Nick Theakstone, UK CEO, GroupM, said: “PATS is a progressive initiative to create efficiencies and make it easier to do business with multi-platform media owners. That has to be a good thing. I welcome it with enthusiasm on behalf of GroupM and our agencies.”
The PATS initiative, which was announced last year, is gathering momentum. GroupM is the third big agency group to come on board, with others set to follow shortly.
Other media owners are also set to embrace the new transaction system. Conversations are currently taking place with some of the UK’s leading magazine groups and regional publishers, says Newsworks.
PATS was created to drive efficiencies in transactions between publishers and media agencies, which have become increasingly complex since the arrival of mobile and tablets.
The system, which will be rolled out across all media agencies in Q3 2015, enables both agencies and publishers to deliver audiences across brands regardless of platform.
PATS, which has been developed by Mediaocean, acts as a technology bridge between the agency platform and publisher platform, providing a single and shared point of reference across the transaction process.
Telegraph Media Group and Mail Newspapers are currently testing PATS using Publicis Groupe’s Vivaki.
GroupM agencies Mindshare, MEC, MediaCom and Maxus, as well as Dentsu Aegis’ network, including Carat and Vizeum, will adopt PATS as a new way of doing business.
The system will be compatible with all agency platforms including Adazzle, Mediaocean Prisma and proprietary agency software.
Rosemary Gorman, group ad director at Mail Newspapers, said: “The enhanced automation PATS provides will allow us to improve efficiencies across our business, alongside our agency partners. The testing is progressing extremely well and we’re looking forward to a wider roll out in the second half of the year.”
PATS has been created by Newsworks stakeholders, working together on behalf of the industry - News UK, Mail Newspapers, Telegraph Media Group, Trinity Mirror, Guardian Media Group and ESI Media.
