TORONTO: Media Central Corporation Inc. today announced the launch of AdCentralDirect (ACD) an in-house mobile and cross-channel demand side platform (DSP) agency that connects digital advertising inventory through one interface.

AdCentralDirect is expected to be operational in June 2020.

AdCentralDirect will immediately provide brands access to advertising inventory on the digital platforms of MediaCentral’s iconic publications NOW Magazine and Georgia Straight, the Company’s cannabis-specialty platform Canncentral.com and ECentralSports.com, its digital esports and egaming title.

As AdCentralDirect evolves, it will look to unite additional independent alternative publications under its umbrella creating an attractive solution for advertisers looking to connect to influential consumers across the country.

“Over the next two years, AdCentralDirect intends to be one of the most effective solutions for brands looking to digitally maximize their presence in the market. In addition to optimizing our own digital ad inventory, this proprietary platform will also bring other local publications together, allowing marketers the opportunity to connect with publishers directly while increasing their CPM rate,” said Anton Tikhomirov, SVP of Technology and Architecture at MediaCentral.

“This venture creates a material and incremental revenue channel for our existing titles, one that previously did not exist at NOW or the Straight before we acquired them over the past six months.”

AdCentralDirect will provide brands the opportunity to strategically target consumers through display advertising, video content, social media, email and push notifications, while allowing them to monitor their advertising campaigns performance in real time.

Brands will have the choice to manage campaigns directly through AdCentralDirect’s proprietary platform or leverage the agency’s team of professional experts to execute for them, depending on the level of support they require. With Chrome and other browsers phasing out third-party cookies due to privacy rights, the ability for AdCentralDirect to offer advertisers MediaCentral’s first-party data will become increasingly valuable.

AdCentralDirect will leverage MediaCentral’s information, gleaned from its 6.5 million monthly readers, to help advertisers more effectively target audiences through psychographics and demographics, by location and device, providing a smart solution for brands looking to connect with the Company’s influential audience.

The launch of AdCentralDirect will tap into the growing programmatic advertising market, which exceeded $100 billion for the first time in 2019 and is projected to grow to $147 billion in 2021, according to a forecast from Publicis Groupe media agency Zenith. MediaCentral anticipates that AdCentralDirect will deliver over $5 million in programmatic sales from its existing digital titles between 2020 and 2021 with forecasted costs to achieve these sales being approximately $100,000 in CAPEX plus expected commissions of 35 per cent.

“The launch of AdCentralDirect is exactly the kind of inventive thinking that is going to propel our titles into modern, profitable media brands. AdCentralDirect provides us with a built-in revenue driver as we continue our mission to amass an influential audience of 100 million consumers by consolidating, uniting, and digitizing over 100 independent urban publications across North America. This is an important step as we move forward in building a leading, profitable digital publishing house,” said Brian Kalish, CEO of MediaCentral.