Dentsu Aegis Network invests in Avid Media to boost content marketing 
Global media group, Dentsu Aegis Network has invested in content discovery platform, Avid Media to strengthen its content marketing offerings. Avid Media’s insight tool, Canopy, and its native distribution and measurement platform, Spartan, will be part of Dentsu Aegis Network’s data-focused performance buying and programmatic offering. The company aims to become a 100% digital economy business by 2020. Avid Media’s chief executive Nick Brown and chief technology officer Tim Brown will retain their positions.
Dentsu Aegis Network has invested in its content marketing offer after partnering with Avid Media in a move intended to offer the group's clients greater insight and distribution opportunities.

The agreement will see Avid Media’s proprietary technologies become available to Dentsu Aegis Network’s advertisers.

This will include its insight tool, Canopy, which offers valuable data into the best content to create by analysing what is being created, discussed and shared. In addition, Dentsu Aegis Network will also gain access to Avid Media’s native distribution and measurement platform, Spartan.

The partnership will accelerate the group's content marketing capabilities while strengthening its data-led performance buying and programmatic offering. It will also support Dentsu Aegis Network’s goal of becoming a 100 per cent digital economy business by 2020.

Nick Brown (pictured), chief executive at Avid Media, will continue in his role alongside his brother Tim who will remain the chief technology officer.

Discussing the new partnership, Dentsu Aegis Network’s chief operations officer, Mark Creighton, said: “The appetite from advertisers to create engaging brand experiences through quality digital content has never been greater. Creating the right content and distributing it effectively to the right audience is key.

“With the rising trend towards ad-blocking, native content placement will become increasingly important to reaching people with relevant brand messaging. Avid Media is a highly complementary fit to our existing capability in media, performance, content and brand commerce, and will provide our clients with a powerful combination of both content insight and distribution.”

Brown added: “We’re really excited to be working with Dentsu Aegis in this increasingly important space. Native is a form of distribution and should not be treated as just another advertising unit.

“If you invest the time to understand how content works, how it is consumed and created, you can then further improve its performance and truly engage with a consumer. This announcement reflects the hard work and dedication of our very talented management team, and will help us further scale our global footprint and make our offering available to more clients.”