PHD MENA Signs Viewability Deal With DMS For Unilever

PHD has secured a launch partner agreement for Unilever with Digital Media Services (DMS) for its new DMS Video product. PHD’s agreement with DMS is designed to safeguard Unilever’s investments by securing an inventory that adheres to the marketer’s stringent viewability guidelines. The FMCG group will receive privileged access to the Choueiri Group-owned company’s vast portfolio of video properties, including Shahid, Dailymotion and OLN TV. It has recently partnered with TEADS to further diversify and enhance the scale of its video inventory.

In accordance to the agreement, PHD will be able to plan and buy on behalf of Unilever across all DMS’ portfolio of video properties. Until now, the platforms were only available separately. Unilever will now have access to exclusive strategic planning and trading benefits, while ensuring its video ads are viewed within a quality and safe environment.

“Online video is a dominant part of our media plans. It is also a very complex area. We live in a world where, globally, viewability benchmarks on some of the video platforms are as low as 48.7%*,” Asad Rehman, Director of Media, Unilever North Africa Middle East, explained, adding that “Consumers should see the messages you have created. It’s Advertising 101. Funnily enough, it seems that this basic rule of advertising isn’t that simple to crack in the digital world. Having a deal structure that ensures viewability is very important for us. We believe our work in this area will help drive industry standards.”

“Challenging the status quo is something we’ve been doing from day one so this opportunity to take digital video planning and buying to a higher level was a natural step for us. Every innovation, every initiative, every media partnership we engineer is designed to meet the needs of our clients, individually or collectively. This mutually beneficial deal for DMS and Unilever will elevate their respective performance and that’s a major step forward for digital marketing in the region,” explained Luca Allam, Managing Director of PHD UAE.

“With the region’s population consuming digital video at record rates, video viewership among young people in MENA is already among the highest in the world. DMS Video promises “One Audience, One Platform”. Alongside the most engaging premium video content, DMS Video embraces brand safety and has standardization in measurability at its core. This will enable our valued advertising partners such as Unilever to not only realize better outcomes, but also assist them in gauging and optimizing their digital investments,” informed DMS’ Chief Operating Officer, Michel Malkoun.

Earlier this year, PHD joined the rest of Omnicom Media Group MENA in partnering with Moat to achieve new levels of transparency around where digital ads are served and their performance.

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