The Interactive Audience Measurement and Advertising Campaign Reporting and Audit Guidelines’ or IAB v6.0b establishes definitions and rules for Ad-Impressions, Measurement, Caching and Filtration of Ad-Servers. These industry standards help ensure consistent and accurate measurements of advertising campaigns to provide comparability and reduce discrepancies between ad servers. Audited proof of compliance of an ad server to these standards delivers trust and confidence in the accountability of revenues and fees generated from online advertising.

Martin Diessner, Director of Brand Central Software comments: “Getting Brand Central system audited by ABC Electronic is just a natural step for us to provide our clients with additional assurance and technical validation of Brand Central’s ad server tracking reports. Transparency and independence in online media tracking are key concepts to all digital media investments and Brand Central has always been at the forefront of developing cutting-edge solutions supporting these ideas.”

Richard Foan, Managing Director of ABC ELECTRONIC comments: “We are delighted to welcome Brand Central Software as an Associate Subscriber, demonstrating their support for independent verification, transparency and the industry standards for electronic media measurement delivered by ABC ELECTRONIC, JICWEBS and the IAB’s Global Standards for Ad-Server Measurement.

Brand Central have committed to having an independent check of their ad server measurement to globally agreed standards, it will provide confidence and trust in the system’s transparency and accountability to both media owners and media buyers using Brand Central. Agreed global standards and proof of compliance is critical for acceptance of the internet and an important factor in the growth of online advertising, the fastest growing media market in the world. More media owners and media buyers should now be demanding this from their ad serving solutions.”

The Associate Subscriber Scheme promotes and also encourages discussions between the subscriber and ABC ELECTRONIC, to ensure everyone is working towards the same goals, so providing added value to ABC ELECTRONIC’s clients. Associate Subscribers can also participate in the ABC ELECTRONIC Internet Technical Group (ITG) meetings which are designed to ensure all clients and their suppliers can participate in developing and evolving the industry-agreed rules and methodologies.

For further information please contact:

For Brand Central Software Ltd

Martin Diessner
Brand Central Software Ltd
Tel: +971 4 3911613
Email: info@mybrandcentral.com
http://www.mybrandcentral.com

ABC ELECTRONIC

Mark Barber / Phil Borge
Eulogy!
Tel: +0044 20 7927 9999
Email: mark@eulogy.co.uk / phil@eulogy.co.uk

About Brand Central
Brand Central Software Ltd. was founded in 2006 and operates through regional offices across the Middle East. A wholly owned subsidiary of Flip Holding Ltd., Brand Central Software Ltd. provides unique interactive media products and technologies, such as 3rd party verified and online media tracking services for advertising and media agencies in conjunction with technology partners and affiliates. Flip Holdings Ltd. is a privately owned company registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI).

About ABC ELECTRONIC
ABC ELECTRONIC (www.abce.org.uk) was established in 1996 as the industry owned, tri-partite, not for profit organisation, which works on behalf of advertisers, media buyers and media owners to provide third party independent verification and certification for data related to electronic media (Internet, Email, SMS, Interactive TV, WAP, PDA and Streaming audio and video) in the UK and Ireland.

ABC ELECTRONIC’s role is to manage standards for the industry through its work with JICWEBS*, and to provide credibility, comparability and transparency for electronic media. This gives advertisers the opportunity to maximise returns on marketing budgets by using ABC ELECTRONIC certified media and ensures that stakeholders (marketers, investors, media owners, media buyers, advertisers) can invest in electronic media with confidence and trust.

ABC ELECTRONIC serves the online media communities in the UK and Ireland, and is leading an international network setting global standards for electronic media. ABC ELECTRONIC delivers global measurement standards for local markets through its work as Chair of the IFABC web standards group. www.ifabc.org

*JICWEBS (The Joint Industry Committee for Web Standards in the UK and Ireland) is a body created by the UK and Ireland media industry. Its purpose is to ensure independent development and ownership of standards for measuring on a site centric, census basis audience reach, frequency and activity levels including the use and effectiveness of advertising on electronic media. www.jicwebs.org. ABC ELECTRONIC supports the work of JICWEBS by delivering audit and certification services for electronic media usage to these industry agreed standards.

DoubleClick provides a hosted, enterprise-class online advertising serving solution which is robust, scalable and powers more than 60 billion ads per month.

Brand Central now integrates DoubleClick as an optional ad delivery and 3rd party tracking mechanism into its system, adding even more transparency in line with international standards to the product.

Martin Diessner, CEO of Flip Media explains: “When developing Brand Central, we followed the guidelines of IAB, ABCE, BPA, 24/7 Real Media and other industry leading organizations of the digital community. Integrating DoubleClick as a 3rd party provider to the ad delivery of Brand Central is a major step and commitment towards additional auditing.

Claire Murphy, Marketing Manager, Emaar Properties comments: “The integration of DoubleClick into Brand Central will ensure that Emaar continues to receive international standards of ad serving in online media planning and tracking, with 3rd party verification. As the region moves to progress advertising industry transparency and auditing, we are happy that Flip has taken this positive action.

Two of the Regions Leading Independent Agencies Announce Collaboration for the Benefit of Their ClientsBoth based at Dubai Media City, Flip Media and Catch are leaders in their respective fields and share the same philosophies of combining Middle East experience with Western expertise. Each agency will retain independent creative studios and will collaborate to share their resources, respective knowledge pools, expertise and technologies in interactive products and platforms, tracking systems and relationship marketing management and metrics.

Martin Diessner, CEO, Flip Media said “Flip Media’s strategic collaboration with Catch allow us to offer our clients a truly integrated and comprehensive approach to managing and measuring consumer relationships and campaign effectiveness through online marketing. We welcome this opportunity to move the digital marketing industry another step forward in terms of its professionalism and accountability.”

Christel Whelan, Founder and Managing Director, Catch, commented: “Between us we have many synergies and complementary brands, products and services in our individual diverse portfolios of clients. We will be able to offer significant opportunities for mutually beneficial tie ups and co-branded promotions between brands and significantly add intrinsic value to our relationships with clients and in turn, their consumers.”

Anthony Rischard, Managing Partner and Technology Director, Catch, added: “Catch Metrics reporting combined with Flip Media’s complementary products, such as their Brand Central online campaign tracking and verification system allow us to provide highly transparent and accurate recording and reporting of campaign reach and effectiveness. We look forward to working together to develop new unique products specifically tailored to the Middle East market.

Flip Media’s clients include Emaar Properties, Dubai Sports City, DaimlerChrysler, MeBank, Braun, Gilette, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, SIXT Rent-A-Car and Bahrain Formula 1. Catch Interactive’s client roster includes Dubai International Capital, Davidoff Fragrances, Rimmel, Lancaster, AXA Insurance, Joop! Faces Beauty Stores, Qanat Al Qasba and Better Homes.

Online marketing professionals across the Middle East will finally be gratified with well-founded research and analysis of web activity in the region. The research initiative, undertaken by Flip Media and market research giants, AC Nielsen, aims to set the industry norm on Web Audience Measurement in the region. Data will be collected by Flip Media through third-party servers to gain a proper, unbiased, independently audited read on unique visitors and total impressions on leading websites and portals within the region.

Data collected will include unique visitors and total impressions on a portal, domain, URL and referrer, browser language, operating system language, IP address and country and more. The information will be analyzed by AC Nielsen and made available to end users at a decided price. Reports will be generated on a monthly, bi-annual and annual basis. Reports will also be available on subscription basis.

The initiative is set to be the first research project of its kind in the Middle East and in a market that is steadily becoming more conscious of the potential of the Internet, it will set the benchmark for more comprehensive and reliable research of online media in the future.

Piyush Mathur, ACNielsen - Country Manager, UAE highlighted “currently on-line measurement in the Middle East is usually conducted using server log based systems which are inaccurate and they under represent the real audience visiting a web site - many a times by as much as 250%. Further these systems are not third-party independent - and hence lack credibility. Through this initiative of using Browser based measurement, we aim to create industry-wide norms by getting the key players on-board”.

Talking about the partnership with Flip Media he added; “Partnering with Flip Media gave us immense insights into the on-line marketing business in the region and coupled with our global research expertise, we were able to realize a credible norm for the online industry.”

More information about this project is published on www.flipcorp.com/research. where publishers and website owners can sign up as well.