The TEAM Companies Join Industry Leaders to Form The “Ad Consortium” Which Plans to Streamline Creative Asset Management

‘AD CONSORTIUM’ DEBUT: MISSION IS TO LINK BEST PRACTICES FOR
CREATIVE ASSET MANAGEMENT, DISTRIBUTION AND DELIVERY

Adstream, Comcast Technology Solutions, Burns Entertainment & Sports Marketing,
Entertainment Communications Network (ECN), and The TEAM Companies come together to
form first of its kind industry organization

NEW YORK, NY – December 9, 2016 – Today the Ad Consortium, in support of advertisers
and agencies, announced its formation. The first group of its kind, the Ad Consortium is
comprised of leading advertising and agency industry stakeholders, including Adstream,
Comcast Technology Solutions, Burns Entertainment & Sports Marketing, Entertainment
Communications Network (ECN), and The TEAM Companies. Each founding company plays
key roles in the process of creating, distributing and tracking digital advertising content. The
companies have cooperated with each other to create a seamless integrated process for
advertising content, benefiting advertisers and agencies alike.

In advertising today, the creative ecosystem is more multi-channel and global than ever.
Content for both traditional and emerging platforms is often produced in one country, edited in
another, then delivered across the media spectrum worldwide, servicing thousands of
demographic and geographic segments. This creates a challenging dynamic for advertisers
and agencies. It makes managing multi-channel, global ad campaigns across stakeholders
complex, time-consuming, and prone to errors, elevating overall spend as well as brand risk.
The Ad Consortium will combine best practices across traditional and emerging media, making
it easier to distribute, track and pay for creative work as well as procure talent and navigate
rights and license management.

“Creative asset management is one of the biggest pain points for the industry given how
complex the landscape is from start to finish,” said Ian Wheal, Global Strategy Director at
Adstream. “Through Ad Consortium, we will now be able to take advantage of industry-wide
best practices not only for how advertising assets should be managed, but also regarding
distribution, scheduling, rights usage, and tracking.”

“As content delivery and monetization gets more complicated across platforms, devices and
borders, the Ad Consortium’s mission is to help simplify and improve the process for
advertising asset management,” adds Todd Porch, Vice President of International Comcast
Technology Solutions.

The Ad Consortium’s objectives include:

• Identifying the best protocols in key areas like file-sharing, analytics, talent and rights
usage, and more, at each step of the creative process.

• Adopting the best protocols and utilizing common nomenclature to provide a smooth
and efficient process that improves accuracy and eliminates operational waste.

• Using tools like Ad-ID as the common identifier and metadata source for ad distribution,
traffic, talent payments, and rights and asset management across all platforms.

• Steering marketers through the maze of new and emerging media, (VOD, OTT, HTML5,
social, etc.) by enabling efficient ad delivery, tracking and management.

“With an evolving and expanding global advertising ecosystem, the time to make sure our
industry is working as effectively as possible is now,” said Greg Smith, CMO at The TEAM
Companies. “We are pleased to have co-founded the Ad Consortium with these great partners
and are committed to this ideal – finally bringing advertisers, agencies and creatives best
practices around creative asset management, delivery, distribution, and more.”

In addition to identifying and using best practices for advertising and creative stakeholders, the
Ad Consortium has also announced a technological collaboration to support and accelerate its
mission. With each founding company – Adstream, Comcast Technology Solutions, Burns
Entertainment & Sports Marketing, Entertainment Communications Network, and The TEAM
Companies – playing a key role in the process of creating, distributing and tracking of
advertising content, they have committed to working with each other’s technology to create a
more streamlined approach to the creative lifecycle.

About Ad Consortium
The first group of its kind, the Ad Consortium consists of leading advertising and creative
industry stakeholders, including Adstream, Comcast Technology Solutions, Burns
Entertainment & Sports Marketing, Entertainment Communications Network, and The Team
Companies. Each founding company plays a key role in the process of creation, distribution
and tracking of digital advertising content. As the creative lifecycle grows more complex and
more global, the members of the Ad Consortium have created a seamless process for
advertisers, making it easier for them to distribute, track and pay for creative work, as well as
procure talent and navigate rights and license management. For more information, visit
www.adconsortium.org.