February 11, 2014: Brand Spend Drives 80 Percent Growth on the Nexage Exchange During the Holiday Season

Nexage, the leading premium mobile advertising exchange, announced today that advertising spend grew 80 percent from pre-holiday spending levels, primarily driven by a 153 percent growth in brand spend. At peak, brand spend, which includes popular brands driving awareness, consideration, and call-to-action campaigns, represented 70 percent of the total spend on the Nexage Exchange. Accelerated brand spend has been well-anticipated across the market; it was only a matter of time before marketers and agencies responded to the massive consumer adoption of all-things mobile. Inputs from agencies, trading desks, and buyers during the fall Nexage Forum and London Roundtable strongly suggested that brands were coming off the sidelines. The 2013 holiday season served as a forcing function for retailers and brands to drive m-commerce and in-store sales. This trend does not seem to be slowing down as forecasts show mobile brand spend overtaking online brand spend by 2017. Although accelerated brand spend was predicted, it is nonetheless a profound step for the mobile advertising industry. With more brands leveraging mobile, it will focus attention on how marketers and agencies reach premium audience at scale, capitalize on programmatic, develop and execute retargeting solutions without a cookie, leverage emerging attribution solutions, build mobile-optimized rich media and video creative, and ensure a brand-safe environment. Marketers and agencies understand the extraordinary value of mobile advertising, and now, they are seizing that value. “The need to drive m-commerce and in-store sales proved to be a forcing function for brands, and a watershed moment for the industry,” said Ernie Cormier, CEO and president of Nexage. “The rapid growth in brand spend on the Nexage Exchange speaks to what brand marketers and agencies will prioritize: premium audience at scale in a brand-safe environment, driven by the superior efficiency of programmatic markets. The strong results are impressive on their own merit, but maybe more important is that they are a prelude to a breakout 2014 for brand spend and the premium segment.”