Much has changed since 2001, when Adstream – acquired last week by Extreme Reach – was formed by partners James Carpenter, Gerard Barron and Richard Carter.

The ambitious Australian upstart launched into a world in which block services were still a recent memory, and the idea of shooting digital content around the world – let alone tracking and validating it – was more a dream than a reality.

With telco Telstra on board as a shareholder however, it soon got moving, buying local rival Quickcut in 2005, and the UK’s Traffic Bureau in 2007.

Peter Miller, who left in 2017 to be chief executive of what was then NewsMediaWorks, had been on board for much of the ride, joining Adstream after stints with both News and Fairfax Media and staying for 13 years.

Fast forward to 2021, and Adstream is in most markets of the world, and it’s Daniel Mark who is fronting up for the company in its merger with Extreme Reach. Ambitions include a new centralised platform for global creative asset management, talent and rights management, video ad serving and TV/CTV/OTT activation, backing it with what they say will be an “unprecedented” library of data and insight.

Mark and Extreme Reach chief Tim Conley met a couple of years ago, and say they were soon talking of the “perfect match” merger. Now it’s happening, ER has announced that Adstream chief technical officer Katie Nykanen – who has a background on the client side of the business – will become chief product officer across the expanded company.

Mark says advance feedback has been positive from key global clients, some of which were using ER for talent and rights management, with Adstream looking after workflow and asset management delivery.

“It’s now an all-in-one kind of solution, and we are really excited about that,” he says. “As far as we can see, we're the only one that can offer this seamless proposition.”

Pictured: Katie Nykanen (left) and Daniel Mark