Glam Media Acquires BBS Media -- Launches Glam Media Canada to Increase Brand Advertising Dollars Online from Canadian and Global Brands

TORONTO, SILICON VALLEY, Calif. and NEW YORK, March 17, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Glam Media, Inc. (www.GlamMedia.com), the number one vertical media company with the largest global reach for women online, today announced that it has acquired brand advertising media company BBS Media (Boxer B-Scene Media) based in Canada. The acquisition creates the 5th international country media subsidiary for Glam and will allow premium brands to more effectively engage with Canadian audiences online, bring more local and global brand advertising dollars to Canada's fast-growing marketplace and provide highly curated content across popular lifestyle verticals. BBS Media's co-founders, Mark Boxer and Brian Fields, will serve as VPs of Glam Media Canada, running publisher and brand-advertising sales, and leading the BBS Media team.

BBS Media is one of Canada's leading online media companies that helps brands reach targeted audiences in Canada and has established relationships with many premium content providers including Harper's Bazaar, YummyMummyClub.ca, Washington Post Digital, Forbes, Men'shealth.com, Big Lead Sports, Haven Home Media and others. Glam's acquisition of BBS Media reflects the overall importance of Canada within the global brand advertising landscape. According to IAB Canada, spend for display advertising in Canada reached approximately $600 million in 2010 and represents a 15 percent increase year over year.

"BBS was founded to help advertisers more effectively engage with passionate consumer audiences across a range of lifestyle categories in Canada," said Brian Fields, VP of Glam Media Canada. "Combining our intimate approach to building brand advertising online with Glam Media's focus on premium content from journalists, authors and publishers, and their considerable resources and technology, will usher in the next generation of digital advertising solutions that promote stronger brand engagement in Canada."

Glam is introducing the GlamAdapt premium ad-serving platform for the first time in Canada, providing Canadian brands and publishers with full access to Glam's resources, including a suite of innovative rich media advertising solutions and a global reach of more than 200 million monthly unique visitors. The platform powers more than 2,000 publishers worldwide and will allow brand advertisers in Canada to deliver customizable, super-premium ads at unprecedented scale to the most desirable online audiences within Canada and globally. More than 80 percent of all ads served through GlamAdapt are rich media ads, making Glam Media the industry leader in helping brands to deliver super-premium ads.

Glam Canada will be adding local Canadian content creators, providing the Glam publisher platform to help build, curate and monetize premium content. With over 1 million articles, posts and videos, Glam has assembled one of the world's largest collections of quality content, and Canadian journalists will now be able to leverage the platform that Glam has built.

"Glam has repeatedly proven that the best way to help brands reach specific audiences online is to curate high quality content based on what consumers are already interested in and love to read," said Jeff Thibodeau, Vice President and Director of Digital for MediaCom Interaction. "Glam Canada's model of providing a platform for brands to directly engage with highly social audiences is exactly what advertising brands need."

Local publishers in Canada will be able to leverage Glam's deep relationships with more than 1,000 global brands such as Procter &Gamble, Coca Cola, Mercedes-Benz, Sony Pictures and Gap to provide rich experiences to their audiences and generate additional revenue opportunities. Additionally, brands based in Canada will have the ability to use Glam's global services to reach consumers located in leading markets outside of Canada including the U.S., France, Germany, Japan and U.K.

"Canada's online audience is one of the most sophisticated in the world and regularly ranks among the highest for number of hours spent online per person, presenting an enormous opportunity for local and global brands," said Christine McNicholas, Glam Media's Senior Vice President and Country Manager for Glam Canada. "Glam's acquisition of BBS Media gives us the operational presence and resources we need in order to provide Canadian brands with creative and customizable solutions to reach highly desirable audiences inside and outside of Canada."

In addition to launching new advertising solutions, Glam Media Canada will also be creating a new owned-and-operated site, Glam.ca, later this summer. A dedicated team of Canadian-based editors and writers will offer quality curated content across a range of lifestyle categories including beauty, entertainment, fashion, health and wellness, sports and more.

For information regarding Glam Media and the company's acquisition of BBS Media, visit www.glammedia.com.  

About Glam Media

Glam Media is the pioneer of vertical media that connects the world's top brand advertisers with targeted vertical audiences online. Glam invented the first commercial Blog Network in 2005 to harness the power of Social Media for brands. Since then, it has grown to a reach of 84 million unique monthly visitors in the U.S. and more than 200 million visitors globally, and is #1 for Women and #8 in the Top 100 U.S. Web Properties. 

Glam Media has more than 2,000 publishers organized across multiple vertical categories online including: Glam.com for Women, Glam Entertainment for Adults, Brash.com for Men and Bliss.com for health and wellness seekers.

Glam Media has headquarters in Silicon Valley, New York, and London, with offices in Brisbane in California, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Toronto, London, Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Tokyo, Pune, Mumbai and Paris.

SOURCE Glam Media, Inc.