In the UK The Guardian, The Telegraph and News UK have banded together to create The Ozone Project – a jointly owned advertising platform they see as a way to create a “better digital ecosystem for advertisers, readers and publishers”.
The decision came about in light of concerns about the dominance of the duopoly by Facebook and Google. These concerns include brand safety, data governance, ad fraud and a lack of transparency in the supply chain.
The move has also led to speculation as to whether Australia will follow.
Currently in alpha, chief revenue officer at Guardian News and Media, Hamish Nicklin, said: “The Ozone Project is a response to the challenges we all face and aims to facilitate the highest standard of digital advertising and ensure quality journalism and content continues to be funded.”
Ozone will give advertisers access to a combined audience of 39.4 million unique users.
“It's certainly a dynamic initiative,” CEO of Australia's NewsMediaWorks, Peter Miller, tells AdNews.
“It's bloody interesting – when the big dogs stand together and find ways of collaborating, they do it in different ways.”
Six corporations were involved in initial UK discussions in 2016, with Trinity Mirror (now Reach), DMG Media and Northern & Shell eventually exiting talks.
Miller points out the three players remaining are “premium publishers, so they've got very sought-after audiences that they want to do better with, so we're keeping an eye on that”.
While there are no immediate plans for a similar move in Australia, Ozone is clearly a big development in an industry with a firm eye on developments at Facebook and Google.
“These types of things are always lively options, but if it was needed here, it would have happened already,” says Miller.
“Our members would say they're doing everything they can to compete, but there are big doubts emerging about the fact these big international players mark their own homework.
“They don't subscribe to normal tax regimes, they don't subscribe to normal outcome measurement, there's a lot of pressure on them, there's the ACCC inquiry, and there are new conversations starting around the market all the time.
“But certainly, fighting the habits of pouring the majority of budgets down the maws of big digital players is a contest that all the publishers here are keen on doing better at.”
In that regard, the future The Ozone Project will be of keen interest.
“These UK guys, they're kind of complementary publishers, in that they have different stories to tell. Just as their journalists tell different stories, their corporate and commercial people have different stories to tell, so they have different narratives.
“At this stage they'll be very content to fight in their own corners, to generate momentum with online audiences, and at the same time fight for print, because in this news media market, readership online and offline is more or less equalised, so there they've still got two big opportunities in front of them, and they're working in their own way to make a winning score.
“One thing is for sure, if Ozone succeeds, if it goes gangbusters, they're not going to keep it secret – and there will be plenty of people copying it all around the world.”
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