For many years Olive Media has been the king of Canadian advertising networks. They held the best parties, represented all the cool brands and publishers in the battle for Canadian advertising dollars. Fast forward a few years later and the market is now flooded with competitors all trying to get their piece of the online advertising budget.

Should I Outsource Online Advertising Sales To An Advertising Network Or Hire Internal Sales Reps?

As publishers grew they started to hire their own sales advertising reps which poses a challenge to the business model of outsourcing your online advertising sales to an advertising network.  Over the last few months we’ve been hearing more and more rumours and rumblings about Olive Media including stronger competition from rivals such as Google, Millennial Media and Casale Media, and the latest is a possible sale by their parent company TorStar Digital. Logically it does not make sense for TorStar Digital to sell Olive Media since they are more of a service are rely upon AppNexus for the technology portion of their business.

New Leadership Takes Olive Media To The Next Level

Back in January, Simon Jennings left Olive Media for Post Media Network, and Kristie Painting &Theresa Smith took the helm as Co-President. They continue to bring in new business and push their team to deliver new online advertising formats, and it is working.

Enter New Advertising Format, More Advertising Networks and Adver-Pubs

We already talked about the number of online advertising networks that have entered the market since 2005 and the ad formats that have been created, of course we also have to take notice of the popularity of online video and mobile devices growing across the world which also creates new advertising demands. Another trend that is making significant changes to online advertising is the growth of  what I call “adver-pubs.” These are the companies such as Say Media or most recently Ideon Meida who recently acquired Nexopia.  This was a unique move as Ideon now can give their sales reps to opportunity sell online properties they own, but as well as independent publishers that they company represents through it online advertising network. Say Media formally known as Video Egg who later acquired blogging platform Six Apart and now also represents bloggers and other online properties they represent.

So what will Olive Media suffer?  Their parent company TorStar Digital continues to experiment with new partnerships and make investments in deals such Shop.ca or 25% investment into Blue And Media, so there is something cooking behind the scenes.  We’ve been hearing reports of Simon Jennings and Tomer Strolight have been frequenting the TorStar Digital office lately.   There definitely is a shift company coming…