Fairfax and Mi9 taking control of mobile inventory launching delayed APEX exchange
News Corp’s decision not to join a new advertising alliance between Fairfax and Mi9 has been blamed on a switch in internal politics after the sacking of CEO Kim Williams.
The new premium mobile exchange APEX is set to launch today two and half years after the idea of a publisher exchange was first touted with the publishers looking to take back control of their own premium inventory from the likes of Google.
Originally conceived as a desktop exchange APEX has gone through several iterations, with potential launch partners including News Corp and Yahoo7 pulling out, to launch with mobile inventory from sites including The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, NineMSN and the Daily Mail.
The exchange aims to address a gap in the market by giving traders an “ability to access a large pool of premium inventory that is 100 per cent brand safe programmatically”.