Google Extends Partnership with VivaKi

Google and VivaKi – a digital agency that is part of the Publicis Groupe – are renewing their two-year 2008 partnership that will incorporate a new platform for buying video and mobile display ads in the United States and Europe, according to the New York Times.

The Times reported that the platform, an extension of the VivaKi Nerve Center trading desk, or the Audience on Demand product, would allow companies to bid on mobile and video display advertising space in real time on ad exchanges, including Google’s DoubleClick exchange.

Google is expected to co-develop a product with VivaKi that builds on the existing technology of Invite Media, the ad-buying platform Google bought in June, and the automated display advertising technology of Teracent, the San Mateo start-up Google acquired in 2009.

Neal Mohan, the vice president for product management responsible for Google’s display-advertising products, told the Times that the feedback from publishers was “extremely positive,” adding that display advertising has so far represented a $2.5 billion business for the company, and mobile advertising a $1 billion yearly run-rate.

“Marketers have seen the power of addressable advertising; the logical progression is to do this in video and in mobile advertising,” Curt Hecht, chief executive of VivaKi Nerve Center, told the Times.

In addition, Hecht predicted that video and mobile advertising will make up a bigger market than graphical display advertising, according to the Times.

Google’s acquisitions of YouTube and AdMob, the mobile advertising start-up, also represent vast inventory pools for advertisers, Hecht told the Times.

VivaKi is part of Publicis Groupe, the world’s third largest communications group, the world’s second largest media counsel and buying group, and a global leader in digital and healthcare communications.

With around the world activities spanning more than 104 countries on five continents, the group employs some 44,000 professionals