Sydney, Australia – Digital advertising agency Brainlabs has announced its acquisition of Australian independent digital media agency Sparro as part of their global expansion plans.
With the acquisition of Sparro, Brainlabs expands its APAC footprint and continues on its goal to become the world’s largest independent media agency.
Social-first content and creative agency Jack Nimble, which has been part of Sparro since November 2021, will also be part of the deal, further strengthening Brainlabs’ creative and social offering to clients.
Talking about this acquisition, Daniel Gilbert, global CEO of Brainlabs, said, “This union signals a new era for media agencies and offers something ground-breaking for the Australian market. Like us, Sparro is fiercely independent and laser-focused on High-Performance media solutions, consistently delivering top and bottom line gains for their clients. Our combined power of the smartest minds, and tech and data-driven methodology is truly unbeatable.”
Meanwhile, Cameron Bryant, co-founder and Partner at Sparro, commented, “The indies have been scaling to levels of staff, service and capabilities where we’re able to genuinely challenge the traditional holding groups. Brands are crying out for proactive, smart, hands-on marketing partners. More and more, they want those partners to be operating to business-level objectives and not just digital KPIs.”
“This acquisition plays perfectly into that. It extends Brainlabs’ significant international presence to further strengthen its appeal to global advertisers, and it enables us to offer clients international coverage, not to mention the incredible career opportunities for our people. We already know we’re the market leader in performance, and together, we can provide greater depth, services and technology that sets us even further apart,” he added.
Tag: Digital Advertising
Singapore – Global media measurement and optimization platform Integral Ad Science has just recently announced its business expansions in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam, accompanied with senior leadership appointments for the newly launched markets, aiming to accelerate AI-driven measurement and optimisation solutions for both local and global advertisers and publishers.
Appointments include Sowarose Charuwatpaiboon as the country head of Thailand, Thanh Nguyen as the country head of Vietnam, Melvin Wong as the region head of Hong Kong & Taiwan, and Arfitrianto Zulnaini, sales director of Indonesia, who will be stepping up as the country head of Indonesia and Malaysia.
In her new role as country head of Thailand, Charuwatpaiboon will carry over a decade of experience in the digital advertising industry with a record of success in sales, account management, and business development at companies including Adcolony, Taboola and Innity. She joined IAS in 2023 to expand operations in Thailand, and now, will be leading the team to drive continued growth.
Commenting on her new role, Charuwatpaiboon said, “I am excited to bring IAS’s world-class media measurement and optimisation solutions to advertisers and publishers in Thailand. IAS’s commitment to providing effective and transparent advertising environments for brands and media owners alike will resonate with brands seeking to navigate the complexities of the digital advertising ecosystem and driving efficiencies.”
As country head for Vietnam, Nguyen brings over 25 years of experience in the Vietnamese media and advertising landscape, with a portfolio comprising companies like JOYY Inc, Vietcetera Media and TikTok Vietnam. Her understanding of the local market dynamics and her relationships with prominent advertisers, publishers, and industry stakeholders will help drive IAS’s growth in Vietnam’s flourishing digital advertising ecosystem.
Speaking on her appointment, Nguyen said, “I am thrilled to join IAS and help expand its presence in Vietnam. Brands in Vietnam are investing significant budgets across digital media, and there’s a growing adoption of measurement and optimisation solutions among advertisers and publishers. With its superior solutions and dedicated teams, IAS empowers Vietnamese brands and media owners to navigate the evolving digital landscape and unlock their full potential.”
Aiming to propel IAS’s presence in Hong Kong & Taiwan, Wong joins IAS with global experience across Hong Kong, New York and Toronto, where he spent over a decade in sales and business development roles at companies including Teads and TripleLift. He will be leveraging his extensive global experience and strategic acumen to establish IAS as a trusted partner for brands and agencies within this vibrant digital landscape.
Commenting on his appointment, Wong said, “Joining IAS amidst their remarkable growth in programmatic is an absolute privilege. Having witnessed firsthand the challenges faced by top brands and agencies, I deeply understand the crucial role efficiency and ROI play in our partnerships. I’m committed to working with brands and agencies to drive widespread adoption of IAS’s industry-leading measurement and optimisation solutions to drive superior business results for advertisers and publishers.”
Last but not least in IAS’s appointments, Zulnaini joined IAS in 2020 as the sales director of Indonesia, where he brought over 24 years of sales and leadership experience in digital media at companies including Yahoo, Carat, and Mindshare, driving programmatic adoption and incremental revenue growth for IAS in Indonesia. Now he is stepping up as a country head for two markets, focusing on growing IAS’s measurement and optimisation adoption in both Indonesia and Malaysia.
Talking about his appointment, Zulnaini mentioned, “I am honoured to take on the additional responsibility of leading IAS’s Malaysia business and keen to build further on the solid foundation developed over the years in the market. Malaysia, much like Indonesia, is an evolving digital media market with high growth potential, so it’s no surprise that it has become a strategic focus. I look forward to advancing the company’s superior media quality solutions in these markets.”
Speaking on the APAC expansion and the appointments, Yannis Dosios, chief commercial officer of IAS, remarked, “APAC presents a prime opportunity for IAS to expand its global footprint and connect with a dynamic customer base for long-term growth and market leadership. We’re doubling down on agility and local relevance by building strong, regional teams that understand the nuances of each market, which is key to tailoring our solutions and creating lasting relationships with international and local brands in the region.”
With this recent expansion, IAS’s APAC in-market operations now include Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Tokyo, Japan – Global digital advertising platform GumGum announced their reinforcement towards the Japanese market by appointing seasoned digital media executive, Kenzo Selby as GumGum Japan’s managing director to lead its growing business in the area.
In his new role, Selby will be growing GumGum’s brand presence in the market, as well as deepening its relationships with brands, agencies, and publishers to embrace a mindset-first, cookie-less solution.
Notably, Selby and the Japanese team will be spearheading GumGum’s ‘The Mindset Matrix’, a concept that pushes brands to leave behavioural targeting behind by helping to pinpoint environments that drive the most attention and aligning ad creative to capture a consumer’s frame of mind, resulting in brand lift and boosted outcomes.
Selby joins GumGum after more than six years of driving growth for Teads in Japan as head of sales, leading a 14 person strong sales team. Prior to Teads, Kenzo was a sales leader at AOL’s BeOn. He also brings a wealth of business management and financial acumen from experience gathered at Ernst & Young and other accounting firms where he focused on Japanese corporations doing business in Australia.
Selby will replace outgoing managing director, Naokazu Wakaguri, who has driven the growth of the business in Japan for five years. Wakaguri will support Selby in a transition period through the end of the year before leaving GumGum to pursue personal projects at the start of 2024.
Commenting on this, Wakaguri said, “As I embark on my next stage, my belief in GumGum and the future it holds for our industry is strong. With Kenzo as the new leader, I am excited for the next chapter of GumGum in this region and am fully committed to providing my ongoing support during this transition period. We have all the ingredients for success; a compelling vision, amazing products, respectful people, ethics, and great culture.”
Speaking on his own appointment, Selby said, “There is a huge opportunity for GumGum here in Japan as advertisers are looking for ways to deliver campaigns that demand attention and drive outcomes. GumGum’s Mindset Matrix will give advertisers the ability to understand their campaigns on a deeper level and pinpoint where to optimise for improved ROI. I’m excited to be joining GumGum’s amazing team and will be growing our market presence.”
Meanwhile, Sorrel Osborne, head of media, JAPAC, at GumGum, commented, “Kenzo’s appointment represents GumGum’s continued commitment to strong growth in Japan through bringing best-in-market media, targeting and measurement capabilities to this vibrant and dynamic media landscape. As always, our focus is on delivering outstanding business outcomes for our valued partners in Japan and Kenzo is expertly positioned to do so, with the support of the global business.”
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.”
Manila, Philippines – Fintech and e-commerce ecosystem Society Pass Incorporated (SoPA) announced the official launch of its digital advertising platform Thoughtful Media Group Inc. (TMG) in the Philippines market and the upcoming appointment of Billy Soo as country head of TMG Philippines.
Soo will be responsible for driving sales and onboarding Philippine clients onto TMG’s regional digital advertising platform.
TMG’s entry into the Philippines market offers a significant value proposition to advertisers, merchants, and influencers in Southeast Asia’s fourth-largest economy.
TMG collaborates with social media platforms, advertisers, and influencers to develop the entire creator economy in the Philippines and benefit from the country’s forecasted soar in digital advertising revenues over the next decade as more consumers make direct purchases on social media platforms.
SoPa acquired TMG in 2022, and it has grown from operating exclusively in its headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand, to expanding to Vietnam in 4Q 2022, to Indonesia in 1Q 2023, and now to the Philippines in 3Q 2023.
Dennis Nguyen, SoPa founder/chairman/CEO and TMG chairman, stated, “We are very pleased to bring the Philippines market into the TMG ecosystem. TMG’s disruptive advertising platform, combining over 10,000 talented creators, market-leading design/branding capabilities, influencer advertising-focused social commerce services, will generate massive storytelling capabilities and revenue generation opportunities for local, regional and international advertisers seeking to market in the Philippines.”
He added, “By leveraging our local knowledge of market trends from other offices in Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia, TMG provides international quality advertising products and services for our brand partners as well as significant revenue generating opportunities for Philippines creators”.
“I am very excited to hire Billy Soo to head our TMG Philippines operations. Billy brings a wealth of experience in gaming and advertising from his time at Gushcloud International, Nixgen Entertainment, and Powerplay Inc. I look forward to seeing Billy and his team create the most unique and powerful advertising platform here in the Philippines,” Nguyen continued.
On his upcoming appointment, Soo commented, “Bonding through the power of influence, we want to create a genuine connection for brands and content creators, tapping into TMG’s broad advertising network and extensive ecosystem to open new doors towards more business opportunities, capitalising on digital-first and fully integrated advertising networks.”
He added, “Nguyen hired me to turbocharge TMG’s expansion here in the land of the Kabayan. In just five weeks’ time, we have already built a staff of 10+ Manila-based advertising professionals. TMG Philippines will offer premium branded campaigns, MCN, sports marketing and e-sports verticals and we look forward to serving the creator and advertiser communities.”
Singapore – With brands nowadays catering more and more to the trend of digital ads, digital ad spend waste in the April to June quarter is down more than $30m on the first quarter of 2023, but advertisers still continue wasting nearly half of their advertising dollars each quarter, according to data revealed by independent digital media agency Next & Co.
Last quarter, advertisers threw away $77.1m from their ad spend budgets, which represents an average of 40% wastage across total audited media spend, compared to more than $104 million between January and March 2023.
The report found that retail brands were responsible for wasting the most in digital ad expenditure, with a figure of $25.4m. It was followed by finance at $22.3m, insurance at $12.3m and health at $7.7m. Education and real estate brands had the least waste at $5.3m and $3.8m respectively.
Across digital media channels over the last quarter, most digital ad spend was wasted on Google at $33.9m, followed by Facebook at $31m, LinkedIn at $7.7m and Bing at $3.8m.
John Vlasakakis, co-founder at Next&Co, said, “As we enter the new financial year, many brands will be taking stock of their advertising budgets, particularly amid ever-increasing economic and inflationary pressures. The latest data shows there is still plenty of room for improvement in terms of how brands are spending their advertising dollars. As we head into campaign planning for the biggest retail events of the year, with Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas, businesses need to get a sound understanding of the efficacy of their digital ad spend, and a better measure of return on investment.”
He added, “An independent audit of overall planned spend and past spend can reveal insights into where wastage is occurring, how to get better campaign optimisation and results, and how dollars can be best spent. The new financial year will be about businesses working smarter, not harder, particularly as budgets come under pressure, making every ad dollar count in the coming months.”
Singapore – PubMatic, an independent adtech company, and Telkomsel, the largest mobile network operator in Indonesia, have announced a strategic partnership to provide data-driven digital advertising solutions for brands and agencies in Indonesia.
Through the partnership, Telkomsel will make audience segments based on mobile customer insights, available to advertisers programmatically through Connect, PubMatic’s audience solution. Connect allows advertisers to engage audiences through privacy-compliant solutions — without relying on third-party cookies or outdated strategies. Furthermore, applying valuable audience segments, such as those from Telkomsel, on the sell-side is seen to bring greater efficiency to advertisers’ campaigns.
Audience segments available programmatically through the partnership include a wide range of interest and intent-based segments such as ‘Foodie, Gamer, E-commerce shopper,’ as well as segments based on purchase insights.
“We’re thrilled to be partnering with Telkomsel, a company that shares our vision for a more efficient and effective digital advertising ecosystem,” said Jason Barnes, chief revenue officer for APAC at PubMatic. “With Telkomsel’s telco segments available through PubMatic’s Connect, advertisers will now have access to valuable insights about Indonesian consumers, enabling them to deliver more relevant and impactful advertising campaigns. Bringing audience targeting to the sell-side, via Connect, means buyers can gain greater control over how inventory and data are packaged and transacted to drive the best performance for their campaigns.”
“Telkomsel is committed to providing a better and more integrated digital advertising experience for our customers,” said Arief Pradetya, VP of Digital Advertising and Financial Services at Telkomsel. “By making our customer telco insight data available to advertisers programmatically, we can help brands and agencies make more informed decisions and deliver more effective advertising campaigns.”
In May, global adtech PubMatic has signed a deal with Sweden-based adaptive streaming specialist SeenThis to aid the latter in delivering digital advertising whilst minimising carbon emissions.
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 – Self-serve advertising platform Viztrade has launched a self-serve ad buying solution for Australian digital property business REA Group. Previously, REA Group launched the Viztrade self-serve offering late last year and has already executed campaigns in over 700 suburbs.
The new service, branded Promote, enables advertisers to market their business at a hyper-local level, to any of the 15,000 searchable suburbs on the website realestate.com.au.
The Viztrade platform will also assist REA in expanding its advertising sales channels to reach a broader range of SME advertisers. Holmes said the current digital display advertising landscape was difficult for SME clients to navigate as it was fragmented, complex and used expensive legacy systems.
Viztrade CEO Simon Larcey said the platform was aimed at making advertising inventory accessible and making the whole process of uploading a campaign as easy as possible. He said the Viztrade platform was a contextual advertising offering that works and delivers a real option for SME advertisers here in Australia and across the world.
“Viztrade has already expanded into the UK market and will soon roll out its first platform in the US. We will work with any media owner who wants to add a new, low touch revenue channel. Our platform is fully customisable and completely scalable,” Larcey said.
Meanwhile, Scott Holmes, innovation and strategy manager at REA Group, commented, “We’re pleased to be working with Viztrade to open our ad inventory to the massive SME customer base in Australia. Our goal is to make it easier for our customers to do business with us, while ensuring our sales team can focus on more complex customer requests.”
He added, “Digital display is an important part of the advertising business for realestate.com.au. Among others, we currently sell advertising space to real estate agents, property developers, marketing agencies, commercial property agents and media agencies.”
Manila, Philippines – Local digital advertising company ONGO Smart Advertising has announced a partnership with local media and entertainment company Viva Communications. Said partnership aims to promote Viva Communications’ product and services across ONGO’s smart tablets placed across TNVS vehicles operating in Metro Manila and other nearby provinces.
The partnership between Viva Communications and Ongo Smart Advertising marks a significant milestone in the evolution of in-car advertising in the Philippines. With this collaboration, both companies aim to set new standards for effective marketing and customer engagement.
By leveraging the power of in-car advertising, the company hopes to increase brand awareness and drive sales, while providing a unique and engaging experience for consumers.
Jeff Alias, CEO of ONGO Smart Advertising, said, “We’re delighted to be working with Viva to help them achieve their marketing goals. Our platform is designed to deliver highly targeted and effective ad campaigns, and we’re confident that this partnership will drive significant results for Viva Communications Inc.”
Meanwhile, Jocel Adorable, vice president of pay TV marketing at Viva One, commented, “We’re excited to partner with Ongo Smart Advertising to drive our marketing efforts forward. Their cutting-edge technology and expertise in in-car advertising will allow us to engage with our target customers in a more personalised and impactful way.”