Format Dynamics: Web2Print

I first stumbled across Format Dynamics about six or so months ago and was very intrigued. I spoke to the company at that time and wanted to write about it. However they said they wanted to remain under the radar for awhile but now are open to more exposure.

What this company does is really interesting; it turns traditional online advertising on its head. Its technology formats pages for printing so that they look much cleaner. It then inserts relevant ads in those offline, printed pages dynamically. The ads are different than ads served on the online versions of the stories and can be targeted using any methodology available onlline: by content, location and/or other variables (coupons) and so on.

The company cites HP-related stats that billions of pages are printed annually. None of these pages are effectively monetized today. This offers what is entirely new ad inventory to publishers: think any content play, YP publishers, brands and product sellers. Newspapers especially should be doing this. But YP publishers could also present featured category advertisers in ads on printed pages.

There are lots of anecdotal reports about how people now often enter big box retail stores with an Internet-printed page in hand showing a desired product. Presumably people who print pages are more interested in the content or products and thus more qualified as leads (this is intuitively correct but needs empirical documentation).

To my knowledge there are no other companies offering something comparable. As Format Dynamics builds a base of publishers, it also becomes a new type of ad network for offline printed pages.

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