Tag: Platforms

Manila, Philippines – GCash, a finance application, has forged a partnership with Toki, a collectible-focused social e-commerce platform, to establish a community of collector items’ buyers and sellers. 

The GCash application will be integrated into the Toki platform, allowing convenience and payment security for its users. This will also give them access to GCredit, a mobile credit line, and GGives, the application’s installment loan service. Meanwhile, sellers can use GCash QR codes to enhance the payment process and user experience.

By the end of the year, Toki will also integrate GCash’s Webpay, which allows end-to-end transactions within the platform or during its livestream auctions. Meanwhile, Toki will also be included in the lifestyle products under the GLife feature next year. 

Toki is the first platform dedicated to collectibles in the country, founded by former GCash employees. The idea for launching the platform sprung from the founders’ experience as collectors themselves. Knowing the difficulties faced by local collectors in buying and selling, they formed a platform that is tailored to their needs.

“The founders of Toki, all former members of the GCash team, have a long-standing history with GCash, and through this global partnership, GCash is poised to significantly boost Toki’s growth journey,” Toki co-founder Frederic Levy said.

“Toki is beginning a truly remarkable collaboration with GCash, and the entire team is particularly excited about the support from the number finance super app and largest cashless ecosystem in the Philippines,” Levy added.

Toki was launched in November 2023. Since then, the company has more than 70,000 users and over 200 sellers. Collector items such as sneakers, toys, cards, and more can be found on the platform.

Singapore – Survey software firm, Milieu Insight, has recently released major product enhancements to further efforts on easing consumer research processes and community management for brands, all within a single platform.

Launched at the end of last year, the Canvas platform continues to add to its repertoire of industry-first innovations, including an improved visual survey builder, new panel and data integration features, and direct communication channels between brands and survey takers.

The Canvas platform also comes with a full suite of features to clean, manage and analyse data. Its email and database cleaning capabilities ensure that surveys are sent only to valid email addresses, thereby improving completion rates, and its one-of-a-kind significance testing tool turns data to meaningful insights with just a click.

In the latest iteration, Milieu has expanded Canvas’ survey design capabilities to include more question formats to meet clients’ diverse needs. The new addition of a consolidated list view, equipped with editing tools, gives users an overview of survey content and increases ease of navigation.

Brands can then connect survey results on Canvas with a consumer profiling tool called ‘Portraits’ within Milieu’s community, generating a wealth of insights from just a few questions.

Portraits provide access to thousands of consumer segments and millions of pre-collected data points across topics not limited to demographics, lifestyle and media consumption. This will significantly speed up brands’ research processes and empower them to make the most updated and informed decisions to drive business success.

Additionally, brands can connect their existing customer database to Canvas through first-party data, mailing lists and even social media following lists, with the addition of API integration feature and auto-punching of consumer data into surveys.

Talking about these enhancements, Gerald Ang, founder and CEO of Milieu Insight, said, “As generative AI technology advances, we are dedicated to automating the time-consuming and often tedious aspects of market research. Users can anticipate the launch of ‘Flash,’ an AI survey assistant ready to support in survey design.”

“Flash will be fully integrated into our visual editor, providing assistance throughout the entire survey design process as needed. Whether users require initial survey question suggestions or assistance with designing specific questions and answer options, Flash will be on-demand, 24/7,” he added.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – airasia academy, Capital A’s digital edtech company, has recently rebranded as ‘Outclass’, a learning experience platform designed to enable individuals to develop in a changing workforce context. 

Outclass expands on airasia academy’s tradition of bridging the computer skills gap, it now provides a personalised learning experience to assist users in achieving their career goals.

Individuals and organisational leadership can use Outclass as a tool to meet talent development needs, enable worker potential, and get ready for a changing market. With aspirations to grow into in-demand fields like sustainability and ESG through a relationship with the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), it now provides fifteen career options in the technology industry. 

Outclass also stands in contrast to typical Learning Management Systems (LMS) with its full Learning Experience Platform (LXP). This versatile platform meets both individual and organisational needs. For individuals, Outclass uses the Big Five OCEAN-based personality test, co-developed with experts from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia’s Institute of Ethnic Studies (UKM KITA), to personalise the learning journey and empower career growth by matching learners with the most appropriate career tracks.

The platform creates a highly dynamic environment by creating performance-based goals, providing analytical dashboards, and issuing certificates. For businesses, Outclass provides flexible, and scalable LXP solutions with white-labelling possibilities. 

YB Gobind Singh Deo, Minister of Digital Malaysia, said, “The Ministry of Digital Malaysia is honoured to witness the launch of Outclass today, a pivotal step in advancing digital reskilling and upskilling in Malaysia. This initiative is a testament to our unwavering commitment to equipping the nation’s talent with the digital competencies to thrive in a rapidly evolving landscape. Outclass will serve as a beacon of opportunity, providing tailored courses that meet the needs of our digital economy. The ministry commends Capital A for its steadfast support and dedication to driving digital inclusion and education, and we look forward to seeing the positive impact Outclass will have on shaping the future of our workforce as we thrive in IR4.0.”

Meanwhile, Aireen Omar, president (Investment & Ventures) Capital A and executive director of Outclass, said, “As we launch Outclass, we are excited to introduce a revolutionary platform designed to empower individuals and businesses alike. Outclass personalises the learning experience, leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to recommend the best career paths based on your personality, ambitions, and skills. Soon, Outclass will be available across Asean, starting with Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia, inspiring and equipping a new generation of professionals to excel and shape the future.”

Jakarta, Indonesia – Superbank announced an additional investment of IDR 1.2 trillion from its shareholders, which include Grab, Singtel, and KakaoBank. This increased investment made by the three shareholders will help Superbank improve services and product developments to fulfil its customers’ different financial demands and lifestyles. 

Additionally, this investment highlights the shareholders’ plan for and backing for Superbank’s future prospects. Superbank is the first bank in Indonesia to enable millions of Grab partners and users to register accounts, save money, and use accounts as a direct payment option within the Grab app without having to download any extra apps. 

Speaking about the investment, Tigor M. Siahaan, president director of Superbank, said, “We greatly appreciate the trust of our shareholders in supporting our efforts to continuously create innovative and relevant digital banking products and services. The ongoing support from Grab, Singtel, and KakaoBank extends beyond investment, as they also contribute their advanced technology, insights, and network assets to help accelerate our growth. This additional investment will strengthen us in expanding inclusive financial services and accessible financing for more underbanked retail customers and MSMEs in Indonesia.” 

He added, “With such strong support from our ecosystem partners, we believe we can further increase our role in driving sustainable growth of the underbanked communities to help improve their productivity and welfare.”

Meanwhile, Neneng Goenadi, country managing director of Grab Indonesia, said, “Grab understands the importance of delivering digital banking technologies with various innovative features that are easily accessible and can help consumers manage their finances better. Grab’s ongoing support for Superbank reinforces our shared commitment in enhancing financial inclusion across Indonesia.” 

Furthermore, Gan Siok Hoon, managing director of Singtel, said, “This new round of investment underscores our commitment to promoting financial inclusion and driving digital transformation across Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia. We share Superbank’s vision to serve the unbanked and underbanked and are confident in their strong ecosystem and growth trajectory. We are glad to be part of this growth journey with like-minded shareholders and look forward to further strengthening our partnership.”

Lastly, Yun, Ho Young, chief executive officer of KakaoBank, stated, “As a leading mobile-first bank and financial technology company with a strong global network, KakaoBank understands the transformative power of accessible and secure digital banking solutions. Our continuous investment in Superbank strengthens our dedication in driving innovation and financial inclusion on a global scale, as well as empowering Indonesians with reliable financial services.”

The additional investment follows the inclusion of Superbank services directly into the Grab app. The collaboration enables millions of Grab users and partners to open accounts, save money, and make payments without having to download a separate app. This project significantly advances Superbank’s goal of delivering safe and affordable financial access, thereby increasing financial inclusion in Indonesia.

Singapore – MiQ, a programmatic media partner to brands and agencies, has partnered with Hoppr, a connected TV (CTV) platform, to enhance customers’ access to ultra-premium inventory with a first-in-market guaranteed view in Singapore. 

MiQ’s mission is to develop the most comprehensive advanced TV (ATV) solution on the market. Through this partnership, MiQ will leverage Hoppr’s patented platform, which utilises audience behaviour and insights to ensure a guaranteed view of ads on the largest screens in the home.

MiQ is Hoppr’s preferred managed service activation partner in Singapore. Together, they will deliver solutions aimed at addressing one of the TV industry’s most significant challenges: fragmentation, which reduces advertising reach across diverse audience segments.

Through this partnership, MiQ and Hoppr will empower brands to target their desired audiences by enabling advertisers to plan and purchase inventory that guarantees ad viewership. This level of precision ensures that advertising messages reach the most relevant household audiences, maximising the impact and effectiveness of each campaign.

Both parties are also assessing opportunities to expand their partnership to include the future launch of enhanced advanced TV capabilities for Singapore across linear, streaming, and YouTube. 

MiQ and Hoppr share a vision for the future of advanced TV, where data-driven video integrates across linear and digital platforms. This partnership follows MiQ’s recent global TV intelligence expansion to the UK and Australia, reinforcing their commitment to enhancing TV consumption and audience engagement.

James Parker, SEA managing director at MiQ, said, “This partnership is an exciting step forward in bringing powerful advanced TV advertising solutions to the APAC market. MiQ and Hoppr have a shared vision of advanced TV—one of data-driven video convergence across linear and streaming that brings together the reach of TV with the targeting and performance of programmatic.” 

Joe Prusz, CEO of Hoppr, added, “The combination of MiQ’s managed service CTV and programmatic trading expertise and Hoppr’s unique platform will bring Advanced TV to life. We can deliver a guaranteed view of an ad that will be consumed by an audience in its entirety. We help advertisers reach the hard-to-reach audience that isn’t watching linear TV. We share MiQ’s view of the future of advanced TV advertising and know that advertisers need a new way for their message to cut through to the consumer. This is only possible with Hoppr’s guaranteed view.” 

Singapore – Viddsee, a short-form drama platform, has joined forces with Chinese content investment and licensing company Risingjoy to bring and introduce the popular Chinese micro drama content to Southeast Asia. 

Microdramas, known for their concise narratives and compelling storylines, have surged as a cultural phenomenon in China and globally in recent years. The market value of China’s micro-drama industry hit around US$5.3 billion in 2023, with projections soaring to USD$233 billion by 2028.

This partnership capitalises on the growing global appeal of microdramas, a trend gaining significant traction in China and worldwide. As a short-form drama platform, Viddsee strategically expands its diverse content offerings by bringing these compelling microfilms to Southeast Asia, meeting the evolving preferences of regional audiences.

Since 2022, Viddsee has been producing original vertical microseries, leading to a notable increase in viewership and engagement on the platform, underscoring the growing popularity of microdramas.

Viddsee’s partnership with Risingjoy is expected to accelerate this momentum by presenting selected Chinese micro-drama titles to Southeast Asian viewers while initiating cooperative production ventures in the region. 

The initial batch of Chinese micro-drama titles is scheduled for release on Viddsee in the latter half of 2024. 

Ricky Ow, board of directors at Viddsee, commented, “With over 10 years of experience in short form content, Viddsee has honed its expertise in understanding and delivering what audiences crave. The growth of micro dramas, coupled with Viddsee’s expanding capabilities as a studio and platform, ensures that they are uniquely positioned to lead in this emerging entertainment format and excel.”.

Ho Jia Jian, CEO and founder of Viddsee, added, “We are excited to partner with Risingjoy to bring fresh and engaging content to our audiences. This collaboration marks the beginning of several such partnerships, through which we aim to diversify our content offerings and maintain our leadership in the short-form drama space.”

Meanwhile, Cassandra Yang, general manager at Risingjoy, said, “This is a tremendous opportunity to bring rich and diverse Chinese content to Southeast Asia. Viddsee’s studio and extensive network of creators, the largest in Southeast Asia, also make them an ideal partner to facilitate localization of such micro dramas in the region. We look forward to solidifying our competitiveness and sustainable growth in this dynamic content landscape.”

Indonesia – Superbank has become Indonesia’s first bank to integrate digital banking services directly into the Grab app.

The partnership allows millions of Grab users and partners to open accounts, save money, and make payments without having to download an additional app. 

The integration provides consumers with a 6% yearly savings interest, the ability to withdraw funds at any time, and a 75% discount on GrabFood and GrabBike services. This project significantly enhances Superbank’s aim of providing safe, and affordable financial access, hence fostering greater financial inclusion in Indonesia.

Through the Grab app, users can register a Superbank account and link it to their payment method for GrabFood, GrabBike, GrabCar, GrabExpress, and GrabMart, among other services. By doing away with the need for extra apps, this expedites the account registration process and lowers storage consumption on customers’ phones. 

Furthermore, ‘Pinjaman Atur Sendiri (PAS)’, an unsecured digital loan with adjustable credit limits and terms as well as clear interest and charge details, is being made available to a limited number of Grab users by Superbank. 

Financial services sectors like Grab, EMTEK Group, Singtel, and KakaoBank encourage Superbank to keep innovating. Superbank’s integration with Grab is evidence of its dedication to offering a more relevant and inclusive banking experience, assisting customers in better managing their money. 

Speaking about the integration, Tigor M. Siahaan, president director of Superbank, expressed, “We are thrilled to see how easily people can open accounts, save, and make payments directly through the Grab app. This aligns with our mission to transform banking in Indonesia with innovative and secure financial solutions. The integration with Grab provides easier access to banking services and attractive offers, supporting users in managing their finances better.”

Meanwhile, Neneng Goenadi, country managing director of Grab Indonesia, said, “Our users and partners can now quickly and securely access banking services and Grab services in one application. Superbank’s 6% annual savings interest is expected to benefit the community significantly. This initiative aligns with our mission to create a broader positive impact through technological innovation and economic empowerment.”

Singapore – Global media measurement and optimisation platform Integral Ad Science (IAS) has announced the expansion of its brand safety and suitability measurement product for YouTube, to include reporting for Performance Max and Demand Gen campaigns on Google Ads.

This integration with YouTube aims to provide advertisers with enhanced tools for safe and effective campaign management.

IAS’s brand safety, suitability, viewability, and invalid traffic (IVT) measurement will now also be available for Google Demand Gen campaigns for YouTube In-Stream and YouTube Shorts.

With this enhancement, IAS will provide global advertisers with third-party assurance through verification that ads running on Performance Max and Demand Gen campaigns appear alongside brand-safe and suitable content, accurate analysis of brand suitability trends to empowers advertisers’ decisions, and comprehensive verification of YouTube content in over 30 languages for key international events in 2024 and beyond.

Talking about this, Lisa Utzschneider, CEO of IAS, said, “IAS is committed to providing advertisers valuable third-party assurance that their campaigns are running adjacent to brand safe and suitable content, and we’re excited to provide further safeguards for their campaigns across YouTube.”

“Our best-in-class measurement solutions coupled with Performance Max and Demand Gen will provide the actionable data needed to drive efficiency, scale, and safety,” she added.

Sydney, Australia – Omnichannel supply-side platform OpenX has recently announced the international expansion of TV by OpenX to Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

In parallel, OpenX is enhancing TV by OpenX in the US to deliver future-proofed and differentiated data-driven curation to high-quality biddable CTV.

The global expansion of TV by OpenX marks the first step toward transparent, biddable CTV in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the United Kingdom, allowing buyers to continue to target viewers as they choose to watch CTV.

This expansion is an important step in the TV by OpenX mission to protect the value of broadcaster and publisher inventory while providing transparency, ease of purchase, and incremental reach for buyers.

While the first phase of TV by OpenX focused on transparency, this next step in OpenX’s evolution of programmatic television buying combines future-proofed data-driven curation with high-quality, transparent, biddable CTV in the US.

As brands and agencies continue to invest in scatter to buy closer to campaign activation, TV by OpenX’s US enhancements empower buyers to leverage the largest independent supply-side graph to target audiences across direct CTV inventory. In this next phase of TV by OpenX, data-driven, contextual, attention, and sustainability offerings power the direct activation of curated audiences at scale.

With TV by OpenX, US buyers can choose from any one of OpenX’s 250+ data partners, including Captify, Samba TV, and TVision, to target an audience via CTV inventory using OpenX’s cross-platform identity graph. 

This allows buyers to increase scale and optimise toward their desired campaign outcomes via their preferred DSP. Additionally, TV by OpenX enables political advertisers to reach high-value audiences on direct, premium supply this political cycle by leveraging ACR audiences from Samba TV.

Talking about the expansion, Matt Sattel, SVP of buyer development at OpenX, said, “We’re thrilled to build on the success of TV by OpenX, both in geographical expansion as well as in enhancing the US offering to deliver buyers more data-driven curation options. These innovations, among others, enable us to partner with the most premium CTV publishers and ultimately deliver exceptional results for buyers.”

Singapore – Integral Ad Science, a global media measurement and optimization platform, has announced that it has expanded its reporting and insights to Amazon. Through a server-to-server (S2S) interaction on Amazon’s DSP, advertisers now have access to measurement coverage for campaigns across Amazon custom audiences and Twitch inventory.

Advertisers in Amazon DSP from IAS have access to viewability, invalid traffic (IVT), brand safety, and appropriateness as solutions. 

IAS now offers Amazon DSP media buyers brand safety and suitability, viewability, and IVT measurement for custom audiences, as well as viewability and IVT measurement for Twitch. Cross-device measurement is available on the web and via apps for CTV, mobile, desktop, and tablet. 

Viewability, invalid traffic assessment with Amazon Ads, and brand safety and suitability expansions from IAS will be accessible in IAS Signal. The purpose of this platform is to give marketers a more uniform view of their global campaigns and more access to campaign data. 

In the third quarter of 2023, IAS also improved its integration with Amazon Ads by adding Context Control pre-bid segments. In addition to IAS’s regular pre-bid categories in Amazon DSP, customers can now simply select where their advertisements appear and reach contextually relevant content. 

Speaking about the partnership, Lisa Utzschneider, CEO of IAS, said, “IAS and Amazon Ads share the value of customer obsession, and our global collaboration demonstrates how our companies continue to maximise return on investment for advertisers and are committed to providing independent measurement. This is yet another way IAS is empowering marketers with actionable data to drive superior results, giving them more confidence that their spend is being optimised towards performance.”