Yahoo Rebrands AMP as APT and Launches

September 26, 2008 by admin
Filed under Search Engines

Last April, Yahoo unveiled details of a forthcoming online display advertising platform called AMP, to be released in the third quarter of 2008. Well, it’s Q3 and AMP was launched this week at Advertising Week in New York. Except, it’s not called AMP anymore. It’s been rebranded as APT.

Jon Hamm, star of the AMC Drama Mad Men which is based on a 1940s ad firm, was on hand to celebrate. This really excited Jerry Yang.

“The advertising landscape has changed dramatically since the days when Don Draper was roaming the halls of Sterling Cooper,” said Jerry Yang. “While Mad Men celebrates the Madison Avenue of 40 years ago, APT from Yahoo! clearly represents the future.”

APT is being touted as a streamlining of the display advertising process, from planning to buying and optimizing.

APT will undergo a phased roll-out. Select newspapers get the first stab at it, specifically publishers the San Francisco Chronicle of Hearst Newspapers and San Jose Mercury News of MediaNews Group.

Features include:

Guaranteed cross-selling with pre-defined selling rules
Ad Exchange for non-guaranteed inventory
Advanced audience targeting techniques based upon behavior and geography
Inventory lookup and forecasting across individual and partner sites
Creative workflow automation and personalization
Powerful rate card tools for improved yield management
Filters for better controls around creatives
Flexible and powerful APIs
Federated ad call to support multiple ad formats

“One of the major benefits of APT from Yahoo! is the fact that it’s an open system, designed to enable advertisers to reach their audiences in their favorite places across the Web, and publishers to monetize inventory across the broadest possible demand channels,” said Sue Decker. “As we transform the advertising marketplace, we’re excited to have key members of the Newspaper Consortium, the San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News, lead the way in this historic journey.”

APT (as AMP) has often been one of Yahoo’s defenses about the strength of its company. Yahoo has undergone much scrutiny in the past year, especially since Microsoft attempted to acquire it. They’ve placed high hopes on AMP, and now it’s go time.