The New York Times has recently announced that they are launching their own mobile ad platform. The platform, which will be called, “The Mobile Moments” will be used to display mobile readers with relevant ads based on the content of the page that is being displayed. From everything I have found the platform does not seem to be advanced or innovative, but for the NYT that is likely unnecessary anyway.
This will allow the Times to have greater control into when and where their ads are displayed compared to going through a third party platform as well, which is likely very attractive to the company.
The ads will be created by T Brand Studio, which is the New York Times’ in-house commercial content group.
In a statement released about this, Sebastian Tomich, who is the senior VP of advertising and innovation for the Times said, “Mobile Moments is the first phase of a long-term mobile native advertising solution that will continue to evolve. Based on the success our newsroom has had with moment-based targeting for its journalism, the commercial side of our organization has adopted similar tools, templates and insights and tailored them to suit our advertisers’ needs.”
There has not been much information released on marketers getting their ads into the platform. The New York Times may just offer the service to their existing large advertiser, at least at the beginning. Having the Times create a platform like this, however, is a great sign for the long term continued growth of mobile advertising in general.
