This Association of National Advertisers (ANA) has some very big players, with companies like Disney, P&G and Kellogg’s on its board. It spends over $100 million each year in commercial advertising and marketing. And it’s not happy about the Yahoo–Google ad deal.
It’s so unhappy, in fact, that it announced on Sunday that it had sent a letter to the Department of Justice opposing the deal. The ANA says this move was taken after “comprehensive, independent analysis,” including face-to-face talks with Yahoo and Google and input from the board’s members.
In a statement, the ANA said:
“The letter, authorized by the ANA Board, notes that a Google-Yahoo partnership will control 90 percent of search advertising inventory and states ANA’s concerns that the partnership will likely diminish competition, increase concentration of market power, limit choices currently available and potentially raise prices to advertisers for high quality, affordable search advertising.”
The Department of Justice is expected to issue its decision later this fall. The issue has already been the subject of a Senate hearing in July.
