Yahoo, WPP Partner On Ads Marketplace, Right Media Linkage

Consoling each other at acquisition travails and an overly-dominant Google (NSDQ: GOOG) respectively, Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) and WPP are trumpeting a partnership that will see the ad firm place its agency clients’ messages in to the portal’s Right Media Exchange network. WPP’s 24/7 Real Media will develop “a proprietary media trading platform” using what it said are its own “proprietary targeting capabilities” so partner firm GroupM can place ads in to the exchange. Sounds like WPP wants to both play a part in Right Media and keep a tight (proprietary) reign. This also creates a “WPP marketplace” of Yahoo’s ad networks and 24/7’s Global Web Alliance. WPP chief Martin Sorrell had advocated the Microsoft-Yahoo acquisition as a foil to what he sees as an increasingly powerful Google ads operation.