The AdColony business today was built from over ten different acquisitions, and all of the various companies had different specialties. In the earlier days of AdColony/Opera Mediaworks, the breadth of services we offered allowed us to work with publishers and advertisers in a variety of different ways, and this was a huge advantage for us.
As the mobile advertising market has evolved, however, the needs of publishers and advertisers have changed, and we’ve found that being a mobile generalist with capabilities across the ecosystem has taken our focus away from our core business strength of delivering the highest quality in-app mobile video results for publishers and advertisers globally.
The key things our partners are looking for is different today than what it was three or four years ago. For example, most publishers are no longer looking for ad serving and mediation help from us. Advertisers are now looking to buy programmatically, and more so than almost anything else, they are looking for direct supply.
In response to these market changes, we have decided to make a few changes to our business. Specifically we will be shutting down the legacy AdMarvel platform and exiting the mediation, ad serving, and white label tech licensing businesses. The one area from AdMarvel that will continue is our exchange. Previously referred to as OMAX (Opera Mediaworks Exchange), this infrastructure will be a key part of our go forward plan as it connects over 100 DSPs and all the major trading desks to our direct supply.
In addition to exiting these AdMarvel businesses, we plan to migrate off all legacy platforms and shift our business onto the AdColony platform. These moves will enable us to streamline our operations, focus our business onto the AdColony platform, and ensure that our business is centered around the direct supply and creative solutions the AdColony SDK unlocks for us.
Because there are partners who still utilize AdMarvel, we will operate the platform until May 2018, working with these publishers on how to migrate off of it and potentially explore other options.
We have a number of team members who work on ad serving and mediation, and there are also people who work on non-AdColony platforms today, so as part of our shift in strategy, we will be making some changes and letting people go. This is a tough decision, but we feel like it is the right one for our company, and our remaining staff of over 400 people will be set up to focus on the areas where we see the most growth potential.
Over the coming weeks, months, and years, we feel like the best way we can create true value in the mobile ad ecosystem is by focusing on our unique strengths, which are based around our relationships with top publishers and powered by our SDK. We will be focusing on mobile video, performance and programmatic, and if we can meet the opportunity in front of us, we can maintain our position as the largest in-app mobile marketplace outside of social, and fill the need in the ecosystem for a strong independent player.
The AdColony SDK is integrated with more of the top 1000 apps than anyone outside of Google, so as the industry moves more towards direct supply, we feel confident that we are in a unique position to give advertisers what they are looking for, and the increased focus on this part of our business will actually enable to do this even more effectively than we are now.
We will be reaching out directly to any publishers who may be impacted by the changes to AdMarvel, and look forward to continuing our work with all of our various partners in the mobile ad ecosystem.
- Making Changes to Help Us Focus and Grow - November 13, 2017
