Edited by Joshua Smith

June 26, 2001 - Online advertising technology and media firm Real Media today announced that they has formed a unique strategic partnership with traditional media representation company Publicitas North America designed to enable the companies to co-market and cross-sell advertising packages across both print and interactive platforms. Both companies are part of Swiss-based PubliGroupe, which claims to be the oldest and largest media services organization in the world.

The initial media properties to benefit from this partnership include the likes of Financial Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Miller Sports Group, and Investors Business Daily, since both the print and online divisions of these company's publications are represented by the two ad reps involved in this partnership.

"This is a tremendous opportunity for advertisers to take advantage of the cross-media synergies of our two companies," said Joe Kelly, President of Publicitas North America. "Moving forward, this is how precisely defined campaigns will be run, across multiple platforms but from a central creative and accounting source. We expect this to enable far more effective campaigns and impactful branding for our clients, while conversely providing efficiencies that should save them money," said Kelly.

Media analysts have projected that such cross-media selling would be a future trend. And numerous agencies have joined forces in the hope of such cross selling. But this is the first time that such major, international media properties have been joined by two agencies under the same roof. The companies are creating special positions to maximize these and other opportunities.

"We firmly believe that the market will evolve towards an integrated media packages approach: Such partnerships are a natural next step for advertisers who see these media as complementary," said Silvana Imperiali, Real Media's Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of North America and Latin America. "Real Media is committed to providing digital marketing solutions to advertisers, and our strategic alliance with Publicitas is a major step in our ability to bring more advertisers to the Web more effectively," said Imperiali.

Kelly and Imperiali have nominated Mark Walters to serve as the Managing Director of Integrated Media for both companies. Walters continues his duties as Real Media's Dallas Advertising Director and adds the navigation of this important cross platform process.