L90, AdSociety in Asian-American Sales Pact

Asian broadband ad network AdSociety is expanding its position in the U.S. market, while domestic ad network L90 will expand to Asia, according to terms of a joint sales deal announced Thursday.

The agreement between Los Angeles’s L90 and Hong Kong-based AdSociety, which is a majority-owned venture of Asian conglomerate Pacific Century CyberWorks, allows each network to sell the other’s inventory.

“We have broken new ground in the ad networks industry by going global in less than six months after our launch,” said AdSociety founder and chief executive Patrick Jonathan Wong. “This alliance is a significant development for AdSociety, as our regional markets are increasingly being sought by North American and European advertisers. Equally important for us is our ability to provide our Asia-Pacific advertisers with complete global online marketing and sales solutions.”

AdSociety operates out of eight offices in the Asia-Pacific region, and reps some 700 sites, including PCCW companies and MSN sites in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Prior to the L90 deal, AdSociety had sales representation agreements with a several of North American and European publishers, including USAToday.com and Boston.com, as well as pay-for-surf firm AllAdvantage and Internet phone service Net2Phone.

The new deal now gives AdSociety an expanded footprint in the U.S., in terms of both sales and publishing partnerships. L90, which has a presence in the U.S., Latin America and Europe and reps about 350 sites, expands its reach as well.

“The broad reach provided by the specialized, high-quality sites of AdSociety’s Asia-Pacific network gives L90s growing advertising client base access to entirely new markets,” said L90’s Keith Kaplan, who is executive vice president of ad sales for the firm. “We are excited by this new partnership as our clients increasingly see the tremendous potential of the Asia Pacific region.”

AdSociety, which originally specialized in repping broadband sites, recently secured a deal with CMGion ad server AdForce to handle narrowband ad delivery.

Interestingly, PCCW has close ties with CMGion parent CMGI, which also owns ad network Engage. However, the deal likely represents what an Engage executive last year categorized as “co-opetition” between Engage and PCCW’s AdSociety in the Asian space.

Now, it seems, that “co-opetition” will be extended to the U.S., and a deal between Engage and broadband-focused AdSociety — which the executive suggested might be in the works — now appears less likely.