ClickZ: aQuantive Straddles Publisher/Advertiser Gap

aQuantive, owner of Avenue A and iFrontier re-ignited an older business model that might just be playing with a dangerous fire. Avenue A has always had an ambiguous relationship with clients, who early on were seldom sure whether the company was a technology provider to agencies, a replacement to agencies or something through which media was to agencies. The company would often represent itself as different things to different parties, presumably in hopes of straddling a wider piece of the online media business. The term of art in the ad agency business was a bit more blunt: "fox in the henhouse."

In a new, low-key effort, aQuantive is putting together a Drive Performance Media group, taking staff from across its companies, attempting to sell to its clients media it buys rights to in special, large-scale deals. The model is akin to that of a small group of traditional media firms like Western Media, where the agency becomes a seller of media, and if it's not careful, perceived as caught up in untenable conflicts. The potential upside, though, is the creation of a much more efficient media market, winning lower prices for clients and reaping a percentage on top of it.