Reach, publisher of the Mirror and the Express, is joining The Ozone Project as a founding partner alongside Guardian News & Media, News UK and The Telegraph.
In a display of unity, the largest news publishers in the UK announced the launch of the joint digital ad sales house in June as they seek to offer better scale, a cleaner supply chain and easier buying options for advertisers.
The addition of Reach – formally Trinity Mirror – means The Ozone Project will now offer advertisers and agencies “direct and transparent” access to a digital audience of more than 42.5 million British consumers and puts their monthly UK reach on par with Facebook.
“The ambition for The Ozone Project was always for it to be a truly cross-industry initiative and Reach’s involvement underlines this vision,” said Damon Reeve, CEO, The Ozone Project.
“With four of the largest newspaper publishers in the UK now on board we can offer advertisers and agencies a unique combination of technology and targeting alongside direct and transparent access to quality audiences at real scale.”
The project has been developed in response to industry-wide concerns across the digital advertising ecosystem around brand safety, data governance, lack of transparency in the supply chain and ad fraud, as well as calls from advertisers for a single point of access to publisher inventory to facilitate an easy buy for scaled quality.
“Having completed our recent acquisition of the Northern & Shell titles, we are delighted to confirm our involvement in The Ozone Project,” said Andy Atkinson, chief revenue officer, Reach.
“We have long believed and championed the need for publishers to collaborate meaningfully in order to provide brands the ability to reach consumers at scale and effectively and The Ozone Project is a significant, and natural, next step on that journey.”
The project, which has been in development since September 2017, will launch in the autumn and is open to other publishers.
