After the failed attempt of QuadrantONE , The New York Times, Tribune Company, Hearst UK and Gannet alliance, the Pangaea alliance has since been established and will officially launch in April 2015. The Guardian initiated this latest consolidation of some of the country’s top publishing brands (Guardian, FT, CNN, Reuters, The Economist) to create the brand new programmatic platform.
The Creation of a Premium Audience
A combined audience of 110 millions users will be the result of the partnership, which could easily alarm such competitors as Facebook and Twitter. Since the publisher’s readers are top income profiles and C-Suite executives, advertisers using the platform will benefit from this highly qualified audience by displaying their ads on the publisher’s websites. Due to its premium audience, it is likely that the partners will charge a higher CPM than more traditional platforms.
The Combination of Programmatic and CRM Data
This premium audience is not the only key advantage of the Pangaea offer. Instead of focusing solely on the visitors of the websites, Pangaea will also bring more to the table, CRM data, which will be provided by each member of the alliance in equal proportion. Indeed, the publishers know their subscribers well and even though the data has to be used anonymously, it will offer the ability to create unique segments in order to target specific readers across the alliance network.
Overall Rating: 7.75
Revenue Potential: 7.5
The revenue potential is very strong. An audience of 110 million premium users is definitely a powerful source of revenue; moreover, we can assume that the CPM will likely be charged higher than more traditional platforms, meaning more ROI.
Value to Brands: 8
The value to the brands involved is excellent. This new platform will anchor the top publishers as programmatic advertising experts and put the brands under the spotlight.
User Experience: TBD
We did not experience the platform as it has not been launched yet, however, we will revisit this review once it is up.