News Corp acquires Unruly to enchance its mobile ads

Unruly will remain a separate brand with in News Corp, who will offers its products to its partners

This may be controversial but I don't like Internet ads. I especially don't like video ads. There I said it, and I don't care who knows it. Seriously, though, that's not an unpopular position, mostly because video ads are, for the large part, really annoying.

There are companies that are trying to make them better, though, such as Unruly, a social video advertising platform that has very pretty successful, with 84% of Ad Age 100 brands using it, including adidas, Dove, T-Mobile, Evian and Renault.

It has done so well, in fact, that it has now been acquired by News. Corp, it was announced on Wednesday. 

The expected purchase price for the acquisition is as high as £114 million, or $176 million. That includes a cash payment at closing of £58 million, approximately $90 million, which is subject to certain adjustments. It also includes another £56 million, or approximately $86 million, in future consideration primarily, which is related to "payments contingent upon the achievement of certain performance objectives."

What exactly those performance objectives are was not disclosed. VatorNews has reached out to News Corp and Unruly for additional information. We will update this story if we learn more. 

Founded in 2006, Unruly is a video ad platform that uses emotional audience data and user-friendly video formats to increase viewer engagement, brand performance & publisher revenues.

Its products include ShareRank, which is technology that is able to predict the virality of videos across social and digital media; In-Feed advertising, which a mobile-first, video ad format that adapts to the unique look and feel of news feed formats; and Skippable In-Stream Advertising, which offers programmatic targeting and prominent branding within the player.

News Corp business units will begin to offer Unruly products to their advertising and agency partners within the next few months.

Unruly was co-founded by Co-Chief Executive Officer Scott Button, Co-Chief Executive Officer Sarah Wood and Chief Technology Officer Matt Cooke. All three will continue to lead the company, which will operate as a separate business unit, and it will continue to be headquartered in Shoreditch in London.

The co-founders will be reporting to Rebekah Brooks, Chief Executive of News UK. You may be familiar with Brooks, as she was the editor of the News of the World, and the face of News Corps' phone hacking scandal in 2011. She was arrested and charged with attempting to cover up the scandal, leading to her resignation from the company, but she was cleared of all charges and was rehired earlier this year.

For News Corp, acquiring Unruly will help the company expand its capabilities in mobile advertising.

“The acquisition will serve as a catalyst for our brands, helping to extend our expertise in the digital and mobile video area,” Robert Thomson, Chief Executive of News Corp. said in a statement. “Unruly complements our traditional editorial and commercial expertise with contemporary insight into how people read, watch, buy and sell in the digital era.”

This is the latest acquisition in this space for News Corp, which previously purchased social news agency Storyful in 2013, and also has a stake in the Rubicon Project, a company that automates the buying and selling of advertising through use of real-time cloud and big data computing systems.

The acquisitionof Unruly is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to be completed by the end of September.

(Image source: unruly.co)