Amobee are happy, RingRing Media are happy, but Christian Louca, UK Managing Director of mobile marketing agency YOC has his own take on Amobees planned acquisition of RingRing. He says:

“At first glance this seems a strange acquisition. After all, Amobee are an ad-serving company and RingRing Media is ultimately a planning and buying agency for mobile. They do not have a media network and act more like an exchange. I question the value behind such an acquisition and what the strategy is. Maybe Amobee feel they will be better placed to be able to offer an advertising sales resource alongside their technology? No doubt Amobee will now position itself as full service, but in my opinion this would not be entirely true.

“Will RingRing just plan and buy media with Amobee partners or will they continue as they are? What  guarantees could Amobee give to its partners for advertising, if any? If RingRing were to prioritise Amobee partners, their focus will mainly be on placing advertisements on the network operator portals, yet the market spend has shifted from on portal to off portal. Im sure that Amobee have good reasons behind the acquisition, but as I say, at first glance it doesnt seem to be a natural choice. Id love to hear more from them.”

What do you think of the deal? We put it to Louca that some of these issues were addressed in our interview with Amobee and RingRing this morning, but he says he still has concerns about the strategy being undertaken. He has since added one further comment, saying:

“RingRing Medias exchange system conflicts with their role as a media planner and buyer. For Amobee, as an ad-serving company, to then acquire them is an even stranger contradiction as theyre essentially crossing industries. The parallel is the online world youd never see an ad-server also acting as a media buyer and planner.”
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