Facilitate Digital announces

9 November 2005

Facilitate Digital announces

New Online Media Planning Service for Agencies

Leading provider of digital marketing technology Facilitate Digital have extended their product and service offering, and now provide media agencies with campaign planning & buying services for online advertising.

“This is an exciting new era in the evolution of the NZ online industry, and our business” announced NZ Managing Director Michael Te Young. “Ironically, we have introduced planning & buying services in response to agencies who want to be self-proficient. Given the growth of digital media, many agencies realise the need to understand and take greater control of their client’s online advertising and not be reliant on a 3rd party but the transition is difficult for them to make.”

That is where Te Young claims the new service has a role to play. “We offer agencies a stepping stone by doing the grunt work but still providing rich information via our online technology systems. Information leads to empowerment and, in time, competency.”

This same teaching focus is also what drives Facilitate Digital’s Industry Education Program which consisted of a Conference in August and an Agency Workshop to be held later this month. Continues Te Young, “We are not planning & buying online media with the same sophistication as the rest of the world and this is an impediment to industry growth. We need to adopt international best practice if NZ is to experience similar growth rates as markets like Australia and the UK.”

In addition to skills development Te Young says there are three key benefits for agencies that outsource, to utilise them.

“Firstly our ad-serving systems give the Agency [via the planning service] increased control by enabling the ability to audit, analyse and optimise the campaign while in play. Secondly it is a transparent fee and is offered exclusively to agencies. No supplementary commissions are paid by publishers as this would destroy the integrity of the service.

It works totally for the buyer. Thirdly it offers superior value at a lower cost because the same fee includes our ad-serving technology and the advertiser can save more than 6% in middle tier commissions than the current model.”

To support its service Facilitate Digital has recruited highly experienced online media planner, Melloney Walmsley, to head their Agency Services division. Walmsley was previously at The Internet Bureau, where she managed campaigns for clients such as Freedom Air, Sky TV, Johnson & Johnson, Coke and Microsoft.

ENDS

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