InterAd Signs AltaVista.Telia

InterAd, a new European advertising sales house formed by the former European staff of SOFTBANK Interactive Marketing, signed its first site representation agreement with AltaVista.Telia.

AltaVista.Telia, said to be Europe’s busiest site with around 85 million monthly European impressions claimed, was a major client site of SIM until terminating its contract with the U.S. operation last week after the takeover by ZULU-tek.

InterAd, which said it is the first wholly European, international Internet ad rep firm, began trading from its offices in London, Barcelona, Hamburg, Paris, and Madrid on March 2. It has already begun taking bookings for the AltaVista.Telia site and the first campaigns are due to start running on the site in the next few days.

“Since we began working with them 12 months ago, the team which is now InterAd has consistently produced outstanding results for AltaVista.Telia. The site has been sold-out for weeks at a time,” said Dan Winblad, project leader for AltaVista.Telia. “We are confident of the team’s professionalism and ability to continue to produce the high level of sales AltaVista.Telia has become accustomed to. We are extremely pleased to be able to continue to work with the team through InterAd.”

The loss of AltaVista was a contributing factor in the European staff’s decision to leave SIM last week and form InterAd.

“The confidence which AltaVista has demonstrated in InterAd through this agreement is extremely encouraging to us, especially coming so soon after InterAd’s formation,” said Gordon Simpson, CEO of InterAd.

Global representation for InterAd’s European sites will be provided through reciprocal affiliate agreements in the U.S. and Australia. InterAd said it is finalizing representation agreements with a number of other European sites and also actively recruiting sites with a view to completing its portfolio within the next few weeks.