LONDON, Wednesday 18th March 2015: Four of the world’s most influential and innovative publishers are today unveiling the Pangaea Alliance, a new digital advertising proposition that will allow brands to collectively access a highly influential global audience via the latest programmatic technology.

Spearheaded by the Guardian, Pangaea brings together CNN International, the Financial Times and Reuters as founding partners, with The Economist also providing access to advertising inventory.

The alliance is being launched in beta from April 2015 and will offer advertisers the ability to access inventory across the group of premium publishers via the Rubicon Project technology platform. During the beta phase Pangaea will offer display solutions both as a standalone product and alongside existing publisher initiatives including native advertising programmes and publisher trading desks.

The combined heritage and influence of the partners ensures Pangaea is uniquely positioned to offer brands trusted and influential advertising environments, in tandem with the alliance’s innovative audience targeting. By working together to share data and formats, these traditionally competitive organisations are able to offer brands bespoke automated advertising solutions which complement the publishers’ existing digital commercial proposition.

Pangaea will deliver the following benefits to advertisers:

Global quality at scale: The 110 million user-strong audience reached by the alliance is made up of highly influential and affluent individuals – one in four people are in the top income segments and one fifth are C-suite/senior management executives. Pangaea’s global reach is incredibly strong, with readers spread across North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific, making it the perfect solution for pan-regional campaigns.

Trust and heritage: With hundreds of years of collective publishing experience, Pangaea gives brands access to respected media companies which bring innovative thinking and a deep understanding of the future of digital publishing. Pangaea also allays advertisers’ concerns about the ‘black box’ of programmatic spending – brands can be safe in the knowledge their creative is appearing next to quality content.

More effective targeting: With partners sharing their first-party data, Pangaea will also offer advertisers the unique ability to understand an audience like never before, delivering hyper-targeted campaigns and deeper connections with readers.

Unparalleled creativity and innovation: Pangaea will allow brands to advertise using the most creative, technically advanced and engaging advertising formats on the market. This gives them the ability to create a coherent story across their media partners, and more meaningful relationships with prospective customers.

Ease of use: Pangaea creates a uniform, media-rich experience across one simple programmatic buy. Ads will work seamlessly across all the publishers, and advertisers will be able to liaise with just one point of contact for all publishers within the alliance.

The beta phase of the Pangaea Alliance will be managed by a central team which includes commercial leadership and operational resource from all the member publishers. On full launch, later this year, Pangaea will be managed by its own sales team, meaning advertisers will have one port of call for all their Pangaea needs.

Tim Gentry, global revenue director at Guardian News & Media and Pangaea Alliance project lead, said: “As the world becomes more complex and networked, Pangaea will give advertisers one single programmatic solution for driving influence at scale, allowing them to get cut-through in an increasingly fragmented market using the latest ad serving technology. Pangaea’s uniqueness lies in the quality of its partners. We know that trust is the biggest driver of brand advocacy, so we have come together to scale the benefits of advertising within trusted media environments, which are geared towards delivering cutting-edge creative campaigns in technically advanced formats.”

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Guardian News & Media Press Office
media.enquiries@theguardian.com
+ 44 (0) 20 3353 3696

Financial Times
Kristina Eriksson, head of media relations
kristina.eriksson@ft.com

Quotes from Pangaea Alliance Partners:

Rani Raad, Chief Commercial Officer, CNN International, said: 
“CNN has a long track-record for being at the forefront of innovation – in the way we make and tell the news, the platforms we’re available on and the brand solutions we offer advertisers and commercial partners. In the fast-developing area of programmatic trading, it makes sense for us to collaborate with other leading news companies to gain first mover advantage through a powerful global alliance. This opportunity will extend to a wide range of agencies and brands that want to harness the power of the innovative platforms, rich content mix and large-scale premium audiences delivered through Pangaea. This is an exciting addition to CNN International’s commercial proposition, coming soon after we’ve just launched a new bold, responsive website.”

Dominic Good, advertising sales director at the Financial Times, said: 
“The quality of the Financial Times audience is what our advertisers buy. Pangaea is an exciting initiative that strengthens premium publishers’ proposition by guaranteeing a trusted advertising environment, building significant scale and sharing smart targeting abilities.”

Shane Cunningham, Global Commercial Director at Reuters Consumer Media, said:
“With trading becoming increasingly automated and data focused, trust has moved front and centre with our client and agency partners. As a leading source for timely and impartial reporting, Reuters continues to drive engagement with the business elite around the world. Pangaea enables us to expand on this quality at scale, with similarly trusted and respected partners. Reuters is extremely proud to be part of the Pangaea alliance.”

Gregory R. Raifman, President of Rubicon Project, said: 
“Rubicon Project is thrilled to have our technology and innovative approach to powering co-operatives selected to support the ground-breaking Pangaea Alliance. ”

Guardian News & Media (GNM) publishes theguardian.com, the third largest English-speaking newspaper website in the world (comScore, December 2014). Since launching its US and Australia digital editions in 2011 and 2013 respectively, traffic from outside of the UK now represents around two-thirds of the Guardian’s total digital audience.

In the UK, GNM publishes the Guardian newspaper six days a week, first published in 1821, and the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper, The Observer.

The Guardian is most recently renowned for its Pulitzer Prize and Emmy-winning revelations based on the disclosures made by whistleblower Edward Snowden. In 2014, the Guardian was named newspaper and website of the year at the Society of Editors UK Press Awards and is the most trusted news source in the UK (Ofcom digital media report, 2014).

The Guardian is also known for its globally acclaimed investigation into phone hacking, the launch of its ground-breaking digital-first strategy in 2011 and its trailblazing partnership with WikiLeaks in 2010.

CNN’s portfolio of news and information services is available in five different languages across all major TV, internet and mobile platforms reaching more than 385 million households around the globe. CNN International, awarded “News Channel of the Year” by the Royal Television Society in 2013 and 2014, is the number one international TV news channel according to all major media surveys across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the Asia Pacific region and Latin America. The CNN digital network is consistently one of the top news and current affairs destination on the web. CNN has 42 editorial offices and more than 1,100 affiliates worldwide through CNN Newsource. CNN International is part of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner company.

The Financial Times, one of the world’s leading business news organisations, is recognised internationally for its authority, integrity and accuracy. Providing essential news, comment, data and analysis for the global business community, the FT has a combined paid print and digital circulation of 720,000 (Deloitte assured, Q4 2014). Mobile is an increasingly important channel for the FT, driving almost 50 per cent of total traffic. FT education products now serve two thirds of the world’s top 50 business schools. For news about the FT follow @FTPressOffice.

Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the world’s largest international multimedia news provider reaching more than one billion people every day. Reuters provides trusted business, financial, national, and international news to professionals via Thomson Reuters desktops, the world’s media organizations, and directly to consumers at Reuters.com and Reuters TV. For more information, go to www.reuters.com.

Rubicon Project (NYSE: RUBI) has engineered the Advertising Automation Cloud, one of the largest real-time cloud and Big Data computing systems. The Company’s mission is to automate the buying and selling of advertising by offering innovative products to connect buyers and sellers globally. www.RubiconProject.com @RubiconProject #Automation #Excellence #CultureMatters