StyleCaster, MediaMath Launch Fashion-Focused DSP

By: Erik Sass  Published: December 21, 2011

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Several big fashion magazine publishers have launched private online exchanges for their display ad inventory, but there are plenty of other potential iterations of ad networks, exchanges, and demand-side platforms out there.

One company, StyleCaster Media Group, has partnered with MediaMath to create a DSP that gives advertisers access to multiplatform ad inventory from big fashion publishers, including Conde Nast, Glam, and Hearst, as well as StyleCaster’s own blog and mobile app of the same name.

The new fashion-focused media-buying platform, wittily named “Style as a Service,” combines MediaMath’s media exchange technology with StyleCaster’s data, including real-time audience segmentation for online fashion properties.

According to StyleCaster, their version of “SaaS” should free brands from their dependence on ad networks for vertical media buys, allowing them to enjoy the efficiency and relative transparency of exchanges and DSPs.

Looking ahead to 2012, StyleCaster Media Group President and co-founder David Goldberg said StyleCaster will also be re-launching StyleCaster.com and unveiling an e-commerce model in the coming year.

As noted, the StyleCaster-MediaMath partnership comes on the heels of a number of private ad exchanges launched by magazine and newspaper publishers. 

In February of this year, The New York Times Co., Gannett, Tribune, and Hearst launched a joint, private exchange managed by a joint venture called QuadrantOne, although The New York Times Web site itself did not participate.

More recently, in early December, Gannett’s USA Today revealed plans to launch a separate private ad exchange, while GateHouse Media, which owns hundreds of local daily and weekly newspapers around the country, launched a private exchange with Casale. In mid-November, Conde Nast unveiled its own private ad exchange with access limited to a handful of major advertisers through the end of this year.