Chips off the old blocks: Madison Avenue looks to Wall Street
Joe Mandese
When it comes to the mechanics of media buying and selling, Madison Avenue has long been envious of another industrial neighbourhood: Wall Street. For years, big ad agencies and their clients have coveted the super-efficient way the financial industry has handled its transactions, and have toyed with the idea of creating the media world's equivalent of Europe's FTSE, Japan's Nikei, or America's Nasdaq exchanges. Instead of trading commodities and company securities, the ad industry's version would trade media time and space. Media buying exchanges first gained popularity...