| Type | a WPP company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Digital marketing |
| Founded | 1995 |
| Headquarters | New York City, New York, USA |
| Key people | David J Moore (CEO) Ari Bluman (President, N.A.) Nicolle Pangis (President, EU) Oleg Vishnepolsky (CTO) James Wesley (CFO) |
| Products | AdPlatform (Open AdStream) Ad serving |
| Website | http://www.247realmedia.com/ |
24/7 Real Media is a technology company headquartered in New York City specializing in Digital Marketing. It provides digital marketing solutions for publishers, advertisers and agencies globally. It was formerly listed as "TFSM" on the NASDAQ stock exchange. The company was purchased by WPP plc in 2007 for $649 million dollars.[1][2] David J. Moore is the Chairman, Founder & CEO . He also served as chairman of the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
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The original name of the company was 24/7 Media which was a result of a unification of Petry Interactive, Interactive Imaginations and Katz Millennium Marketing.[3][4][5] It had a stock market launch in August 1998[6][7] following which it went a through a period of rapid expansion through organic growth and a series of acquisitions. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
A very difficult situation arose in the wake of the tech bubble burst of 2001.[13][14] As a result, 24/7 Media merged with a company called Real Media and changed its name to 24/7 Real Media.[15][16][17] As part of this merger it acquired an advertising technology platform called Open AdStream. According to a video recording of the CEO produced 9 years later,[18] it was able to capitalize on a mistake by Doubleclick. Doubleclick had agreed to buy Real Media for 11 million dollars. DoubleClick tried to change the offer to 10M at the last moment. Thus, the sellers - a Swiss company PubliGroupe - gave 24/7 Media an opportunity to acquire Real Media for no-cash 2 million dollar of stock swap. This acquisition came at the right time as 24/7 Media's stock was trading at 10 cents. The Real Media acquisition brought intellectual property, Open Adstream, additional revenues and clients. Incidentally, because of the 24/7 Real Media stock appreciation in subsequent years, PubliGroupe received in payments a total of over 25 million dollars by 2007, instead of Doubleclick's $10M.[19][20][21]
The turnaround started shortly thereafter according to the stock price. In July 2002 the company raised 7 million dollars in equity funding.[22] In 2003 24/7 Real Media licensed its patents on behavioral targeting to 6 of its rivals, Doubleclick included.[23] In January 2003 24/7 bought a web analytics company Insight First.[24] In 2004 24/7 Real Media acquired an SEM technology company Decide Interactive.[25][26] In 2006 Open AdStream and Insight First analytics were integrated.[27]
24/7 Real Media was acquired in 2007 by WPP[28] at $11.75 a share, a turnaround from the low of 39 cents a share in 2003.[29] Journal The Economist reported that WPP acquisition of 24/7 Real Media was a reaction to Google acquiring 24/7's main rival DoubleClick.[30] Microsoft was a contender to buy 24/7 Real Media at the time.[31] A year later in 2008 Microsoft was still interested.[32]
In 2010 the CEO of 24/7 Real Media David J Moore made some frank and inspirational comments about the company history and the WPP acquisition in a series of 12 short video recordings.[33] In one of the recordings Moore says that the reason the company survived and prospered was that "we simply refused to give up". This remark is consistent with Moore's being a marathon runner, Iron Man and a long distance swimmer.[34][35][36][37] There is a number of recordings of the CEO on Youtube.[38]
According to various press releases, SEC filings and the company website 24/7 Real Media has the following product set [39][40][41][42][43]: