Tag: Media buying

Singapore – Scope3 has unveiled the Scope3 Agentic Media Platform, an AI-powered solution designed to help partners create and market agentic media products that prioritise efficiency and sustainability from the ground up.

The Scope3 Agentic Media Platform leverages AI to streamline the media supply chain, delivering more efficient, sustainable, and brand-safe advertising. Unlike traditional systems that simply add AI on top, this platform is built with AI at its core, enabling true sustainable growth. Publishers, ad tech platforms, curators, and agencies can harness expert AI agents and custom algorithms to enhance media buying for brands.

The Agentic Media Platform offers a central hub to create and manage AI-driven media products. It connects data, expert agents, and custom algorithms across various campaigns and direct buys. The platform integrates with experts like LiveRamp, Classify, Sy.nexus, and Compliant for specialised data and algorithms. It ensures safe and sustainable media by automatically filtering out fraud, invalid traffic, and risky inventory. Additionally, users can access Scope3’s media quality data, such as attention potential and viewability, at no extra cost.

Amazon DSP is the first demand-side platform to integrate with Scope3’s Agentic Media Platform, allowing for large-scale media purchases. Other launch distribution partners include Index Exchange, Equativ, and media.net. Pilot programs with MiQ, Elcano, and Azerion are set to begin in early April.

Scope3’s Brand Standards, built on the Agentic Media Platform, enhance brand safety and suitability in an AI-driven advertising landscape. It addresses the flaws of traditional methods, such as rigid keyword blocking and lack of supply chain transparency, by offering custom definitions and control across open web and programmatic channels.

Using AI, it improves compliance, responsibility, and effectiveness while minimising risk. The platform ensures ads flow through verified, transparent paths and allows brands and publishers to assess content alignment with brand standards, adjusting through a feedback-driven process for continuous improvement.

Available across platforms, including Meta, Brand Standards reduces false blocking and enhances ad placement control. Launch partners include Ebiquity, key DSPs, and multiple SSPs.

“The digital ad ecosystem has evolved into a complex web of inefficient supply chains, wasted impressions, and disconnected systems. AI is our opportunity to address the fundamental inefficiencies in how our media supply chains operate,” said Brian O’Kelley, CEO and co-founder of Scope3.

“This reimagining allows us to simultaneously address waste, safety, and performance challenges—restoring control to brands while enabling sustainable growth by design. We’re not just solving for carbon reduction anymore; we’re also transforming how media decisions are made across the entire ecosystem, bringing intelligence to places it simply couldn’t exist before,” he added. 

Meanwhile, June Cheung, head of JAPAC at Scope3, also commented, “What the industry needs now is greater transparency from tech platforms—and even when that’s achieved, we need scalable and effective ways to execute. That’s why the Scope3 Agentic Media Platform is designed to give marketers both transparency and control, enabling them to fine-tune and understand decision-making within the platform. With today’s launch, we have the opportunity to reimagine the ad ecosystem for the future in an effective and sustainable way.”

Melbourne, Australia – Following a robust pitch process, Initiative has been appointed as Cricket Australia’s media agency of record, effective immediately.

Initiative’s remit covers all media strategy, planning and buying – including contra activities for offline, online display, performance and addressable – with a clear brief to amplify fan engagement across Cricket Australia’s product portfolio including International, Big Bash Leagues, and Participation.

Sam Geer, national managing director of Initiative, said cricket has iconic status in Australia’s sporting landscape and pop culture and the partnership represents an exciting opportunity to increase the visibility and reach of the nationally loved sport across various media platforms.

“I believe there are no bigger icons in Australian sporting culture than our cricket teams. CA set out to find a partner that had a proven history of delivering successful and innovative media campaigns and could demonstrate a clear strategic approach to cut through and engage its broad fan base, including multicultural audiences. Initiative is perfectly placed to meet that brief – and more – and we can’t wait to share our ‘smarts’ and get started,” said Geer.

Sarah James, MD of Initiative Melbourne, commented, “Sometimes an agency experiences a pivotal moment in its journey: partnering with Cricket Australia is one of those “gotcha” moments. I never knew we had so many cricket devotees among the team, and we are stoked to be driving the account out of Melbourne, drawing on the skills and capabilities of Initiative’s national team wherever necessary.”

She continued, “Cricket is an integral part of Australia’s sporting culture, and we are excited to have the opportunity to help CA achieve its ambitious growth objectives, connect with fans… both new and the die-hards …and bring the excitement of the game to new audiences by leveraging our extensive network of media partners. Our partnership marks a significant milestone in both organisations’ next growth phase and underscores our shared commitment to delivering excellence in sports media and communications.”

Teresa Basile, head of brand and marketing of Cricket Australia, said, “We are very excited to partner with Initiative and applaud their leadership in cultural insight, alongside data and analytical solutions that deliver real-world tangible results. Initiative’s team brings energy and passion and their pursuit and delivery of excellence clearly stood out. We’re looking forward to a strong partnership.”

Work begins immediately with the first campaign expected in the market ahead of the summer cricket season.

Australia – 3Forward, a media intelligence and activation company, has been appointed by the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) to manage its media planning and buying.  

Through the AICD mandate, 3Forward will be in control of the institute’s end-to-end media planning and buying, encompassing various conventional and digital media platforms. These include direct advertising, programmatic advertising, social media platforms, and search engine marketing.

The independent Sydney-based company will now be assigned to manage media buying campaigns for the AICD brand, succeeding the former incumbent, Havas. This includes their main educational endeavours, such as their programs and courses, and also their initiatives to boost affiliation.

Jo Beat, head of marketing and online product at AICD, said, “3Forward demonstrated strong strategic and design thinking, combined with a deep understanding of our brand. We wanted an agency with specialist skills in digital advertising, adtech and data analytics and 3Forward has a proven track record in marketing-led digital transformation. Having worked with them for a number of years, we look forward to expanding our relationship with the team as the AICD continues to drive membership and advocate for best practice governance.”

Meanwhile, 3Forward’s managing director Matea Adamec, commented, “We have a rich association with AICD having consulted with them on a number of tech related projects. The expansion into media strategy, planning and buying, recognises our data-led approach, transparency and access to embedded technologists who work alongside our media team to efficiently and rapidly react to the ongoing challenges faced by marketers today.”

With a substantial membership base of 50,000 professionals, involving corporate directors and senior leaders from an array of sectors, including business, government, and non-profit organisations, the AICD is one of the largest director membership organisations in the world.

Melbourne, Australia – After a highly competitive pitch, Australian digital ad agency Magic has won the media strategy and media buying remit of security software and hardware company Sophos. 

As it lead the media strategy in Australian office, Magic’s new office in West Hollywood will serve the Sophos account and effectively launch the Alchemy methodology to US market.

Magic’s revolutionary mathematical media-buying methodology Alchemy is also one of the factors of being chosen by Sophos to handle the remits. Alchemy employs statistical datasets, custom mathematical modelling, and direct mathematical findings to power media buying optimisations and planning. 

Jordan Taylor-Bartels, CEO of Magic, said that they are thrilled to be chosen as the agency to manage the media strategies of Sophos, which serves as a testament that their strategies and media methodologies are ahead of traditional network approaches.

Meanwhile, Megan Cabrera, VP of global marketing operations at Sophos, commented, “Magic’s mathematical led media-buying strategy and execution will empower Sophos to understand its customers better and find the most efficient and cutting-edge ways to engage with them. We are excited to see the impact of this partnership on our global marketing strategy.”

Magic is an ad agency that specialises in innovative and data-driven media buying and planning solutions. 

Shanghai, China – New data suggest that net buying cost inflation of leading advertisers in China to be under 3% in 2023, with this year seeing a 10% to 15% cut in media budgets by advertisers, according to the latest report from media investment management company Ebiquity.

According to the data, traditional net media inflation will range from 0% to 2.5% while print media buying cost will witness a 4.2% decrease. Meanwhile, Chinese digital media net cost inflation will hover in the range of 3% to 3.5%.

The data also notes that 2022 has been a tough year for the Chinese advertising industry due to a restricted GDP growth of 3%. This was largely because of the Chinese government’s imposition of ‘Zero-Covid’ policy, where several key cities have experienced extended lockdowns.

Commenting on the forecast, Stewart Li, managing director for Ebiquity China said, “Several global economic institutions have lowered China’s 2023 GDP forecast from 5.3% to 4.5% in September. This has led Ebiquity China to predict another soft year for the advertising industry. Our recommendation for advertisers is to implement a proper media cost management program with their media agencies so that they can negotiate for a tough 2023 media buying cost and KPI.”

He added, “While the budget cuts from leading advertisers have had a significant impact on multinational media agency groups with some forced to announce layoffs in 2022, the impact has been severe for local agencies too. The top 8 locally listed advertising companies’ first half 2022 financial reports show that their revenues experienced negative or soft growth year-on-year.”

Sydney, Australia – Following a competitive pitch, media strategy specialist Slingshot has acquired the media strategy, planning and buying duties of Australian gin brand, Four Pillars Gin. 

The Yarra Valley-based distillery was established in 2013. Four Pillars Gin has been named ‘International Gin Producer of the Year’ for two consecutive years, the latest in 2020’s International Wine and Spirits Competition.

This win for Slingshot comes hot on the heels of other client wins including Masterpet, Endeavour Consumer Health, and Ayam. 

Slingshot CIO and Partner Simon Corbett said winning the Four Pillars Gin business is a dream come true. 

“Our agency aspires to work with brands and individuals who stretch and challenge us, so we are loving working with the Four Pillars team. A world-leading brand and a collection of super smart individuals is a great cocktail for us,” Corbett said.

Jemma Blanch, director of marketing, events and activations at Four Pillars, added, “We intuitively have a strong sense of who our customers are but we wanted an agency that would question our assumptions and get us thinking in some fresh ways, Slingshot [has] definitely done that and we have really welcomed their creative thinking. We are excited about our upcoming summer campaign.”

The appointment by the gin producer is with immediate effect.

Let me start with an anecdote.

10 years ago, when I was working for a big network agency and leading some big accounts, my boss came to see me and asked me to put an important media platform on the plans. I wasn’t really sure why he was asking me to include this specific media platform on my campaigns’ media plans whereas, the target audiences on any of my campaigns, were not consuming this specific media platform.

This didn’t make any sense from a media planning perspective.

It was early December and annual deals between media owners and agencies were about to close. It means that agencies committed to spend annually a certain amount of budget with each media owners, in exchange for rebates, cash, impressions, clicks that will be given exclusively to the agencies, and we were not close to the amount my agency promised to this specific media platform. Now it made all sense but it started to trigger lots of questions.

Just for the story I had to put this specific media platform on the plans and convince the clients that it was a good idea. I played team work but this changed me.

This is when I realized that the Media Planning in agencies was not neutral anymore, actually it was influenced by extra revenues that agencies could make through deals with media owners and would keep for themselves in order to increase their overall revenues.

Today, nothing has changed, these deals still exist and actually they are even more present than 10 years ago.

As an agency we witness it regularly when new media owners present to us their platform and at the end of the meeting, they inform us how much additional money we could make thanks to the referrals we would receive. This is an extra push to convince agencies to put a platform on the plan. And the more an agency invest in a platform, the more the referrals become.

Are media owners to blame for offering this extra source of revenue? No, I do not think so. It is more those who say yes to it that are fueling this.

Now, let me ask this question: Is it not the role of agencies to recommend to their clients the best media platforms to put on a plan based on certain criteria, like target audience’s media consumption, media objectives and performance?

How can this be achieved if agencies are recommending the ‘best’ platforms based on the extra revenues they are going to make? Media planning neutrality is gone!

Agencies must recommend the best plan and stay unbiased but this is far from reality nowadays. Agencies have lost their media planning neutrality.

One of the reasons for these ‘deals’ to flourish nowadays is that agencies’ remunerations have reduced across the years and they are trying to keep with the same level of revenues thanks to the referrals, free impressions, free clicks given by media owners at the end of the year. However, agencies should not walk this path and should stick to what makes them media agencies: expert at planning the best channels to deliver against campaigns’ objectives.

Now that I have founded my own digital media agency, JOLT Digital in Singapore, I make it a point that our system welcomes all referrals, rebates, and free clicks and free impressions we can receive by media owners, so we can pass them to clients. With rebates, we pass a hundred percent to them.

We do this so we can maintain planning that is neutral, free from influences in media recommendations. With JOLT Digital, where we live by the vision of ‘Game-changing is in our DNA’, I aim to direct my team in implementing disruptive practices, which are not just meant to be innovative, but most especially, beneficial with the client’s best interest at heart.

It is essential that as media and marketing professionals that we retain our integrity. What must reign supreme at all times is the campaign results to be delivered. We are ex-clients and we can truly put ourselves into the clients’ shoes, putting faith in media partners, trusting we will all together deliver to the objectives with full commitment and passion.

The author is Sebastien Lepez, CEO and founder of JOLT Digital.

Singapore – RtistiQ, a new online marketplace in Singapore dedicated to art and collectibles, has chosen digital media agency, JOLT Digital, to handle its media planning and buying across all digital channels. These include paid Social, SEM, and SEO, as well as programmatic, among channels. 

Through RtistiQ, artists are given the opportunity to promote their creations to an international audience. RtistiQ uses blockchain technology to allow artists to authenticate and mark ownership of their creations, aimed at formalizing and making art transactions more transparent.

Speaking to MARKETECH APAC, Co-founder and CEO of RtistiQ, Jothi Menon, shared that after releasing the beta version of the platform to onboard artists, they were on the lookout for a partner to support its marketing initiatives. He said the company found JOLT Digital to be the rightful agency, providing 360-degree coverage across all digital mediums with a very quick turnaround. 

“It has been a perfect partnership with both JOLT and [RtistiQ’s] belief in using latest technologies to deal with existing problems in the industries we operate in. More importantly, we both have been working with the sense of offering better transparency to our customers and technology is a key enabler for that to happen,” Menon said. 

Meanwhile, Seb Lepez, JOLT Digital’s CEO and founder, echoes the same sentiment, believing that both of the parties’ vision to disrupt traditional methods is a great foundation for the new partnership. 

“RtistiQ is trying to change the way art is sold from the authentication to the tracking via blockchain and then sold to the consumer. This is in a way very similar to JOLT Digital where both companies want to change an industry through the usage of unique technologies so end consumers and customers can benefit from it. I can see that we are both on a mission to game-change outdated industries,” he said. 

Just recently, JOLT digital has also bagged another account, Singapore telecom, TPG Telecom.

Bangkok, Thailand – Bidmath, a global programmatic consultancy, has opened an academy for the special training of Display & Video 360 (DV360), Google’s unified platform for programmatic buying.

DV360 is an end-to-end campaign management tool, which aside from media planning and buying, enables advertisers to manage creative development and run measurement for campaigns across display, video, TV, and audio.

The training academy was put up with an aim to increase the adoption of programmatic industry knowledge in the country. According to Bidmath, despite the substantial growth of programmatic advertising in Thailand, there is a lack of deep technical knowledge.

A study by ad tech firm Rubicon Project reflects such observation, having found that 43% of advertisers in Asia are either extremely or somewhat hesitant to switch from the traditional way of media buying through an insertion order (IO) to the more automated mode of programmatic buying. The study also suggested that the single biggest challenge hindering further growth of programmatic advertising budgets is a lack of understanding and appropriate skills to effectively plan and execute programmatic ad campaigns.

Three courses will be initially offered, with each focusing on a specific topic within DV360: private marketplace buying, optimization best practices, and the fundamentals. Courses will be offered in Thai, Vietnamese, and English, and will be available both virtually and in-person.

Director of Bidmath Asia KK Sharma said that the lack of understanding and technical skills are slowing advertisers down when considering the adoption of programmatic guaranteed spends and the potential upside for local publishers such as Viu for example.

“By introducing courses in local languages, we hope to see increased adoption of programmatic advertising across Asia, but there is still a long way to go. Courses in Thai and Vietnamese were launched to accelerate growth and reach,” Sharma said.

Singapore – Following a multi-agency pitch, Omnicom Media Group-owned agency OMD has successfully won F&B company Danone’s account, officially becoming its media agency for the Malaysia and Thailand business. 

The appointment is inked to span a three-year partnership. OMD will be charged with overseeing the media planning and buying duties for the company across traditional and digital channels. 

Both OMD’s Thailand and Malaysia leg will be handling the company’s Growing up milk brands such as Dumex and Hi-Q. Anca Everts, marketing director of Danone Malaysia said, “When we partner with a media agency, we look out for that one team who can work as an extension of our own to naturally co-build winning campaigns for our Growing up milk brands in Malaysia.”

OMD believes that their display of a strategic approach via digital and data-led expertise is what ultimately led them to clinching the account. Marketing Director of Danone Thailand Korakot Vuthihirunthamrong said that they were impressed by the agency’s level of commitment and enthusiasm which the Thailand team had demonstrated throughout the pitch process.

OMD APAC CEO Stephen Li commented, “When coupled with our demonstrated commitment to Danone, strategic and data-driven solutions forge a cutting-edge partnership that make every media dollar work harder, resulting in better business outcomes.”