5 fifteen Inc, of New York, NY, announced today that The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc. (RDA) has signed a multi-year contract for the provision of a cloud-based advertising booking and billing solution for all its North American Digital operations. In addition to the flagship Reader’s Digest magazine, RDA publishes a suite of category-leading print and digital titles, including Taste of Home, the nation’s largest food & entertaining magazine, and The Family Handyman. 

The search for a robust ad billing system began two years ago, when RDA expanded its digital presence and billing requirements, along with IT’s desire for a cloud computing strategy across all its business and customer systems.

ad DEPOT will enable RDA to maximise advertising revenues by leveraging an integrated advertising sales process for digital, as well as providing the framework for a centralised ‘hub’ of management information. Created specifically for the magazine industry, ad DEPOT facilitates advert booking, placing, chasing and contact management to take place from one set of inter-connected components.

“With our range of titles and online options for advertisers, we needed a system and a company that could provide us with the flexibility to support all of our current and future advertising requirements,” states Rob Hilliard, VP Chief Technology Office, RD NA. “Of all the systems we reviewed, ad DEPOT most closely met our requirements for serving our health, home improvement and food communities throughout the advertising lifecycle. We were impressed with the depth of functionality available for large Metro publications such as ours, and also by 5 fifteen's personal, professional service and commitment to deliver.”

ad DEPOT is built using 100 percent web-services which can run anywhere; delivered directly from the Windows Azure cloud platform the solution for RDA provides high availability, scalable and durable cloud storage without the need to focus on infrastructure.

Paul McKinley, General Manager, 5 fifteen Ltd, comments, “We are honoured that RDA has chosen ad DEPOT for its next generation magazine advertising system. ad DEPOT is a cloud-based, agile and expandable global solution, able to adapt to constantly changing business models. This system will enable RDA to have full visibility across all advertising functions for all its titles, while delivering the quality, speed and accuracy that our customers expect from us.”

Implementation at RDA begins immediately.