Insight From aQuantive’s Brian McAndrews
At the first-ever Digital Conference in New York, hosted by American Association of Advertising Agencies, Brian McAndrews was the center of attention. His company, aQuantive just sold to Microsoft for $6 billion and everyone wanted to hear what the man had to say.
During a Q&A, McAndrews said that a deciding factor was the opportunity Microsoft would give aQuantive with technical and financial capital resources. This would allow the company to flourish.
“The key difference between digital and traditional media is technology,” he said. “We are aligning with the largest technology company in the world.”
Although McAndrews does not see an end to consolidation in sight, he does not think that signals an end to industry pioneering.
“We’re in the first or second inning of a long game here. There’s no monopoly on innovation,” he said. “I don’t think you’re going to see two or three big players and then game over. There will continue to be a broad range of companies.”
Being adopted by Microsoft gives aQuantive immediate access to many resources otherwise more costly to the company should they’ve attempted independent aquisition. Companies such as ScreenTonic, a mobile marketing firm, and Massive, an in-game advertising expert.
McAndrews assure that while there will be obvious changes to the company, Avenue A/Razorfish will be the least affected when the deal closes late this year.
Another perk of the aquisition are the global possibilities for aQuantive. “We are in the seven largest countries. We want to be in more,” said McAndrews.
Discussing their best-of-breed model he said, “We’ve put creatives and media planners side by side with software developers and the statisticians,” “They get along. It’s hard, but it’s more easily done with a best-of-breed model.”
In speaking about the fusion of advertising agencies and technology companies he claims the lines have been blurring for years, stating “That is the agency of the future. When all media are digital, we’re all digital agencies.”
He believes that this is true with traditional media as well, saying that TV is mirroring the Internet rather than vice versa.
“Distribution can trump destination,” he said. “I need to go where the audience is.” This is yet another reason Microsoft seemed to be such a good match.
McAndrews added that he does not anticipate any antitrust issues because Microsoft and aQuantive have different strengths to make up for the other’s weaknesses.
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