About an hour ago Google announced that it was buying a company called Teracent. Teracent provides display advertisers with the ability to create different versions of ads based on a range of creative elements and ad copy. The technology behind the platform appears pretty sophisticated.
Google gives an example of an ad online display showing different versions:
Teracent not-so-obviously can also do this sort of thing in mobile. And one of its marquee partners is Yahoo! Assuming the acquisition goes through this would be a blow to Yahoo!’s mobile display program.
The combination of AdMob and Teracent makes for a formidable mobile display ad capability (not to mention online). And this kind of dynamic creative is what’s required to truly realize the promise of “right ad, right time, right place.”
Humans can’t create the myriad ad units required to take advantage of all the variables in mobile: day parting, location, context, behavior, etc. As I wrote previously in a post called “The Paradox of Targeting and Reach,” the machine/platform must provide the capability to do this. And Teracent does this for Google.
Yahoo! needs to be quite concerned that Google will usurp its position in display advertising by creating a more powerful mobile capability and combining that with integrated ad buying across the PC and mobile platforms.