Twitter has struck a new advertising deal with media agency Starcom MediaVest Group, as part of the micro-blogging site’s effort to boost revenue.
Claimed to be the Twitter’s biggest advertising deal, the multi-year agreement includes preferred inventory and a direct pipeline into the micro-blogging site’s data feed for media planning purposes and is anticipated to be worth about hundreds of millions of dollars.
Financial Times cited SMG global chief executive Laura Desmond as saying Twitter, in a very short period of time, has gone from an experiment to something that is essential.
"This signals to the marketplace how we want to conduct business and measure the implications. This is the future. It’s convergence," Desmond said.
The move follows a study by Nielsen that confirmed a strong growth in people viewing television and using tablets and smartphones as a means to access social media sites at the same time.
In addition, the data reported rise in Twitter volume and TV ratings.
Twitter global revenue president Adam Bain said the company thinks that the industry had been focused in the wrong area, which was making a decision between Twitter and TV.
"That’s not what we believe. Twitter is a bridge," Bain said.
The deal would enable SMG’s clients that include Coca-Cola, Microsoft and WalMart to access to preferred advertising slots on the networking site, as well as research and data.
In addition, the firms will also launch new products, including a programme that would allow firms to poll consumers for real-time.
