Interviews

Interviews with the most important professionals and leaders of the travel and marketing online sectors.

Tony Laskar, Director of Business Development, SpecificMedia

Published on 29/10/2008

SpecificMedia is an innovative global technology and online media company that enables advertisers to target audiences through advanced proprietary demographic, behavioral, contextual, geographic and retargeting technologies across a Premium Network of name brand publishers with unprecedented scale and accuracy.

How many sites does SpecificMedia provide services to?

We work with only premium branded established sites of the Top 500 comScore publishers both in the US and Europe. We also partner with well respected niche sites which have been site vetted to meet the strict IAB and IASH guidelines. All of which will provide positive associations to our advertisers branding and direct response campaigns

In which countries or industries are you focused?

Currently we are based in the US, UK, France, Germany and Denmark. We are leaders in the following industries providing the largest reach of audience with the optimum Return on Investment for our advertisers in Travel, Telecoms, Finance, Automotive and FMCG.

Do you have any specific plans for expansion?

Of course, we have received in excess of $100m of which has led us to create aggressive plans to expand internationally outside of the US. We are looking to enter markets on a global scale throughout EMEA and Asia.

What are the benefits or advantages that SpecificMedia offers over other Behavioral Targeting companies?

Our Behavioural Targeting capability in comparison to other companies is that we have been doing this since 1999 and have a wealth of experience under our belt to understand what and how to do it. Most companies claim they are leaders in BT but in comparison to us do not come close. We have developed global partnerships consisting in excess of 2.5m websites to effectively provide real time in market specific audiences. Whereas other companies are no way close to this scale and will find it difficult to perform with accurate targeting, thus wasting advertisers money.

What do you think has been the key SpecificMedia's success?

The key to SM’s success has been through first class leadership, innovation and really understanding what advertisers want and to deliver against their needs. We have the largest data network of anonymous and non-personal identifiable data in the market place which provides granular targeting with accuracy and scalability. Furthermore, our people at SM have a wealth of experience and knowledge which continues to drive success and holds us in pole position to pioneer new product developments since 1999.

What do you think is the future for Online Advertising?

The future for online advertising will continue to grow and will overtake all other mediums and will be the advertising of choice. For marketing directors of the world it will be about branding and targeting their customers which provide their business with the results they need.

What will be the role of Behavioral Targeting in that future?

The role of BT from now onwards will be about aiming to deliver each impression to the right consumer, providing no wastage of the advertisers budget.

What do you foresee for Behavioral Advertising itself?

Put simply, we have a medium which can be measured and provide results for advertisers. These results in return make our economies survive on a global scale – businesses need to be measured on performance and that’s what SM delivers to advertisers – performance. We will continue to deliver specific audiences to our advertisers.

Have you noticed any particular trends?

Yes, online advertising will overtake TV and remain as the most effective medium for advertising and we will see shifts from advertising budgets away from the other mediums, such as radio and print too. Keep in mind the growth of broadband has supported the use of internet and the global online population increases each day, thus with so many users spending more time on the internet we need to continue developing the cutting edge products to support our markets need.

Could you please tell us about the most important behavioural targeting success story you have seen lately?

Of course. SM obtained $100m investment – this is the largest amount of funds ever received in our industry – why, because we executed our business plan in the US perfectly, developed the best products in the market place for our advertisers and publishers; and we are already executing our international plan on a global scale.

Our gratitude to Tony Laskar for his time and support with this excellent interview and get to know more about SpecificMedia.