Tag: Criteo

Singapore – To expand its client capabilities across Asia-Pacific’s retail media market, global commerce media company Criteo has announced its acquisition of Australia-based omnichannel media platform Brandcrush. Through this, Brandcrush aims to offer holistic omnichannel monetization solutions for global retailers whilst helping brands and agencies to discover and acquire omnichannel media from major retailers. 

As retail media provides revenue opportunities, retailers usually rely on emails and spreadsheets to manage packaging, availability, and purchasing of their media inventory. With the acquisition of Brandcrush, global retailers will be given the capability to able to manage a more comprehensive media inventory for both e-commerce and physical retail. 

Furthermore, the acquisition will also serve as support for the advertisers to scale their advertising through the whole omnichannel retail media landscape.

Sherry Smith, general manager of global enterprise at Criteo, said that as marketers prefer investing in retail media, offline is emerging as the new frontier; therefore, brands and agencies must be able to effectively plan, execute, and measure their campaigns in an integrated way.

“Brandcrush directly addresses the current market need for consolidated offline and online advertising management, and our combined solutions will make omnichannel retail media strategies a reality, empowering retailers to own their entire retail media ecosystems,” Smith added.

Teresa Aprile, co-founder and CEO at Brandcrush, commented, “By combining forces, we’re bringing together our platform with Criteo’s best-in-class retail media technology to create the most effective monetization platform for retailers.”

Last year, it can be noted that Criteo announced its plans for its technology and analytics centre to expand its operations across APAC.

Criteo connects marketers with media owners to provide engaging shopping experiences from product discovery to purchase.

Digital advertising spend has increased, and is forecasted to grow even further. Dentsu forecasts that ad spending globally will grow by 8.7%, and that around US$738.5b will be spent worldwide this July. As part of that growth, tech companies are very eager to dip into the adtech industry, as well as improve business performance within other adtech companies.. Data from WARC suggests that globally-recognised Big Tech companies will take up about 10.0% of all worldwide ad investment by 2030.

However, as much as there is activity within the adtech industry, companies are on the brink of losing more investment, ranging from factors such as waste of ad expenditure, online misleading content, and ad fraud. These reasons, in turn, become some of the biggest issues within the adtech space, with the large majority of adtech companies rely on third-party data to carry out their advertising strategies. This is evident with the fact that Google has delayed (once again) the phasing out of third-party cookies by 2024, after being previously delayed to 2023. 

And while third-party cookies remain a dominant feature of brands’ success in the adtech scene, there is a rising trend of using alternative ways to improve their digital advertising, from use of zero-party data and contextual targeting to identity solutions.

In our newest The Inner State industry deep-dive, we spoke with three adtech industry leaders: Peter Barry, vice president of addressability at PubMatic; Kenneth Pao, executive managing director at Criteo for Asia-Pacific; and Travis Teo, executive director and co-founder at Adzymic–to learn more about their insights on the current state of the adtech industry–what needs to be changed, and how they envision the industry for the future.

On Changing Adtech Trends: How Do Industry Leaders Perceive It?

Following the changes on Google’s Sandbox Privacy and Apple’s IDFA policies, Teo commented that investment into digital advertising is becoming more industry-specific and sensitive to the macro environment.

“We see shifting of spend into performance related media due to general downtrend of public stock markets, but pockets of industries like travel and entertainment are increasing in spend. Right now, we didn’t see changes in third-party cookies or Apple IDFA, affecting the spends, but we do see advertisers starting to ask questions around these topics,” he stated.

Meanwhile, Pao commented that through these changes, they were able to trigger their efforts to find new ways to engage with consumers, as well as diversify their approach away from retargeting for the benefits of both their clients and consumers. This includes introducing commerce media solutions.

“The approach combines commerce data and intelligence to target consumers throughout their shopping journey and help marketers and media owners drive commerce outcomes. Through this, both marketers and media owners can activate their first-party data and inventory, and package this for advertisers to drive commerce outcomes,” Pao stated.

Delaying Third-Party Cookies: Should We Debate or Move On?

When asked about their perspectives regarding the recent delays made by Google on phasing out third-party cookies, all three agreed that the adtech industry should move towards an ‘open internet’ where consumers’ data sharing preferences are protected in addition to combining data and advertising to create richer online experiences for consumers. 

“As we move towards an addressable media future, Criteo will focus on enabling marketers to manage, scale, and engage their audiences, while empowering media owners to fully utilise their first-party customer data through our commerce media platform strategy,” Pao said.

Meanwhile, Teo noted that there is already a certain fatigue with regards to this topic of cookie deprecation, and that there are more topics within the adtech space marketers and advertisers should talk about.

“At the same time, the industry should move on amidst the uncertainty, and chart its own path forward, instead of relying on Google Alternative. It may be painful initially but will reap the benefits in the future,”

Furthermore, Barry noted that delaying cookie deprecation doesn’t slow their innovation, development and commitment to customers to deliver results for advertisers and publishers.

“It is not good for competition and a healthy open internet when one company makes the digital publishing and advertising world uncertain about what moves to make; the industry should welcome a move away from any one company holding all the cards and should continue to act proactively. The industry should not use this delay to stall; instead this should only encourage us to work faster,” he explained.

Barry also added, “The industry must continue to work together and test privacy-first solutions that will enable safe, data-driven advertising into the future – this news just gives the industry more time to refine technical approaches and drive greater adoption prior to the transition. The move away from third-party cookies is in line with broader global trends around consumer data protection.”

The Big Question: Is Adtech ‘Dying’?

All of the adtech leaders have agreed that the industry isn’t dying after all, but rather advertisers and marketers alike should use the foundational tools and services they have within the traditional adtech space to develop new services that will transition the industry to a more privacy-centric future. 

Teo explains, “I believe the industry will continue to thrive and adapt. We are seeing innovative solutions coming up from various partners in the industry – too many in fact, and the downside is that it can lead to confusion from brands and agencies to understand which offerings can best suit their needs.”

Meanwhile, Pao stated that instead of staying reluctant to prepare for the future of addressability, they should view this as an opportunity to explore innovative tools that can empower them to build up a stronger first-party data management strategy. 

“Rather than viewing the evolution of consumer data privacy as a conflict to existing adtech offerings, adtech firms need to understand that tech tools serve simply as means to the end-goal of helping marketers and advertisers meet consumers’ evolving needs. Hence, as the adtech landscape evolves, the priority for adtech companies remains the same – to help marketers manage, scale, and engage audiences.”

Lastly, Barry said that there is importance in recognising that the deprecation of third-party cookies is in line with broader global trends around consumer data protection, as well as that updates like it should not pause the industry’s work to find new and better ways to deliver relevant advertising to consumers.

“Simply said: we can best serve digital publishers if advertisers get strong ROI from programmatic channels. A focus on helping publishers and brands get the best out of their digital advertising in a cookieless environment will ensure that our solutions remain relevant and useful,” he explains.

What Alternative Solutions Adtech Players Are Utilising?

As adtech leaders become more mindful with the ongoing changes within their industry towards a more privacy-centric one, companies are introducing more alternative strategies to materialise their objectives of veering away from their traditional third-party data-reliant services.

For PubMatic, Barry describes the launch of the company’s ‘Connect’ solution, which ensures publishers and advertisers that could thrive in a world without third party cookies.

“We also launched ‘Identity Hub’ a few years ago, providing a seamless transition from third-party cookies to consumer opt-in based first-party identity, which improves ad personalisation for consumers and provides higher ROI for advertisers,” he said.

Meanwhile over at Criteo, Pao says they are continuing to invest in the growth of their first-party data powered ‘Commerce Media’ solutions, including their ‘Retail Media’ offerings. According to him, they aim to build a unified platform and data source for marketers and media owners that will enable responsible addressable media for the future.

“Over the past couple of years, our solutions have grown to span the entire consumer commerce journey, from discovering brands and products for the first time to ensuring the best opportunities for a sale, to making each subsequent visit more profitable and privacy-safe,” Pao said.

He also added, “Ultimately, we’re using innovative adtech tools to remain laser focused on meeting our end-goal – helping marketers and media owners work with consumers to create a transparent and vibrant open internet for all stakeholders.”

So, What’s Next for the Adtech Industry?

The addressable media and more involvement from more brands tapping into the adtech space: these are the factors adtech leaders see as the future of the adtech industry. For context, addressable media is defined as the type of advertising that connects brands with individual consumers across multiple online advertising platforms, social media, OTT (over the top) content providers, and smart TV platforms.

“The future of adtech will continue to be bright and at the same time getting more competitive and more fragmented. You can see that big global companies like Netflix, Disney, Apple, and regional players like Grab, Carousell are aggressively entering the adtech fray, each offering their own media and data solutions,” Teo explains.

Pao also agrees with this, stating that it is time that we see these changes as opportunities to test new methods for engaging consumers online and approach them with an open mind as the industry moves towards an addressable future in an open internet.

“Four in ten [brands] [in APAC] say their current marketing practices rely on third-party cookies, and that they’re concerned about the elimination of third-party cookies. Brands and marketers should prioritise building up their first-party data strategies and invest in solutions throughout commerce media platforms to help analyse and execute data-driven consumer engagement. Only then can they remain future-proof as the industry evolves.”

Meanwhile, Barry notes that the future of adtech is evident with both publishers and advertisers moving away from walled gardens because they aren’t aware of what’s going on with their investments on those platforms.

“We know there is more change to come as the programmatic industry grapples with the future of identity, and buyers access a much wider array of inventory. We, too, will continue to innovate and evolve to maximise control and value to both publishers and media buyers. This is only the beginning of the next phase of programmatic,” Barry stated.

India – Global adtech Criteo has announced plans for its first regional Technology Operations and Analytics Centre in Hyderabad City in Telangana, India, with the aim to strengthen its support for clients and partners. This centre is part of the adtech’s strategic plans to expand and scale its operational capabilities across APAC and beyond. 

Hyderabad was selected as the headquarters of Criteo’s regional technology centre given the location’s strategic connection to the information technology (IT) industry and its concentration of talent, robust IT infrastructure, and long-term growth potential. This centre seeks to support Criteo’s operations in India, Southeast Asia, Australia-Pacific, Greater China, South Korea, and Japan. Its digital advertising services (AdOps) function will also support Criteo globally, including EMEA and Americas.

Moreover, Criteo is also planning to hire around 150 engineers, data analysts, and solution architects over the next two years. By expanding its talent pool to scale operations and accelerate co-innovation of AdOps solutions with regional customers and partners, the adtech progresses on its commitment to power the world’s marketers and media owners with trusted and impactful advertising.

Kenneth Pao, Criteo’s executive managing director for APAC, said, “Over the past few years, Hyderabad has transformed into a global tech hub, with its immense growth potential and vast talent pool. With the development of this centre in a strategic location, Criteo remains committed to supporting our regional customers and partners by scaling our operational capabilities and ensuring that they can innovate with leading AdTech solutions created for the fair and open internet.”

Apart from the development of this centre, Criteo has also been ramping up its investments and product expansion in APAC, including the expansion of its Retail Media offerings and efforts to help marketers and media owners activate first-party, privacy-safe data through its Commerce Media Platform strategy.

Pao added, “Looking ahead to the rest of 2022, Criteo will continue to prioritise integration, scale, and with our APAC infrastructure investments, product innovation, and partnerships. Ultimately, strengthening our leading position in commerce media.”

Singapore — Over the last few years, consumers have adapted to drastically different routines. Due to this, the fundamentals of shopping have evolved, from their discovery of new brands and products, to how they evaluate and complete a purchase. Brands in Singapore need to understand the role of channels, advertising, and understanding shopper trends to create meaningful engagement with their shoppers, as reported by global adtech company Criteo.

The report found that shoppers are increasingly fusing their online and in-store habits to make purchases. The most popular habit of purchase among Singaporeans in 2021 was purchasing on an app, accounting for 86%, followed by browsing products online then purchasing them in a retail store, with 85%.

According to another one of the report’s findings, 63% of shoppers in Singapore say they would search directly on a retailer or brand’s website if they know specifically the item they are looking to buy, and 57% said that this would be their first place to search if they know the type of item they want to purchase.

On the other hand, only 17% would use search engines if they knew the item they wanted to purchase, and 23% would use search engines if they knew the type of item they wanted to purchase, respectively.

Taranjeet Singh, managing director of Criteo Southeast Asia and India, explained, “In a very technologically advanced market like Singapore, the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) has increased the number of touchpoints that brands have with consumers, resulting in more ways for shoppers to discover and buy products online.”

The report cites that a big reason for this is that shoppers are getting more value from retailer and brand websites, with 1 in 3 shoppers in Singapore saying that they have seen improvements in searching for products and finding what they are looking for on retailer and brand websites.

Shoppers go all the way a step further to leave a positive review about a good customer experience, with 77% of respondents saying this, meanwhile, 74% recommend a brand to someone based on whether they had a good experience. The converse has also been reported, with 62% of shoppers in Singapore saying they have told someone about a negative experience they had, and 52% leaving a negative review after a negative customer experience, in the last six months.

Across age groups, most shoppers confirmed that they click on ads while online, and buy products recommended to them in ads. This is especially true for Gen Z and Millennial shoppers, where 77% and 79% respectively affirmed these behaviours.

Singh added, “Our latest Shopper Survey findings reveal that while online channels remain in demand, physical stores continue to play an important role in the shopping journey as a source of immediate fulfilment with in-store offers, proximity and urgency continuing to drive shopper visits.”

On the topic of advertising’s role in the shopper choices, Singh, explained, “With recent trends indicating that shoppers appreciate the value of addressability in advertising – as brands recommend better and more relevant products that they would like to purchase – and now see it as a good way to discover new brands and products to purchase, retailers should explore how they can reach their target audience through a robust first-party data plan and commerce media strategy, supported by the right advertising solutions that can help them achieve their campaign outcomes and business goals.”

The report also stated that while discounts and offers remain the top incentive for shoppers to purchase, with 96% of shoppers indicating that this is important, shoppers have cited the importance of other benefits that they look out for, such as free shipping which accounts for 96%, a good range of products available on the platform tallies to 94%, high-quality product images with 93%, and a quick and easy check out process that accounts for 93%.

New York, USA – Global adtech Criteo has appointed Brian Gleason, the global chief commercial officer at media investment agency GroupM, to be its new chief revenue officer, which will take effect on 1 April.

In his current role at GroupM, Gleason is handling a portfolio of dynamic businesses. Prior to this, he has also served as CEO of programmatic audience platform Xaxis, and the group chief revenue officer at media firm IDG Consumer & SMB.

As the new chief revenue officer at Criteo, Gleason will be leading a global team of over 1,500 associates focused on helping clients drive outcomes on the open internet through the adtech’s Commerce Media Platform solutions and fortifying Criteo’s leadership in Commerce Media.

Commenting on his appointment, Gleason said, “Criteo has grabbed the attention of the market by carving out a unique and compelling position within our industry. I’m excited to help our clients and our company realize the full potential of the Commerce Media opportunity we’re all staring at across the open internet.”

Meanwhile, Megan Clarken, Criteo’s CEO, shared that Gleason will be leading a transformed business that is leaning into a significant and growing opportunity that exists for media owners and brands on the open internet.

“Brian’s unmatched success helping clients win in Commerce Media coupled with his values that closely align to Criteo’s make him ideal for this role,” said Clarken.

In December 2021, Criteo has entered into an exclusive negotiation to acquire IPONWEB, an adtech company for US$380m in a combination of cash and CRTO treasury shares, which will help accelerate its strategic plans to shape the future of commerce media and deliver ideal commerce audiences at scale to both marketers and media owners across the open internet.

New York, USA – Global adtech Criteo has entered into an exclusive negotiation to acquire IPONWEB, an adtech company for US$380m in a combination of cash and CRTO treasury shares. 

Through this acquisition, Criteo accelerates its strategic plans to shape the future of commerce media and deliver ideal commerce audiences at scale to both marketers and media owners across the open internet. 

The acquisition merges Criteo’s Commerce Media Platform that is designed to provide marketers and media owners direct access to commerce audiences across the open internet, and IPONWEB’s established demand side platforms (DSPs) and supply side platforms (SSPs) solutions that has helped to power an open and diverse advertising ecosystem by building enterprise solutions for media owners.

Together with IPONWEB’s large media trading marketplace, DSPs and SSPs, Criteo would be able to bring media owners a much larger scale of media spend and first-party data access, a critical component of its product strategy.

“Together with IPONWEB, Criteo will distinguish itself as the commerce media partner of choice on the open internet for the post third-party cookie and identifier world. IPONWEB’s open technology and culture are perfectly aligned with Criteo’s purpose to support a fair and open internet where technology enables discovery, innovation and choice for consumers, marketers and media owners,” Criteo said in a press statement.

Megan Clarken, chief executive officer at Criteo, said that the acquisition is considered a defining moment in the company’s transformation to drive sustainable growth and revenue diversification, adding this will create value for all stakeholders.

“Criteo’s customers would benefit from enhanced full-funnel capabilities with even more flexible self-service tools, while continuing to leverage Criteo’s unique commerce data for targeting, measurement and superior outcomes,” Clarken said.

Meanwhile, Boris Mouzykantskii, founder, CEO and chief scientist at IPONWEB, commented, “Criteo’s proven excellence in AI and unparalleled focus on performance at scale have long been highly respected in the industry. We look forward to joining Criteo and together seize the vast opportunities in our fast-changing ecosystem, bringing enhanced value for our customers, employees and partners.”

Singapore – Sales festivals, such as 11.11 and 12.12, create opportunities for consumers to make advanced holiday gift purchases, and retailers should note to make these moments count, and capture the attention of their shoppers in advance of year-end seasonal shopping moments.

Out of all these sales festivals, which remains the most popular among Southeast Asian consumers? The latest data from adtech Criteo finds out, spanning across recorded data from 280 e-commerce players from nine markets in SEA

According to the report, 11.11 emerged as SEA’s most popular sales festival, with sales made during this period in 2020 increasing by 554%

Meanwhile, Criteo’s report cited 12.12 as the largest shopping festival for SEA in 2020, with online retail sales and traffic increasing by 305% and 127% respectively. 

Market-wise, observed trends found that 12.12 emerged as the most significant shopping festival for Indonesia, while 11.11 remained the largest sales festival for Singapore and Vietnam.

“While there has been tremendous growth in Double Day sales over the last two years, we are seeing that the growth in e-commerce sales (when compared with their respective baseline year) have been slowing down as more in the region get accustomed to remote work, life, and play,” said Taranjeet Singh, managing director for Southeast Asia and India at Criteo.

He added, “While retail sales continue to grow, we see that the rate of growth is narrowing. It is thus more important than ever for brands to understand consumer habits across online and offline platforms, and relook campaign strategies so that they can stand out from competitors and gain greater market share.”

As the present 11.11 sales this 2021 is nearing, top e-commerce platforms in SEA are currently launching big campaigns to gain further momentum. Lazada Singapore has partnered with real estate company Propnex for a S$1m-worth condominium for their 11.11 giveaway, meanwhile, Shopee has partnered again with CapitaLand for continuing the omnichannel drive which had gamification as a key aspect.

Singapore – Global adtech Criteo has announced the expansion of its Retail Media offering across 6 markets in Asia-Pacific, which since its regional launch in Japan at the end of 2019, is now available in the markets of Korea, Australia, South-East Asia, Taiwan and India.

To mark this expansion, Criteo has also appointed Taro Fujinaka as the managing director for retail media for APAC at Criteo. In this role, Taro will work to drive the regional retail media ecosystem and deliver value to Criteo’s customers and partners as they continue to utilize Retail Media.

Said service enables retailers and marketplaces to generate new revenue from their brand partners. Brands can also reach shoppers at the digital point of sale and have complete visibility into the impact of media spend on product sales. This has proven instrumental in providing an optimal user experience, with shoppers able to receive relevant ads on the retailers’ own websites, while they shop conveniently online.

Taro brings with him over 16 years of experience in digital advertising, and adtech, including roles at Yahoo Japan and IPG Mediabrands Audience Platform where he was involved prior to joining Criteo. Most recently, Taro was managing director at Integral Ad Science where he spearheaded the direction of the company in Japan and Korea for over five years. Throughout his career, Taro has played a fundamental role in energizing the digital advertising industry in Japan and building high-performing teams to achieve market influence for brands.

Speaking about his appointment, Taro has shared his excitement about leading the retail media business in its next phase of growth, and expanding Criteo’s regional portfolio of customers for the technology. Since joining the team in March, Taro has worked with the team to drive awareness and adoption across the region and supercharge retailers’ efforts to leverage high-value media assets and first-party data on behalf of leading brands.

“As brands prepare for the post-cookie world, Retail Media will play a pivotal role in empowering brands who seek new addressable media opportunities in the evolving identity landscape. Combining a highly differentiated ad inventory with unique first-party data, we are confident that its availability and the strengthened capacity of our regional team will help with driving the industry forward in the years to come,” Taro stated.

Meanwhile, speaking about the service expansion in APAC, Geoffroy Martin, EVP and general manager for growth portfolio at Criteo, commented, “We were quick to expand our Retail Media offerings here in Asia, a key growth market for Criteo. In Q1 this year, our retail media business grew 122% year-over-year, and we are excited to see increasing demand for our technology, especially here in Asia. A key component of our commerce media strategy, Retail Media is also an addressable market expected to grow quickly.”

New York, USA – As adtech Criteo recently unveiled its plans on the future roadmap of the open internet, the company has also revealed its latest brand revamp, speaking to the company’s commitment to supporting a fair and open internet that enables discovery, innovation, and choice.

Part of the brand revamp includes a new logo, visual identity, and brand positioning called ‘The Future is Wide Open’. Criteo notes also that the new brand revamp speaks to the vast opportunity the company can capitalize on as it prepares for the future of advertising without cookies.

The new logo brings the two dots previously connected at the top right of the logo to the center of the new logo to better represent consumers and its customers, who are the centerpiece of the company’s product strategy to offer the world’s leading commerce media platform. In addition, the two dots now include open space, a nod to both discovery and openness as the company invites its audience in and balances a strong legacy, visualized with a bolder font, with modern capabilities. 

The visual changes were developed by Criteo’s marketing team, in partnership with creative and innovation agency, Technology, Humans And Taste (THAT), who consulted on the brand positioning. 

“The time is right for a new brand identity and rally cry, as we use our massive strength in data and technology to reestablish Criteo’s leadership within the advertising industry and set an optimistic tone for the future of the open internet, for everyone,” said Megan Clarken, chief executive officer at Criteo. 

Speaking about the tagline, Todd Parsons, chief product officer at Criteo noted that they are pertaining to the tremendous possibilities Criteo’s unique dataset presents for improving every consumer experience on the open internet. In addition, he notes that despite cookies going away, they view it as an opportunity to evolve their product strategy to deliver greater benefits than ever to consumers and to their customers.

Meanwhile, Kenneth Pao, executive managing director for Asia Pacific at Criteo, commented that Criteo’s brand revamp will push the company’s operations to continue to innovate their product and solutions to serve this diverse market, and are committed to working with their customers and partners who navigate the evolving challenges of the industry.

“We remain optimistic that we will transform experiences alongside our regional ecosystem with an ever-growing dataset. Ultimately, delivering greater values to our customers, and their consumers,” Pao stated.

To announce the new brand and share more details around its business transformation, Criteo held a virtual investor day, which discussed topics such as commentaries and presentation from the Criteo C-Suite team, strategies for their commerce media platform, and partner panel that discussed commerce media opportunities and consisted of key marketers and media owners across Criteo’s suite of solutions. 

Just this year, Criteo’s presence in the Asia Pacific has been bolstered with partnerships to infiltrate the APAC market. This includes their appointment of Httpool as official ad sales partner in India and Indonesia, as well as its partnership with Mediadonuts for their Vietnam market expansion.

Singapore – As the Muslim tradition of Ramadan this year has been held twice in the mid of a pandemic, there has been an uprise of indexed traffic online, as well as sales pushed forward by online channels, new research from adtech Criteo shows.

According to the SEA-centric study, the online traffic surge was evident last 2 May, with a 26% increase in traffic and 21% increase in sales, respectively. Despite the uptick, the research noted that a notable dip was observed in the final week of the Ramadan period, with sales and traffic dropping below the baseline, which may be indicative of consumer’s caution in spending amid the ongoing economic downturn.

The large majority of SEA consumers used mobile apps when shopping during the Ramadan period, as mobile sales saw the largest lift throughout the Ramadan period this year, marking a 107% increase in sales at the end of the Ramadan period on 12 May. App sales also rose by 60%, earlier on 1 May. Meanwhile, desktop sales saw the smallest spike of 40% during the second week of Ramadan.

Criteo’s research data revealed that the growth in purchases this year have only been in two categories: fashion/luxury, and mass merchant products. Criteo also found that the fashion/luxury category outperformed mass merchants during Ramadan, with a 50% increase from baseline from 23 April to 5 May.

In 2019, however, top product categories were in health and beauty, electronics, toys, and games as well as home and living items. The trends observed this year are likely to be due to consumers not being able to commemorate Hari Raya in large social settings or house visitations, as a result of distancing measures.

Another distinct trend observed during Ramadan in previous years was a consistent rise in web traffic and sales for travel players. Before the COVID pandemic, prospective travelers usually searched travel websites during Ramadan, before making their bookings late in the month and after Ramadan, to make trips to celebrate Hari Raya with their family and friends. This was noticeably absent from this year’s data. 

“As a result of the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions across our region, worshippers had to adjust their observance of the holy month of Ramadan. With social distancing measures deterring gatherings in large groups, consumers are rethinking their buying patterns, regarding areas such as gift giving. It is key that marketers and brands understand these shifts and engage consumers with what they need the most, especially during important observances,” explained Taranjeet Singh, managing director for Southeast Asia and India at Criteo.