Wal-Mart is spearheading a test of an online eBay-type auction system for the buy, sell, and trade of TV ads in the U.S. Earlier this week at Association of National Advertisers’ Advertising Financial Management Conference in Naples, Florida, Julie Roehm, the retail giant’s SVP, marketing communications, outlined the idea and called for an advertiser investment of $50 million U.S. to buy the ‘media stock’ needed to test the online system. Other major marketers supporting the idea include Hewlett-Packard, Masterfoods, Microsoft, Philips, and Toyota’s Lexus USA.
At the conference, eBay presented an online platform that could be used for the media marketplace. TV would likely be the only medium used for the test although all of the details have not yet been worked out. The group still needs to decide whether the auction would operate by having the marketer or its agency bid on the available inventory meeting their criteria or whether it would be a reverse auction with media sellers responding to requests for proposals.The plan calls for the test to be up and running early next year.
