• by Ray Schultz , September 21, 2021

The Washington Post has launched Zeus Prime, a premium ad-buying network that connects brands and top U.S. publishers.

The new marketplace, Zeus Prime, allows brands and agencies to quickly purchase and place ads across national, regional and local publisher sites, the WaPo says. 

The goal is to build a “results-driven solution for the digital ad landscape,” states Joy Robins, CRO of The Washington Post.

Zeus Prime enables brands to react to news and launch campaigns in environments that people are turning to for reliable information, the paper claims. 

In addition, advertisers can select sites to run ads on, split the budget, upload creative, modify the text or image and pay for the campaign via credit card or invoice, it adds. 

Moreover, advertisers can segment performance data by various factors, such as device and site.

Zeus Prime will be available for early access to such supply- and demand-side partners, including The Dallas Morning News and the Ad Council. Other participating partners, like Graham Media Group, will be added in the months to come. 

The project “grew out of solving for our own challenges and needs,” adds Shailesh Prakash, CIO at WaPo.

Publishers in the Zeus Prime network have implemented Zeus Performance, the paper’s programmatic technology stack and rendering engine.

“The Zeus Prime platform allows us to seamlessly align and adjust our vaccine education messaging based on the latest news regarding the COVID-19 vaccines,” states Liz DeAngelis, vice president, growth and managed platforms at Ad Council. “The creative upload process enables us to have the most up to date facts and information in market in a matter of hours rather than waiting for creative development.”