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Per a recent commitment to broaden its digital advertising horizons, Microsoft today agreed to purchase online ad firm aQuantive for $6 billion, Internet News reports (via MarketingVOX).
At $66.50 per share at an 85 percent premium over aQuantive’s Thursday closing price, the $6 billion purchase represents Microsoft’s most ambitious bid to date.
Microsoft has stated it plans to use aQuantive’s myriad assets to develop “new media” ad systems like cross media planning, VOD and IPTV.
From inception, aQuantive has seen significant growth spurts, having evolved into three primary brands: DRIVEpm, an ad service that matches ad campaigns with published content; Avenue A | Razorfish, a digital marketing consulting service; and Atlas, the foundation for the Media Console ad platform.
aQuantive is expected to add thrust to Microsoft’s AdCenter, which serves approximately 500 users a month but remains a small contender to Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing.
The deal, disclosed less than 24 hours after WPP Group’s $649 million acquisition of 24/7 Real Media, is expected to finalize in Q1 of 2008.
CFO Chris Liddel noted the online ad market, worth about $40 billion at present, is expected to grow 20 percent per year until 2010.
All sectors of the media business will suffer from the weakened economy in 2008 and 2009, with a slump in local advertising particularly hurting newspapers and local TV, according to a new projection from Goldman Sachs.
Broadcast nets will experience…
The New York Times is shuttering its International Herald Tribune site; NYTimes.com will soon host the international news normally reserved for its sister website.
The move is not about cost savings, but rather about growth, NYTimes.com general manager Vivian Schiller…
Unilever’s Vaseline set forth on an unusual research project in a small town in Alaska. Setting up a storefront, the company began giving away free bottles of lotion and asking recipients to name the person who had recommended they come…
Meet the Press, the show hosted by Tim Russert for 17 years before his death last June, is beginning to slip in ratings.
Last month, CBS’s Face the Nation pulled ahead of Meet the Press for the first time in two…
Bloggers collectively create nearly one million blog posts each day, and half of bloggers believe blogs will be a primary source of news and entertainment in the next five years, according to Technorati’s 2008 State of the Blogosphere Report, MarketingCharts writes.…
Wal-Mart and Costco reported same-store gains in September, with sales rising 2.4% and 9% respectively. Sales at Target stores open at least a year fell 3%, writes Retailer Daily.
Below, fiscal results from the discount retail giants:
Sales of food and…
