Damon Reeve, CEO of Ozone, on why the UK's leading publishers built their own programmatic platform, why attention in long-form news and magazine environments outperforms algorithmic feed advertising for brand and upper-funnel investment, and what the early signals from the US market expansion are telling him.
"People who are reading news or magazine content are highly engaged and highly attentive. That is the antithesis of scroll fatigue."
Why four publishers built their own programmatic platform and why attention in premium environments is the undervalued metric in digital advertising
Damon Reeve is Australian, started his career at Microsoft in the 1990s, and has been in digital advertising since before the industry had a name for itself. He co-founded Unanimous, sold it to France Telecom, had a stake in what became OpenX, and then came back to London to build Ozone, the programmatic advertising platform created by The Guardian, News UK, Reach PLC, and The Telegraph, with the explicit mission of helping premium publishers compete against platforms.
In this conversation Reeve makes the case for what he calls the premium web, the editorial environments where people go to be informed and entertained, as a strategically undervalued part of the digital advertising ecosystem. Attention in long-form news content is fundamentally different from scroll-fatigue attention in a social feed, but demonstrating that difference at scale, and connecting the softer upper-funnel metrics of attention and engagement to the harder lower-funnel metrics of conversion, is the commercial challenge that Ozone is solving.
"Ozone is a programmatic advertising platform built for brands by the UK's leading national publishers. Our shareholders are The Guardian, News UK, Reach PLC, and The Telegraph. We were born in 2017, 2018 really, with the view to help publishers be more competitive in a programmatic landscape that was increasingly dominated by platforms."
The founding premise of Ozone is that premium publisher inventory was being systematically undervalued in programmatic markets because individual publishers lacked the technology, data, and scale to articulate their audience quality effectively in automated auctions. By creating a shared platform, the founding publishers could invest in technology at a scale no single publisher could justify, create audience propositions that approached platform scale, and present a coherent proposition to brands and agencies rather than requiring separate conversations with each publisher.
"People who are reading news or magazine content are highly engaged and highly attentive. The scroll fatigue that you get in a lot of social feeds is the antithesis of what you get when someone is reading long-form content. For brand and upper funnel strategies, those environments work really well. But it is a challenge trying to reach those audiences at scale and doing that in a way that is measurable and you can understand the channel impact on the harder lower funnel metrics."
The attention dynamic that Reeve describes is supported by research but has been hard to monetise at scale. Brand marketers understand intuitively that being next to a trusted news article is different from being in an algorithmic social feed, but the programmatic market has historically optimised on volume and cost metrics that do not capture that difference. Ozone's commercial proposition is built on proving the link between premium editorial attention and business outcomes in a way that changes media allocation decisions.
"The work that we do at Ozone is essentially powering the premium web. Where we started with four publishers, we now work with 45 publishers. So our footprint has grown. It is a much bigger sort of proposition. Ozone helps stitch together audiences across all of those properties into a more scaled proposition."
The stitching of publisher audiences requires a technology infrastructure that respects the competitive boundaries between publishers while enabling their combined data to be used for audience targeting. Ozone's platform creates a neutral layer between the individual publishers and the buying market, allowing audience attributes from across the network to be used in campaign targeting without requiring each publisher to share their data with the others.
"Our observations are the UK in many ways is a single market. In the US market it is just too big to be thought about as a single proposition. It is an aggregation of many markets. Where national publishers have a fairly dominant role in the UK market, I think that is probably less so in the US. There are fairly significant regional brands that drive a lot of value for marketers."
The US expansion is Ozone's most significant strategic step and the market dynamics are genuinely different from the UK. The concentration of premium editorial in a small number of national titles that characterises the UK market does not exist in the US, where regional media brands are often more trusted and more read than national titles in their local markets. The Ozone proposition needs to adapt to that structure rather than assuming the UK model transfers directly.
"I feel like there is a huge amount of value to be created within the premium web that is currently untapped. So I think there is a long way to go. We are very established in the UK. That is where we started. We have just started expanding to the US."
Reeve's confidence in the size of the opportunity comes from the observation that premium publisher inventory remains structurally undervalued relative to its actual impact on brand and commercial outcomes. The technology to prove that link more definitively, and to present premium editorial audiences at sufficient scale, is what Ozone is continuing to build. The US expansion, if successful, would significantly increase the scale of the proposition and the commercial case for brands to rebalance their spend toward premium environments.
"Our job is to stitch together audiences across all of those properties into a more scaled proposition."
Host Tell us all about Ozone.
Reeve Ozone is a programmatic advertising platform built for brands by the UK's leading national publishers. Our shareholders are The Guardian, News UK, Reach PLC, and The Telegraph. We were born in 2017, 2018 really, with the view to help publishers be more competitive in a programmatic landscape that was increasingly dominated by platforms. Platforms have technology, scale, and features that individual publishers struggle to provide and compete with. So we launched Ozone to help publishers be more competitive.
Host Give me your career journey.
Reeve I have been working in digital advertising, programmatic advertising for a long time. After a foray in the 90s at Microsoft, I moved to the UK. I worked for a couple of companies before starting my first business called Unanimous which we ran for 10 years and sold to France Telecom. At the same time we had a technology business that is now OpenX, an SSP based out of Pasadena. I had an analytics business in New York and then moved back to London to set up Ozone.
Host What is the commercial differentiation of Ozone?
Reeve The primary differentiator starts with the audience. People who are reading news or magazine content are highly engaged and highly attentive. The scroll fatigue you get in a lot of social feeds is the antithesis of what you get when someone is reading long-form content. For brand and upper funnel strategies, those environments work really well. The challenge is reaching those audiences at scale and doing that in a way that is measurable. The role Ozone plays is to bridge that gap and make what is fairly complex much more simple.
Host How do you stitch together publisher audiences?
Reeve Where we started with four publishers, we now work with 45 publishers. So our footprint has grown. What we call the premium web is where people spend most of their time to be entertained and informed, news and magazine environments. Our job is to stitch together audiences across all of those properties into a more scaled proposition. Where a luxury brand has a slightly different version of the premium web to an automotive brand, we really try to bring that together into an ecosystem that works for the brand but also monetises well for the publisher.
Host How does the US market differ from the UK?
Reeve The UK in many ways is a single market. The US market is just too big to be thought about as a single proposition. It is an aggregation of many markets. Where national publishers have a fairly dominant role in the UK, that is probably less so in the US. There are fairly significant regional brands that drive a lot of value for marketers. We have to think about it as not being one market but quite a few different ones put together.
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