communications,” said Bill Wise, Mediaocean CEO. “One we all want to take full advantage of. Imagine easily integrating campaigns across all traditional and digital media, so marketers manage brand resources around the globe in the same way they do within their home market today. Imagine applying the amazing data that’s captured on consumer preferences, behaviour and location in real time, to individualised marketing efforts. With today’s proprietary, silo systems, this is almost impossible, but with an open platform, we can realise it tomorrow.”

Michael Donovan, Mediaocean executive chairman, believes an open operating system will unleash a new wave of creativity in the ad industry. “When I started DDS back in the 1960s, TV was coming into its own, and agencies were struggling to use it effectively. DDS systems made TV planning and buying much more efficient, freeing-up agency resources to focus on creative. The result was a renaissance of creativity in advertising messages. Now, digital media and changes in consumer behaviour pose a completely new and different challenge – how to make effective use of all the data. We believe the open Mediaocean OS will help agencies and third-party developers quickly create innovative tools and systems to harness that data. Agencies are entering a new renaissance – this time built on information creativity.”

MediaOcean will process $150 billion in global ad spend annually. See MediaOcean’s promo video here.

MediaOcean will not be a bigger or better DDS or MediaBank but will instead be a brand new entity, according to Greg Koerner, CMO, MediaBank (pictured). Speaking at MediaTel Group’s invite-only event ‘Why Aren’t We All Trading Electronically?’ in November last year, Koerner described his vision for MediaOcean as a seamless electronic exchange, “eliminating errors”. It will revolve around an operating system – “providing an opportunity for media buyers to create what they want”, he said.

The Mediaocean OS is likely to roll out immediately after the deployment of the company’s digital media processing system this summer.

Read the full MediaPost article here.