There is consolidation going on among the ad systems being used by most of the big national advertising agencies and media planning shops.
Dreamscape has entered into an agreement to acquire Mediaocean’s global media planning tool, Lumina. The tool helps improve media plan workflow and visibility between brands and agencies through an end-to-end system. At the same time, following the previous strategic acquisitions of Standard Media Index and SQAD, Dreamscape has rebranded to Guideline, which it says highlights the company’s role in guiding advertising decisions for a majority of the world’s largest brands, agencies, and media owners.
In an announcement about the move, Dreamscape says the new Guideline brand is designed to emphasize its ability to offer an accurate, real-world view into industry spend and media costs that not only help advertisers to make better planning and buying decisions but also aid media owners in effectively pricing their inventory in order to maximize growth.
With the backing of the private equity firm GTCR, Guideline’s acquisition of Lumina comes nearly a year after it stuck a pair of deals that started last May with an investment in SQAD – the provider of advertising research, analytics, and media planning software – followed by the acquisition of media ad spending tracking company Standard Media Index last July.
By combining three complementary media data and planning platforms, Guideline says it can better serve the top global brands, media owners, and media agencies with a centralized media planning platform that delivers efficiency and analysis across multiple global media teams and agencies in one interface.
“By combining SQAD and SMI a year ago, Guideline became a source of truth for advertising spend and pricing data that provides unprecedented accuracy and transparency across the global media ecosystem,” Guideline CEO Scott Knoll said. “Now with this acquisition, we are forging an important partnership with Mediaocean and bringing together two complementary solutions – SQAD MediaTools and Lumina – to strengthen media planning capabilities for agency and brand clients globally. Through accurate media data and collaborative planning tools, we’re focused on helping the industry improve how media is planned, bought, and sold.”
Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
Mediaocean, the media buying software company through which more than $200 billion of ad dollars flow through each year, will continue to focus on using artificial intelligence and machine learning to control media investments.
“Transitioning Lumina to Guideline and forming a long-term partnership allows both companies to play to their strengths and deliver value for customers,” Mediaocean CEO Bill Wise said. “This deal allows us to further invest in supporting advanced features for converged media, intelligence, automation, and optimization.” In a statement, he said Mediaocean will continue to collaborate with Guideline on other projects.
More dealmaking may be on the horizon for New York-based Guideline. It was founded in May 2020 as a partnership between marketing technology veterans Scott Knoll, David Hahn, Michael Iantosca and GTCR, with plans to acquire companies and assets as part of a strategy to build a leading marketing technology business.