Tag: adtech

London, United Kingdom – Global adtech PubMatic has signed a deal with Sweden-based adaptive streaming specialist SeenThis to aid them in delivering digital advertising while keeping in mind minimising carbon emissions.

This initiative will give brands and agencies around the world a simple, efficient way to shift their buying behaviour in favour of more sustainable media, without compromising on advertising performance.  

Moreover, the partnership between PubMatic and SeenThis provides advertisers and agencies with a way to run scaled, carbon-efficient video campaigns across the breadth of the premium supply on the PubMatic platform. Campaigns can be activated via a Deal ID, and buyers can access the full suite of curation tools available through PubMatic.

Jason Barnes, chief revenue officer for APAC at PubMatic, said, “SeenThis’ technology is incredibly efficient, delivering video experiences that are lightweight and fast. Combined with PubMatic’s expertise in supply path optimization, agencies and advertisers can now identify the most effective channels and partners from a commercial perspective and seamlessly execute programmatic deals across all channels, while ensuring carbon emissions are minimized. With more sustainable solutions, brands and agencies will be better equipped to meet the increasing consumer demand for environmentally conscious advertising campaigns.”

Meanwhile, Thomas Houge, chief commercial officer at SeenThis, commented, “We are very excited to be partnering with PubMatic on this initiative. We believe that all businesses, us included, are accountable for the emissions from their operations, and also have a responsibility to minimize the climate impact throughout their value chain and industry. By working together, we have a greater opportunity to make a meaningful contribution towards a more sustainable future for digital advertising.”

This partnership comes in line with PubMatic’s ongoing commitment to have its global data centres run on renewable energy.

Australia – Global advertising technology company Quantcast and video ad technology company FreeWheel has announced a new partnership that allows advertisers direct access to global premium video publishers.

As part of the deal, marketers working with Quantcast will now have access to premium programmatic video supply across all personal screens and devices, including over-the-top (OTT) and connected television (CTV).

Through the partnership, marketers can also leverage Quantcast’s AI and machine-learning capabilities to drive optimal outcomes by connecting with the right audiences across FreeWheel’s supply of premium video, extending inventory reach beyond native, display, mobile and online video.

“CTV’s rapid expansion and growth is transforming both the digital and TV ad sectors and so, we have to move quickly and nimbly to anticipate shifting consumer behaviour,” said Konrad Feldman, CEO of Quantcast. 

On the partnership, Feldman commented, “Our company has been at the forefront of using AI to interpret media consumption patterns and deliver campaign performance and outcomes. By teaming up with FreeWheel, we can better support our advertisers to reach consumers across even more engagement and connection points.”

Quantcast Managing Director for APAC, Sonal Patel, also said, “We’re thrilled to work with FreeWheel in a partnership that advances our service offering and helps our advertising clients achieve even better outcomes with video.”

Jon Mansell, U.S. head of marketplace demand at FreeWheel likewise shared his excitement over the partnership, as it will help drive incremental demand for sellers across the streaming ecosystem.

“This new partnership enables us to provide a new programmatic access point to FreeWheel’s ad server, a direct connection that helps marketers to further reduce waste and avoid unnecessary exchange redundancy, all while delivering a better experience to consumers.”

The partnership and its accompanying capabilities will be live in market, including Australia and APAC, from Q3 of 2023.

New York – Tremor International, the data-driven video and Connected TV (CTV) advertising technology, has announced a global partnership with Scope3, the sustainable advertising catalyst, to apply the latter’s carbon emission measurement methodology to its CTV inventory. 

Through Unruly, the SSP in Tremor’s platform, buyers can access Green Media Product (GMP) curated deals – powered by Scope3 data – across premium display, video and now, CTV, to achieve performance goals while mapping and measuring the carbon emissions of their media spend.

GMPs are media products based on Scope3 data, designed to reduce an advertiser’s carbon footprint by providing them with the ability to map and measure the emissions related to their media spend. By moving spend onto GMPs, advertisers can contribute to potential industry-wide systemic change. 

“At Tremor International, we believe in working collaboratively to drive positive change. CTV plays a key role in the future of our business and the industry at large, so it’s critical that we prioritise sustainability as our technology advances to support the convergence of traditional TV and digital advertising,” said Karim Rayes, chief product officer at Tremor International. 

He added, “Together with Scope3, we are taking a thoughtful approach to supporting the reduction of our industry’s carbon footprint while continuing to optimise our clients’ investments across emerging formats.”

Brenda Tuohig, head of strategy and global partnerships at Scope3, also said, “As investment in CTV grows, it’s important that the industry can measure and understand the carbon emissions associated with it. By expanding Scope3’s methodology to include streaming and CTV, we’re another step closer to getting a full picture of the ad industry’s carbon footprint.” 

Tuohig added, “What’s even more exciting is that we can now use that data to take action to reduce emissions and Tremor is a key part of that. Offering CTV-specific GMPs is just the first of multiple ways that Tremor will be using Scope3 data to help drive emissions reduction in programmatic advertising.”

Tremor International has also previously partnered with media measurement and analytics company Comscore to deliver expanded programmatic CTV audience engagement.

Sunshine Coast, Australia – Adtech company Cartelux has named Google’s previous advertising solutions architect, Mathew Pretel, as its new head of product. Pretel joins Cartelux to support the company’s next growth phase.

After expanding into the Americas at the beginning of the year and into Africa in the coming month, the adtech company now has a global reach and is adding new features to its advertising software that will ultimately allow it to expand into further categories besides its current focus on the automotive industry.

Prior to joining Cartelux, he was Google’s senior advertising solutions architect and the technical lead for a Google News Initiative-sponsored program that helped accelerate the digital maturity of publishers across APAC. 

He also worked as a product manager at the ‘next billion users program’, a Google initiative in emerging countries. Before that, Mathew was head of professional services for digital publishers in Australia and New Zealand.

Commenting on his appointment, Pretel said, “I am delighted to join Cartelux’s global team as Head of Product. Cartelux is by far the most innovative, value-adding, and cost-effective marketing solution I have ever seen. I am excited for our journey and the expansion that is ahead of us.”

Joshua Williams, founder and CEO of Cartelux, remarked, “We are excited to welcome Mathew to our team. His extensive expertise and passion will facilitate our continued innovation and enable us to further enhance our product offerings. By leveraging his support, we are committed to revolutionising the way brands and their retail networks approach advertising through our streamlined digital advertising solutions for local showrooms.”

California, USA – Global adtech company PubMatic has announced the launch of ‘Activate’, an end-to-end supply path optimisation (SPO) solution, which allows buyers to execute non-bidded direct deals on PubMatic’s programmatic platform, accessing premium video and CTV inventory at scale.

Initial launch partners include dentsu, FuboTV, GroupM, Havas, LG, Mars, and Omnicom Media Group Germany, amongst others.

Built leveraging technology from PubMatic’s 2022 acquisition of Martin, ‘Activate’ is fully integrated into PubMatic’s growing software suite, including the PubMatic Sell-Side Platform and Connect.

‘Activate’ represents a new industry paradigm as it is a single layer of technology that directly connects buyers and sellers of digital media. Activate gives buyers more control over their omnichannel video investments by executing deals across PubMatic’s premium CTV and online video inventory in one platform, enabling a seamless transition of their direct business to programmatic private marketplace (PMP) or programmatic guaranteed (PG). 

It is also expected to facilitate the transition of insertion order budgets into the programmatic ecosystem due to the reduction in complexity, time, and cost achieved by the single technology layer approach. As a result, buyers may expect increased ROI and publishers may see increased revenue.

For PubMatic co-founder and CEO, Rajeev Goel, as buyers and sellers of digital seek a more efficient, transparent, and sustainable supply chain, ‘Activate’ extends this successful supply path optimisation strategy, which they pioneered four years ago.

“By seamlessly connecting buyers and content owners via a single layer of technology, we are significantly reducing the hops, discrepancies, data proliferation, opacity, and complexity in the programmatic marketplace. This will result in higher ROI for buyers and increased revenue for publishers, consistent with our mission to fuel the endless potential of internet content creators who rely on advertising as a primary source of revenue,” Goel said.

Beijing, China – Xiaomi MiAds, Xiaomi’s global advertising platform, has appointed AVOW, the specialist agency focusing on mobile OEM on-device user acquisition, as its official core agency for user growth and customer success solutions in India.

The partnership will enable app developers and brands looking to use mobile OEM advertising to achieve incremental growth by making inroads into Xiaomi’s massive loyal user base through AVOW in the world’s most populous country.

MiAds is one of the core services of Xiaomi’s international internet business. MiAds covers over 100 markets worldwide, supports 70 languages, and offers reach to millions of monthly active users. The platform provides a multi-faceted advertising portal through proprietary apps such as Mi Browser, Mi Music, Themes, Mi Video, and its official proprietary app store GetApps. 

In addition, Xiaomi allows marketers to accurately locate target audiences and convert their users into brand customers through multiple targeting options.

According to AVOW, the platform ultimately tapped its services for the exceptional undertaking it has shown of the media business activities and customer service for MiAds in India and other major markets. 

AVOW will operate as one of the main points of contact, managing a 360-degree execution of mobile advertising campaigns on Xiaomi’s advertisement platform – from launching apps on the GetApps marketplace and booking dynamic preload campaigns to media buying and campaign optimization.

Sharing his views on this association, Bono Wu, Head of Channel Partnership & Direct Sales of EU and LATAM for the International Internet Business Department at Xiaomi, said, “We are delighted to have AVOW onboard as our core agency in India. AVOW’s exceptional work in the Indian market and beyond has led us to continue our fruitful partnership. The combination of Xiaomi’s system-level empowerment to MiAds on MIUI and AVOW’s deep expertise will be truly beneficial to our mutual clients.”

Meanwhile, AVOW Co-Founder Ashwin Shekhar, commented, “We are thrilled to be named the core agency again for Xiaomi. Building on our success in EMEA, SEA, and LATAM, our key partnership with Xiaomi MiAds extends to India. Strengthening our alliances will allow us to offer more exclusive opportunities for mobile marketers to access Xiaomi’s strong presence in the country. India is a dynamic market, and we are committed to helping marketers with greater access to the user audience and eventually make mobile OEM advertising a default part of every marketer’s marketing mix.”

In December, Xiaomi Indonesia named Stephanie Sicilia as its associate marketing director. 

Australia – Following its successful Australian launch in late 2021, and off the back of a period of rapid growth, ad-spec business ‘The Spec Sheet’ has expanded into New Zealand.

Leading the New Zealand office is The Spec Sheet’s Head of Media and Sales, Nick Howie. Howie has extensive knowledge of the New Zealand media and marketing landscape with more than 17 years of industry experience. Prior to joining The Spec Sheet, Howie was TVNZ’s Head of Trading for more than five years. 

The Spec Sheet launches in New Zealand with the support of a vast network of local and global media partners, including TVNZ, NZME, Go Media, JCDecaux, Lumo, Stuff, and Mediaworks to name a few.

Founded by former Special Group talent Sharon Gray and Jesse McLallen, The Spec Sheet was built to help media owners, media agencies and creative agencies solve a problem that has plagued the industry for decades. Gray, a former digital producer, and McLallen, a former digital creative, created the platform to eliminate errors, cut out the unnecessary wasted time and increase collaboration during the ad spec and material instruction process.

In less than two years, The Spec Sheet has expanded to a client base of over 256 media owners – including Foxtel, Nine, Ten, Nova, SBS, ARN, and QMS – and now has over 44,000 ad specs, making it the largest verified ad spec database globally.

Sharon Gray, the co-founder, said, “We started The Spec Sheet out of sheer frustration. We knew there had to be a more effective, less laborious, and more accurate way of creating, sharing, maintaining and documenting ad specs. And so, The Spec Sheet was born. With the mission of making life easier for media planners, we’ve since onboarded almost every major media owner in Australia, taken our tech to the next level, and hired more than 20 incredibly talented people.”

“It’s been a massive journey, but we’ve got real talent in our team, and now a robust and polished product. As we’ve started to work with more and more media owners and agencies who do trans-Tasman planning, we knew that launching in New Zealand was the obvious next step in our journey.”

The Spec Sheet is already working with several clients in Australia who plan across markets, with interest from agencies on the ground in New Zealand rapidly increasing. 

Jesse McLallen, also co-founder, said, “Since we launched at the end of December 2021, the product has totally reinvented itself. The Spec Sheet is now a fully collaborative, living document that is powered by a library of media owner verified ad specs. It can be shared between all partners. Simply put, we connect media owners, media agencies, creatives and clients, providing an end-to-end solution, saving our customers up to 70% of time when they create and share spec sheets.”

“Aligning with global media industry players, The Spec Sheet is rapidly scaling and expanding our product suite. We are now proud to include Material Instructions as part of our offering, and we can’t wait to get started in New Zealand. This is just the beginning.”

Tokyo, Japan – Media technology group Moving Walls and local OOH company jeki have teamed up to launch the platform ‘MASTRUM’ to automate out-of-home (OOH) advertising across the country. This follows a previous partnership between the two companies to see jeki’s advertising screens being activated.

‘MASTRUM’ is an impression-based digital OOH advertising platform that provides ad space trading, ad serving, and programmatic DOOH advertising to meet domestic and international demand. 

This will enable highly efficient, high-value-added buying of digital signage and other types of OOH advertising across Japan. Moving Walls has also customised jeki`s implementation to ingest first-party data that will be used for planning and effectiveness measurement.

With this launch, jeki plans to expand the scope of media they handle to include other railways and outdoor media. The Moving Walls platform includes solutions for the buy side – planning, activation, and campaign measurement. The company also provides supply side solutions including inventory and campaign management through their subsidiary Location Media Xchange (LMX).

According to Ryoji Akaishi, president and representative director at jeki, they selected Moving Walls as their ideal technology partner to create a large marketplace for all types of OOH.

“By customising Moving Walls’ platform, jeki will be able to offer new services based on its long-accumulated expertise in transportation advertising and its unique perspective. We aim to become one of the largest marketplaces in Japan with an abundant inventory while networking nationwide, including OOH in the city, beyond the railroad domain. We also believe that through the automation of advertising transactions we can provide opportunities for efficient and visible advertising transactions,” Akaishi explained.

Meanwhile, Srikanth Ramachandran, founder and group CEO of Moving Walls, commented, “We are very proud that Moving Walls has been chosen as the technology platform to help launch what will be jeki’s largest automated ‘all-OOH’ market.” Moving Walls has created a dedicated project team to localise and customise our technology, including delivery on a private cloud instance, guaranteeing the highest level of service to jeki.”

New Jersey, USA – Global advertising technology innovator VDO.AI has announced the launch of its new division named VDO.AI Entertainment which aims to deliver immersive consumer digital experiences in the field of entertainment, gaming, and sports industries.

The new division will be led by Sean Black, who is also the head of North American business. It will be composed of a team of experts that specialises in entertainment, gaming, and sports who are committed to delivering innovative digital experiences. 

Moreover, the team will work closely with clients to create activations that maximises VDO.AI’s AI-powered technology and deliver personalised experiences that are align to the consumers’ preferences on platforms.

The establishment of the new division will also allow brands to access various digital experiences that revolutionises consumer connections across the next generation of digital environments. In addition, it will provide a platform to engage with consumers through immersive placements and intergrated creative solutions.

CEO Amitt Sharma said that the launching of the new division serves as an exciting chapter in the company’s evolution and they are thrilled to offer an innovative way to engage with their audiences and create unforgettable experiences for them.

“We believe that VDO.AI Entertainment has the potential to revolutionize the entertainment, gaming, and sports industries by providing immersive, interactive activations that truly capture the imagination of consumers while creating a story and connection to the brands,” Black added.

VDO.AI aims to build innovative and timely products, which serve as growth engines for both publishers and advertisers.

Australia – Global adtech PubMatic has appointed James Young, most recently from rival adtech company Magnite, as its new regional director for Australia and New Zealand. His appointment takes effect in September this year.

In his new role, Young will lead the ANZ team, managing strategy, sales and operations for PubMatic in the region, as the company continues to focus on delivering effective, innovative, and responsible media solutions to publishers and advertisers.

Most recently, Young was Magnite’s managing director for Australia. He previously held senior roles with Telaria, The Guardian, and eBay. He is also the co-chair of the IAB Video Council.

Speaking on his appointment, he said, “The ANZ market has enormous potential for growth, and I’m excited that I’ll be part of a company that is at the forefront of the digital advertising industry. I look forward to working closely with PubMatic customers and partners to drive success in the region.”

Meanwhile, Jason Barnes, chief revenue officer for APAC at PubMatic, commented, “PubMatic is in a period of significant growth and James’s pedigree in the digital advertising market and experience with broadcast on demand (BVOD) advertising will bring incredible value to the team and our publisher and advertiser customers.”

This new appointment comes after the recent appointment of Sandro Catanzaro as new vice president of product management, CTV, and video.