Integration of Centro’s Basis into FreeWheel’s Strata Platform Offers Agencies Best-in-Class Capabilities for Media Planning, Buying, Operations and Finance Across Both Traditional and Digital Media
Chicago – Centro (www.centro.net), a provider of enterprise-class software for digital advertising, announced a strategic partnership with FreeWheel Advertisers, a division of FreeWheel (www.freewheel.com), A Comcast Company (Nasdaq: CMCSA). The partnership powers end-to-end digital media automation in one system, pairing Centro’s Basis, a comprehensive platform for buying digital media, with FreeWheel’s Strata, a platform trusted by over 1,200 advertising agencies for planning, activation, optimization and billing management.
“By design, FreeWheel uses an open architecture for our platform so that we can give agencies choice and flexibility to use the tools that they prefer for their business. Our integration with Basis is the latest example of this vision,” said Joy Baer, general manager of FreeWheel Advertisers. “In listening to our clients, it became clear that Basis was the digital platform of choice for many of them. We’re so pleased to be able to offer direct access to such an important partner and well-respected player in the market.”
In addition to Centro’s Basis, FreeWheel’s Strata platform also continues to support Adazzle, its own cloud-based global platform for digital media management, as well as Strata Buying Management System (SBMS) Digital, a suite of tools for planning, buying, stewardship, optimization and billing across all forms of digital media.
The Combined Value Proposition for Agencies
Basis offers a front-end planning and buying technology from which joint Centro and Strata clients will be able to deliver campaign data into Strata. When the forthcoming integration is complete later this quarter, delivery and financial data from Basis will flow into Strata for billing and reconciliation in real-time. The information will then be automatically rationalized and formatted, saving time for media professionals and accounting teams by removing numerous data-entry steps and generating more accurate invoices for digital media campaigns.
“This integration will allow any Centro client who uses the Strata platform to automate the final stage of the campaign lifecycle: billing actualization and reconciliation. This will make the work of media professionals much easier and more valuable,” said Shawn Riegsecker, CEO of Centro. “Campaign teams using Centro will no longer have to log into third party systems, find campaign data, download massive spreadsheet reports, re-format data, and then send the data to finance teams. The integrated Basis and Strata platforms will execute these tasks automatically. It brings significant operational value to our shared client bases.”
Basis is a comprehensive, automated and intelligent digital media platform for planning, buying and analyzing real-time bidding (RTB), direct, search and social campaigns. It pulls and rationalizes delivery data from major ad servers, social and search vendors, and its integrated demand-side platform (DSP). As such, it is the first combined demand-side platform (DSP) and workflow automation system to be fully integrated into FreeWheel’s Strata cross-media planning and execution system. To learn more about Basis, please visit http://www2.centro.net/basis.
This integration will be fully operational and available to advertisers this fall.
About Centro
Centro (www.centro.net) is a provider of enterprise-class software for digital advertising organizations. Its technology platform centralizes, organizes and automates all digital media campaigns across all channels, accessing both guaranteed and biddable inventory, to achieve any objective. Our holistic approach gives marketers a single system of record to fulfill their research, planning, buying, optimization, reporting and reconciliation needs. Headquartered in Chicago with 32 offices in North America, Centro has received numerous accolades for its commitment to employees and workplace culture.
About FreeWheel
FreeWheel, A Comcast Company, empowers all segments of The New TV Ecosystem. We are structured to provide the full breadth of solutions the advertising industry needs to achieve their goals. We provide the technology, data enablement, and convergent marketplaces required to ensure buyers and sellers can transact across all screens, across all data types, and all sales channels, in order to ensure the ultimate goal – results for marketers.
With offices in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, London, Paris, Beijing, and across the globe, FreeWheel, A Comcast Company, stands to advocate for the entire industry through the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video. For more information, please visit www.freewheel.com, and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
