Orange has made two significant moves to bolster its advertising capabilities, creating what it claims is Europe’s first online advertising exchange, and adding interactive ads to its fixed-line TV services.
The Orange Ad Market is designed to change the way online advertising space is sold throughout Europe, by allowing firms to bid for advertising space in a real-time auction.
Orange is looking to tap into a market for online advertising tipped to be worth $15 billion (€11.1 billion) in Western Europe by end 2011.
It will initially launch Ad Market in the UK and France this quarter but will add other countries as part of a multi-year deal with advertising technology provider Open X, which supplies the underlying platform and region-specific tools.
Orange says it will leverage its position as Europe’s largest advertising network to get publishers on-board Ad Market, which it states has a global reach of 343 million unique monthly users.
The announcement came a day after Orange announced a partnership with French broadcaster TF1 to place interactive advertisements on Orange TV.
Two million Orange customers who receive TV services via ADSL will gain access to advertiser’s mini-sites.
Paul-François Fournier, vice president of Audience and Advertising at Orange, said the TF1 deal lays the groundwork for expanding the service to other TV channels and ISPs, and would boost customer interaction.