Xaxis (business)

Xaxis

Industry	Marketing and Advertising
Founded	2011 (2011)
Headquarters	New York, NY, US
Key people	Brian Lesser, Global CEO David J. Moore, Chairman Mark Grether, Global COO Christina Van Tassell, Global CFO Nicolle Pangis, Global CRO Paul Dolan, Executive Vice President, Global Business Development
Number of employees	1,000
Website	www.xaxis.com

Xaxis is a global agency trading desk that programmatically connects advertisers and publishers to audiences across all addressable channels. Xaxis combines proprietary technology, unique data assets, and exclusive media relationships with a team of audience analysts, data scientists, and software engineers.

Xaxis works with over 2,800 clients around the world.^[1]

History

Xaxis was launched by WPP and GroupM in 11 countries across North America, Europe, and Australia in June 2011. The creation of Xaxis was spurred from the rapidly growing demand for audience buying and solutions that allow advertisers to target specific audiences.^{[2] [3]} The company’s goal was to manage what it described as the "world's largest" database of profiles of individuals that includes demographic, financial, purchase, geographic, and other information collected from their web activities and brick-and-mortar transactions. ^[4] In early 2014, Xaxis announced the release of their second proprietary data management platform (DMP), Turbine. According to the company, the Turbine allows Xaxis to reach a variety of media platforms with a broad scope of audience buying capabilities that had previously been independently developed and optimized. ^[5]

On December 3, 2013, Xaxis merged with WPP sister company 24/7 Media, a digital-marketing technology company.^[6] The merger was finalized January 21 2014. ^{[7] [8]}

Less than 3 weeks after the merger, Xaxis acquired Bannerconnect, an ad firm headquartered in the Netherlands.^[9] The merger was finalized January 21, 2014.

On September 22, 2014, Xaxis announced that AppNexus would be acquiring Open AdStream, formerly known as Xaxis for Publishers. In addition, WPP invested $25 million in AppNexus as part of a funding round by a public equity firm. The deal was finalized on October 31, 2014.^[10][11]

Nine months later, Light Reaction was launched on June 2, 2015. ^[12] Light Reaction is a programmatic performance advertising business that sells clearly defined consumer outcomes. Light Reaction’s mobile-first approach to performance combines scientific insight with the data resources and scale of Xaxis to deliver highly measurable results for global advertisers. ^[13]

Recognition

1. Crain’s Best Places to Work 2013: Number 5 ^[14]
2. Internet Week Best Places to Work NYC Tech: finalist ^[15]
3. Won Asian Marketing Effectiveness & Strategy Award 2014 (AMES), Category: Data Mining - Audience Association and Clustering Analysis ^[16]
4. Marketing Excellence Awards Malaysia (2014): Excellence in Data-Driven Marketing, Won Silver Award ^[17]
5. FESTIVAL OF MEDIA 2014, Nominated for Best Use of Technology for Xaxis Sync Product ^[18]
6. Xaxis’ Simon Honc shortlisted for DATA IQ New Talent Award ^[19]
7. MMA Global Smarties Award: Best Programmatic Campaign with MediaCom for DSW Cross Screen Campaign (2015) ^[20]
8. Mobile Mafia Award: Best Cross-Screen Activation with MediaCom for DSW Cross Screen Campaign (2015) ^[21]
9. Summit Marketing Effectiveness Platinum Award: Online Advertising and Marketing Campaign with MediaCom for DSW Cross Screen Campaign (2015) ^[22]

References