According to Vio managing director Chris Friend, the Software as a Service (SaaS) has the potential to dramatically increase visibility and accountability throughout the ad workflow.

"Although the publisher has a unique identifier for every ad it books, this hasn't historically been attached to that ad when it is placed with a creative agency by the media buyer," said Friend.

Vio initially targeted MBX, or Insertion Manager as it was originally known, as the "logical starting point" in the workflow between the publisher and the media buyers.

However, according to Friend it was very difficult to engender change from that standpoint, due to media buyers not wanting to take additional responsibility and therefore accountability for keying in the unique identifier with the booking information.

This led Vio to start from the final step, between repro supplier and publisher, with the aim to work back from there to the brand owner.

Friend added: "We can offer a lot of benefits to both brand owners and publishers in terms of increased visibility and accountability. From the publishers' point of view, this has the potential to completely remove the need for a room full of copy chasers."

Following the decision to focus on the link between repro supplier and publisher, Vio has succeeded in kick-starting its ad workflow revolution, with MBX having been in use now at a major national newspaper for the past six months.