Adforce secures contract to sell online adverts on BBC website

IRISH AGENCY Adforce has won an exclusive contract to sell advertising targeted at Irish viewers on the BBC’s international website and mobile platform.

The deal will mean the advertising company, which is a subsidiary of the Digital Reach Group, will sell the advertising space Irish users are able to see on BBC.com, the public service broadcaster’s mobile site, and its iPhone news app.

As part of its agreement with the BBC, Adforce will take a percentage of the revenue generated through the advertisements it sells, with the contract running on an ongoing basis subject to performance.

“Our goal is to bring BBC out as a converged offering,” said Kevin Foley, commercial director of Adforce. “We want to offer it to the market as web, mobile, iPad and converging platforms in the market.”

According to web analytics company Omniture, there were more than 1.5 million unique Irish visitors to BBC.com in early 2010, accounting for 23 million page-views a month.

Countries like Ireland and the United States are being seen by the BBC as key markets for digital advertising growth, not least because it does not advertise to viewers based in Britain.

Mr Foley said the company won the contract following a “competitive” pitch. It will offer standard and bespoke advertising formats as part of the deal, as well as “pre-roll” video commercials which puts adverts at the beginning of video clips on the site.

“I think they [video adverts] are going to be one of the big things this year because brands globally are predicting that 10-20 per cent of their TV spend will be moving to online video advertisement,” said Mr Foley. “They are realising that people are watching a percentage of their TV online and they need to start focusing their budgets on that,” he added.

One of the more acclaimed platforms being used to watch TV online is the BBC iPlayer, which is available only to British viewers.

BBC.com managing director Luke Bradley-Jones recently revealed that the iPlayer would be rolled out internationally, initially on a subscription basis, although eventually through an advertising-supported model in some countries.

Mr Foley said he expected this to be a significant development for online advertising and hoped to see Adforce work with the BBC as its plans for it in Ireland become clearer.