Major UK Media Companies Renew Deals With Contextual Ad Leader Vibrant

LONDON, August 8, 2011 -

Vibrant, the global leader in premium contextual advertising solutions, announces it has retained five of the UK’s largest premium publisher sites within its impressive portfolio following reviews and pitches over the past three months. Dennis Publishing, AMRA, Northern & Shell, Incisive PTG and IDG have renewed contracts to continue their long-standing exclusive partnerships with Vibrant in the UK.  This follows the retention of auto site HonestJohn, in January this year.

Gary Rayneau, Trading Director of Dennis Publishing, says: “Vibrant has been a consistent commercial partner of seven years, and we’re pleased to continue our relationship.  They have proven to be experienced and innovative in the contextual advertising area.  This means we are offering advertisers and therefore consumers a rich experience that complements our premium editorial.”  The agreement brings a further 13 new properties into the partnership and Dennis Publishing is now working with Vibrant across 20 premium sites covering the core Automotive, Technology and Lifestyle verticals.

David Cleave, Digital Manager of AMRA, comments: “Vibrant continues to beat the competition when it comes to the premium nature of their creative and the advertisers that they work with, and this is a key consideration for us in ensuring a positive user experience across our network.  We are really proud to have renewed our agreement with Vibrant.”  AMRA, backed by parent company Trinity Mirror plc, is a recognised leader in regional media representation for the past 30 years.  The deal with Vibrant will include sites across the UK, with key regional publications: The Birmingham Mail; Coventry Telegraph, walesonline.co.uk and Surrey Herald.

Farzad Jamal, Group Internet Controller, Northern & Shell, adds: “We are pleased to have renewed our agreement with Vibrant as they continue to deliver premium brand advertisers.  Vibrant’s contextual placements are highly relevant to our content and allow us to add an additional stream of revenue whilst providing a positive user experience.”  Northern & Shell  works with Vibrant for lifestyle and entertainment titles including Express Newspapers, New Magazine, and OK! Magazine.

Marc Hartog, Group Publishing Director, Personal Technology Group, Incisive Media, notes: “Incisive PTG is really pleased to be the first publisher to use the Vibrant Ad Bar.  We invest heavily in encouraging our users to engage and share our content over social media platforms and this will strengthen the opportunities our users have to do this. It will also help to drive internal traffic on the site in a stylish and effective manner.”  Incisive PTG strengthens Vibrant’s B2C network with ComputerActive; and also includes the highly prestigious British Journal of Photography (BJP).  Incisive is the first UK publisher to use the Vibrant Ad Bar to further engage with users through its innovative functionalities which include social media applications.

Simon Jary, Publishing Director of IDG, observes: “IDG is pleased to continue its relationship with Vibrant; particularly as we were the first in-text publisher to sign up in 2005 for their flagship in-text advertising product.  Over the past few years Vibrant has not stood still - it continually invests in its offering giving us innovative online display options like VIA Display and its new Vibrant Ad Bar product. These maximise our offering to brands, while working alongside our own internal branding opportunities.”  IDG is a publisher with a strong tech portfolio including PC Advisor, DigitalArtsonline and Macworld.  

Martin Forbes, Senior Vice President & Managing Director Europe of Vibrant, concludes: “We are proud to work with some of the most important and influential publishers globally.  Continuing to work with these five key media operations allows us to offer the quality, breadth and strength to advertisers across a comprehensive range of sectors.  This brings incredible value to top brands who know that relevant ads matched with relevant content deliver powerful consumer engagement.”

Vibrant has exclusive partnerships with 6,000 premium publishers across key sectors including Consumer Technology; Business; Automotive; Celebrity & Lifestyle; Food & Drink; and Sports.

Dennis Publishing (Relationship with Vibrant since 2004 - 7 years www.dennis.co.uk

AMRA (Relationship with Vibrant since 2006 - 5 years) www.amra.co.uk

Northern & Shell (Relationship with Vibrant since 2009 - 2 years) www.northernandshell.co.uk

Incisive PTG - personal computer sites (Relationship with Vibrant since 2005 - 6 years) www.incisivemedia.com

IDG (Relationship with Vibrant since 2005 - 6 years) www.idg.co.uk

About Vibrant

Vibrant is a world leader in contextual technology aligning billions of words across the internet with relevant video, information, tools and advertising.  With over 6,000 premium publishers, reaching more than 238 million unique users per month (comScore, May 2011), Vibrant gives top brand marketers the opportunity to deliver highly targeted advertisements within premium Web content and offers publishers premium editorial tools to re-circulate users throughout their websites.  Vibrant works with top brand advertisers such as Microsoft, General Motors, Unilever, Sainsbury’s and Hewlett Packard.

The company was founded in 2000 and has offices in London, New York, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Paris, Hamburg, Munich and Dusseldorf.   Vibrant’s rapid growth has been recognised by the Inc. 500 and Deloitte Fast 50 lists, and in the UK: Media Momentum 2006, 2007 and 2008 and Sunday Times Tech Track in 2004 and 2005.  For more information, visit www.vibrantmedia.co.uk or www.hyperlinkevolved.com or ww.facebook.com/vibrantmedia or twitter.com/vibrantmedia.

Further information: Helen Mussard, Senior European Marketing Manager, Vibrant UK: +44(0)207-239-0102 / helen.mussard at vibrantmedia.com ; Lorette Nettar, PR, Vibrant UK: +44(0)7968-521-684 / lorette.nettar at vibrantmedia.com