Tag: adtech

The APAC landscape is experiencing a creativity crunch. While customers increasingly demand hyper-personalised experiences across a growing range of digital channels, brands find themselves falling short. Only a quarter (25%) rate themselves as “good” at creating and delivering content, a recent report by Adobe finds.

Marketing is one of the most creative professions in the business landscape. So this disconnect is not attributable to any deficiency in talent. Instead, creativity – the very life force of innovation – is constrained by the relentless demands placed on their schedules. As Harvard Business Review research demonstrates, when creativity is under the gun, it usually fizzles.

Is time up on creativity?

Marketers are juggling several campaigns at any given moment. They’re crunching numbers, forecasting, managing stakeholders and preparing presentations — all of which leave very little wiggle room for creativity to blossom. No wonder two in five (41%) APAC marketers cite lack of time to be creative as a barrier to delivering excellent customer experiences.

It’s not the only barrier though. The fear of the unknown also hinders marketers from taking creative risks. It’s safer to stick with the tried-and-true standard route to success. While this aversion to the unknown may provide a sense of security, it can also stifle innovation and limit the ability to captivate audiences with fresh and imaginative campaigns.

Even more, it opens brands up to being leapfrogged by their competitors. In an era where trends evolve swiftly and consumer preferences constantly shift, staying ahead requires a dynamic and flexible approach. Brands must quickly adapt their campaigns to ensure their messaging speaks directly and compassionately to the customers they’re targeting. 

Overcoming creative roadblocks with data-driven insights

We’re seeing a landscape where consumers increasingly embrace customised ads and anticipate tailored experiences. That means, there’s a transformative opportunity for marketers to capitalise on data-driven insights. While Gartner suggests a potential reassessment of personalisation efforts by 2025, we see this as a pivotal moment to reshape strategies and amplify creative impact.

Considerable effort is invested in leveraging data to define and reach target audiences. However, the true potential lies in applying this data-driven approach to creative endeavours. Research underscores that robust creative elements can contribute up to 89 per cent to the success of an ad.

So rather than adhering to a one-size-fits-all approach, brands can harness the power of data to craft compelling and relevant stories for every individual within their target audience. By seamlessly aligning creative content with data-driven insights, they can ensure a personalised and engaging experience for each user, steering clear of potential roadblocks and charting a course toward unprecedented success.

Data-driven, in-stream video ads, for example, offer brands a powerful way to monetise their content while providing viewers with more personalised and engaging experiences. By leveraging data analytics and segmentation, publishers can optimise ad targeting and create a win-win situation for both publishers and advertisers.

5 Benefits of data-driven, in-stream video ads for publishers and advertisers

  • Higher Engagement: Personalised ads are more likely to capture viewers’ attention and lead to higher interaction rates.
  • Improved Ad Relevance: Viewers are more likely to find the ad content relevant to their interests, which can result in higher conversion rates.
  • Enhanced User Experience: Data-driven ads can create a seamless and less intrusive ad experience, leading to increased viewer satisfaction.
  • Increased Revenue: More engaging and relevant ads can both command higher advertising rates and potentially boost publishers’ revenue.
  • Better Insights: The data collected from user interactions and behaviour can provide valuable insights for future ad campaigns and content creation.
  • Improved Brand Metrics: Personalised ads have been shown to positively impact brand metrics, such as ‘Brand Recall, Brand Favorability, Active Attention, Purchase Intent and Intent to Find Out More’, offering a comprehensive enhancement to overall brand performance.

Nexxen Creative Studio offers full services for testing and optimising creative ad campaigns before they’re even launched thanks to its unique four-step method: test, learn, optimise, launch. Let’s take a closer look:

  • TEST your asset against your identified audiences with Nexxen’s proprietary tools
  • LEARN how audiences respond to your creative and receive actionable recommendations across all metrics
  • OPTIMISE your asset to be most engaging to audiences and add functionality to drive media goals
  • LAUNCH the optimised assets to match your media plan and increase ROI

Setting the bar higher with data-driven insights

With Nexxen Creative Studio, creative decisions are no longer guided solely by intuition but are empowered by data-driven insights. Our clients, spanning diverse industries, are witnessing remarkable outcomes:

  • A prominent image-sharing and social media service has experienced a staggering 244% increase in Click-Through Rate (CTR) and a notable 59% improvement in consideration. This transformation is attributed to the application of creative insights, customised optimisations and audience-driven strategies.
  • An app-based gaming company has achieved a remarkable 53% reduction in the cost per install by leveraging Nexxen’s creative services to fine-tune creatives specifically for CTV screens.
  • An iconic outdoor apparel company has realised a significant 38% enhancement in attention compared to its standard assets. This accomplishment is a result of employing Nexxen’s creative insights to inform and guide the optimisation process.

Delivering next-gen creative capabilities

Data-driven, in-stream video ads not only offer publishers a robust tool for monetisation but also pave the way for viewers to experience advertising that is both engaging and tailored to their preferences. This convergence of creativity and data signifies a new era in advertising – one where insights drive narratives and personalisation is the key to resonating with audiences in an ever-evolving landscape.

This article is written by Killian Menigot, Senior Production Manager, Tokyo, Nexxen Studios.

The insight is published as part of MARKETECH APAC’s thought leadership series under What’s NEXT 2024. What’s NEXT 2024 is a multi-platform industry initiative which features marketing and industry leaders in APAC sharing their marketing insights and predictions for the upcoming year.

China – Indian programmatic ad-tech platform Xapads Media has announced its foray into the Chinese market, appointing industry veteran Huang Xu as country head of China in the process.

Building upon established connections and fruitful partnerships in China, Xapads Media’s expansion aims to extend its presence in the region by establishing a local office.

The ad-tech firm’s expansion plan comes into effect after successfully creating a footprint in the Indian digital advertising sector and establishing operational offices in the UAE, US, Indonesia, Russia, and Singapore.

As China’s digital ad market continues to expand, Xapads is excited to explore new opportunities and plans to leverage their premium ad inventories, offering customised products and services tailored to meet the specific needs of the agencies and brands.

Being appointed as country head, Xu has more than 12 years of experience in the Chinese market and prior to joining Xapads, he has held positions with Inmobi, Ironsource, and Appnext.

Speaking on his appointment, Xu said, “I’m enthusiastic about achieving outstanding outcomes for Xapads in China. With our extensive product team, we’re committed to delivering fully localised products and services ensuring benefits for both advertisers and partners.”

Adding to this, Ramneek Chadha, chief operating officer, Xapads Media, mentioned, “I am thrilled to have him join the Xapads family. Adhering to the existing Chinese connections, I anticipate he will strengthen global relationships with partners and extensively contribute to establishing steady ground for Xapads in the region.”

Meanwhile, Nitin Gupta, CEO of Xapads Media, commented, “We’re thrilled to commence our strategic journey in China with the addition of seasoned leader Huang Xu as the Country Head. With his expertise in navigating the intricate digital advertising landscape, we envision a future marked by fruitful partnerships and collective growth in this dynamic market.”

The programmatic supply chain needs to evolve to accommodate economic pressures, privacy regulations, and the push for greater buyer control of media budgets. To help media buyers across Asia Pacific meet these challenges, PubMatic launched Activate. With a single layer of technology, Activate removes inefficiencies in the programmatic supply chain – including the operational inefficiencies of direct-deal setups – and creates more value for buyers and sellers overall.

We believe the supply chain of the future must provide for the independence, interoperability, control, choice, and transparency that both buyers and sellers require. If the programmatic supply chain were created today — specially for direct deal and private deal opportunities — it would look vastly different. It would be much more efficient if buyers could transact programmatically closer to the inventory source. And that is why we are bringing Activate to the marketplace, to bridge the automation of programmatic with the control of direct.

PubMatic is in a unique position to bring this solution to market because we have well-established sell-side technology that was complemented with our 2022 acquisition of media measurement and reporting platform, Martin. We have now built a layer of technology which brings the publisher and buyer sides together with the same levels of interoperability and flexibility that we build into our entire suite of software solutions.

Activate taps into our entire publisher inventory pool of omnichannel video inventory, including CTV and high-value online video, giving buyers greater control and efficiency with fewer hops. Activate is built for a sustainable and responsible media chain and includes a unified SPO platform, which is designed to bring publishers and buyers closer together. Thanks to fee efficiencies, we anticipate more working media for our publisher customers, which has been a frequent request.

Learn more about how we are building the digital advertising supply chain of the future.

This article is written by Sudipto Das, Vice President, Advertiser Solutions, APAC at PubMatic.

This post is done in partnership with PubMatic.

Singapore – Tyroo Technologies and CJ have announced a multi-year global expansion partnership to offer international tech capabilities with localised solutions via the new ‘Tyroo | CJ’ platform in the Asia-Pacific region. 

Through this strategic alliance, advertisers and supply partners in APAC can gain access to an inventory from outcome-centric publishers worldwide through the new advertising platform,  ‘Tyroo | CJ’. 

With a monthly reach of over 1 billion shoppers and 14+ billion shopping interactions annually, the platform boasts universal shopper event tracking, integrations with top e-commerce platforms, end-to-end programme management and optimisation toolsets, and actionable insights and data analytics capabilities, including incrementality measurement.

The ‘Tyroo | CJ’ platform can streamline local finance processes, offer localised optimisation solutions, and ensure a smooth and efficient experience for advertisers and publishers seeking to amplify their reach and impact on a global scale.

The alliance is also expected to synergize both companies’ strengths. The business will leverage CJ’s technology, partnership network, performance marketing experts, workflows, processes, and operations. Meanwhile, Tyroo’s market experience, depth of infrastructure, and relationships will accelerate customer acquisition and growth in the region. 

The business partnership will be headquartered in Singapore and India and launch with expert teams in many locations across Asia.

Siddharth Puri, CEO at Tyroo Technologies, said, “This partnership is driven by our organisational mission of empowering brands in APAC to scale. APAC is on the cusp of becoming the largest digital advertising market, and yet we find a lot of brands struggling to build outcome-based profitable growth channels due to the lack of unified tech and tools to leverage quality publishers.” 

“Globally, we found that in over 15% of brand media plans, tech has been deployed to solve for profitable growth via media partnerships. With this alliance, we will aid advertisers in building performance-centric programs with a tech-first approach by leveraging CJ’s technology and methodology in concert with our legacy and deep knowledge of Asia,” he added. 

Speaking on the partnership, Mayur Kshetramade, CEO at CJ, also shared, “Tyroo | CJ is a partnership of trusted market leaders united in a commitment to transform every aspect of performance and partnership marketing across Asia. This unprecedented strategic and commercial collaboration marks a turning point for advertisers, agencies, publishers, and the 4.7 billion consumers across the region. In so many Asian nations, incredible opportunities have emerged in affiliate, influencer marketing, lead generation, shopper marketing, conversion optimisation, and a host of next-gen channels. From this day forward, there’s an integrated solution to unlock the full scope and scale of commerce across Asia.”

Singapore – Omnichannel supply-side platform OpenX has announced the launch of ‘ConteX’, an OpenX marketplace within the SSP that aims to empower brands and agencies to activate a variety of both off-the-shelf and custom contextual solutions with efficiency.

ConteX offers buyers contract-free contextual targeting capabilities, enabling advertisers to leverage premium data partners and easily deploy the solutions that work best for their region without going partner-by-partner to strike deals.

The offering also provides buyers the opportunity to contextually target on the supply-side, delivering improved accuracy, promising premium supply and an unprecedented insight into programmatic campaigns.

Each ConteX premium data partner uses a different, proprietary methodology to enable buyers to reach highly targeted audiences in any environment without leveraging cookies or authenticated IDs. 

First is Audigent, a data activation, curation, and identity platform, followed by Captify, a search intelligence platform for the open web. OpenX also employs Permutive for audience platform capabilities powered by publisher first-party data, and Silverpush for an AI-powered contextual advertising platform. Lastly, Sqreem is also used as an AI-powered digital behaviour aggregator.

To activate these segments, OpenX works directly with the data partner to set up the audience and share a data-driven deal ID with the buyer, who then activates the deal ID within their DSP of choice.

Commenting on ConteX, Andrew Tu, managing director, APAC at OpenX, said, “This innovation in supply-side curation and targeting provides easily accessible contextual segments, regionally relevant privacy compliance, and increased personalization, leading to higher return on ad spend.”

“As a leader in targeting globally, OpenX’s strategic size allows both scale and a focus on premium inventory by building innovative tools such as ConteX,” he added.

Singapore – Adtech company Adzymic has announced the launch of its Adzymic Premium Exchange (APX), which incorporates various rich media formats within premium publishers in Malaysia and Singapore. 

APX is an innovative advertising network that integrates high-impact formats and non-intrusive rich media ad units such as desktop skins, mobile scrollers, and a range of other rich media formats across premium publishers.

The advertising network leverages Adzymic’s own Creative Management Platform (CMP) and Dynamic Creative Optimisation (DCO) technology to incorporate creative automation and dynamic capabilities within high-impact, rich media formats. This includes a range of features that allow for dynamic product ads, live data feeds, API integrations, and much more.

Furthermore, it also uses Microsoft Advertising’s sell-side platform, Monetize. This would allow advertisers and agencies to easily work with APX through direct IO buys or via programmatic DSPs.

Meanwhile, Adzymic’s in-house operations teams will work alongside agencies and client programmatic buying units to set up self-serve programmatic deals or manage the end-to-end campaign operations for direct bookings.

APX has now reached 90% of web audiences through the company’s partnerships with Mediacorp and SPH Media in Singapore and Rev Media Group and Astro in Malaysia.

Coupled with impactful advertising, brand-safe, and attention-focused environments, the advertising network service offers performance and high viewability that deliver results to advertisers.

With the launch of APX, Adzymic is also announcing the appointment of Justin Lim as its new managing partner for APX.

Justin brings with him a wealth of experience in the ad tech industry, having held leadership and commercial roles at Azerion, Sublime, and Unruly. His experience working closely with publishers and agencies positions him perfectly to drive growth for APX.

Alicia Luke, head of channel excellence at SPH Media Ltd. Singapore, said, “As one of the largest media networks in Singapore, SPH Media has always prioritised delivering value to both our readers and advertisers. Through our partnership with Adzymic in APX, we are able to offer advertisers various digital solutions across our premium SPH Network sites.”

Also commenting on the partnership, Nicholas Sagau, chief operating officer at Rev Media Group Malaysia, shared, “We are excited to announce that APX is now a part of Rev Media Group’s list of advertising solution partners. This partnership enables us to continue offering advertisers in Malaysia access to a premium advertising solution which enhances the way brands engage with their audiences. APX’s high impact and dynamic nature of the creative formats align perfectly with our commitment to excellence in advertising.”

Kenny Ong, director of Astro Media Solutions, also added, “Through Astro’s partnership with Adzymic, we can help brands benefit from rich media that focuses on high-quality placement, intelligent contextual targeting, and brand safety. Astro’s audience-first, experience-led, and data-supported approach, together with premium content and APX’s smart technology, offer powerful and effective media solutions for brands to measure the impact of rich digital advertising more effectively across all metrics and KPIs.”

Meanwhile, speaking on his appointment, Justin said, “I am thrilled to spearhead the launch of Adzymic Premium Exchange (APX). It represents the culmination of our dedication to innovation, offering advertisers a solution that seamlessly combines automation with high-impact, rich media formats and premium inventory to deliver impactful ad campaigns. I look forward to working with the talented team at Adzymic to roll out the APX solution to publishers and advertisers as we continue our global expansion.”

Singapore – Scope3, the pioneer of data-led solutions to decarbonise media and advertising, has launched universal access to industry emissions data on their platform to increase visibility into digital advertising’s carbon emissions.

The launch also represents a significant departure from the industry’s previously fragmented approach to decarbonisation.

The Scope3 platform centralises sustainability data and visualises the millions of metric tonnes of carbon output emitted into the earth’s atmosphere every year from digital advertising. It is specially engineered to account for the highly complex and interconnected digital ad ecosystem.

Furthermore, it exposes opportunities that exist to decrease industry’s impact on the climate crisis by employing the same dataset to measure emissions and drive industry-wide decarbonisation.

With Scope3 providing greater visibility into the carbon footprint of the digital advertising ecosystem, it aims to align industries, push reduction, and become a catalyst for change.

The grant for universal access to the platform data will allow users to explore carbon emissions metrics for millions of digital media properties, including inventory across web domains, mobile apps, and connected TV devices.

Additionally, users can access digital media property reports on emission metrics, track carbon emission changes on online media properties, explore detailed supply path maps, monitor emissions on specific digital media properties, and view comparative ranking metrics across industries. 

The data visualised in the platform is powered by the Scope3 emissions model. Built using Scope3’s open-source methodology, the model also sits at the core of every one of its emissions reduction solutions and research insights papers.

Aside from this, the launch of the data access initiative on its platform is expected to drive trust as it gives industry the power to explore the data firsthand, transparency with the data available to almost anyone, and usability as the data is updated and reliable.

Anne Coghlan, COO and co-founder at Scope3, said, “The first step to tackling rising carbon emissions is ensuring the industry has access to concise and reliable measurement. We need to have a full understanding of the problems created by the digital advertising supply chain in order to identify the most impactful opportunities for reduction.”

She added, “By putting insights into the hands of everyone, there’s no excuse for inaction. Only through this kind of collaborative effort can we drive systemic change to rebuild towards a more ethical, responsible, and sustainable internet.”

Singapore – Global unified adtech platform Nexxen has announced that it is expanding the offering of its free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) solutions for advertisers in Asia-Pacific. This will allow clients to run campaigns across this increasingly popular channel, in and beyond the region.

The company is working to ensure advertisers’ campaigns reach their target audiences, no matter the environment through a single destination for CTV inventory – including broadcaster video on demand (BVOD), advertising-based video on demand (AVOD) and FAST channels.

Further, Nexxen is updating its demand-side platform (DSP) to include a new storefront, focused on displaying broadcasters, FAST channels and additional premium publisher inventory. 

The storefront aims to provide brands and agencies with more direct and easier access to premium supply, thus streamlining digital campaigns. It also delivers increased visibility, transparency and control of inventory to publishers and broadcasters, enhancing their monetisation potential. The storefront is set to launch in 2024. 

Adam Hunt, vice president of business development and partnerships for APAC at Nexxen, said, “FAST channels have skyrocketed in popularity worldwide. As they continue to gain traction – particularly in APAC – we want to ensure our partners on both the buy- and sell-sides are empowered to make well-informed decisions regarding their inventory needs and capitalise on the highest yielding opportunities.”

He added, “We believe the storefront will be a welcome solution for agencies, brands and publishers alike, providing all parties with greater visibility and control as they navigate this ever-changing ecosystem.”

Singapore – Global adtech firm Quantcast released its ‘Asia Pacific 2023 Advertising State of Play Report’, which discussed the future of digital advertising, the challenges and opportunities lie ahead for advertisers and agencies, where brands are planning ad spend this financial year, and what barriers stand in the way of programmatic video adoption.

In the report, Quantcast found out that key challenges and barriers were the need to prove return of investment (ROI)/performance and effectiveness, while personalising ads and finding new audiences amidst the global economic downturn.

APAC marketers and agencies identified and are looking to invest in several opportunities including performance-led advertising, business growth, and investing in easy-to-use tools, with programmatic video and search expected to grow significantly in APAC over the next year, particularly as social channels remain critical in countries including Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines.

With this, data suggests that OTT investment in APAC is expected to grow from US$4.3 billion to US$7.2 billion between 2020 and 2026 – a 67% increase within six years. Linear TV and radio are likely to see the largest decline in media investment, as advertisers lean towards digital experiences. 

Preparing for a cookie-less world is also a priority, with nearly 60% of agencies and just under 43% of brand-side marketers naming it as their top priority for FY 23/24, focusing on cookie-less advertising solutions and getting audience insights through first-party data over the next 12 months.

Sonal Patel, vice president of Quantcast, APAC, said, “In the coming months, we’re expecting to see advertisers continually asked to deliver more value, navigate more technological changes, and get on top of changing consumer behaviour to maximise advertising outcomes. To get ahead, APAC marketers will need to seize the opportunities to build their brands now. Businesses that increase advertising activities during downturns can snag market share from more conservative brands.

Singapore –DoubleVerify (DV), a digital media measurement and analytics software platform, has partnered with Google’s Ads data hub for measurement partners to enhance its quality solutions.

This collaboration enables enhanced media measurement and maximizes advertiser performance on YouTube Shorts, Mastheads, and in-feed video formats. 

Moreover, DV’s quality verification technology for YouTube Shorts delivers two key advantages to advertisers. Firstly, it safeguards against fraud and IVT, ensuring real human views without bot interference. Secondly, it provides comprehensive viewability measurement, maximizing ad visibility and impact.

In a statement, Mark Zagorski, CEO of DoubleVerify, expressed excitement about the expansion, stating, “Short-form videos offer advertisers a high-engagement forum to connect with passionate online communities. This release enables our customers to authenticate their media and maximize campaign effectiveness.”

Meanwhile, DV’s long-standing history of providing viewability and fraud measurement across YouTube and Google ad-serving solutions strengthens its position as a leading verification provider, enabling brands to optimize advertising investments and engage audiences effectively on diverse YouTube advertising platforms.