Tag: Programmatic

Tel Aviv, Israel – Global in-game advertising platform Anzu and independent advertising exchange OpenX, has recently announced a new partnership in which both companies will be able to programmatically serve Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB)-recognized in-game video and banner ads at scale across mobile, PC, and console platforms.

For Brian Murphy, SVP of buyer and publisher development at OpenX, their company has always been in search of creating more value for our partners, adding that for marketers, this means integrating with new, cutting-edge ad units that will help them engage their target audiences.

“Gaming is an industry with an audience that is growing at an unprecedented rate and shows no signs of slowing down. Our integration with Anzu enables marketers to programmatically reach this audience through immersive ad placements that respect the gameplay and naturally match the environment,” said Murphy.

Meanwhile, Yaniv Rozencweig, global programmatic director at Anzu, commented, “We’re excited to partner with OpenX to offer gaming’s untapped premium and brand-safe environment to its advertisers, allowing them to reach players across a wide range of SDK supply from various game genres and devices. OpenX is known for being a leader in brand safety and creating a good user experience for the consumer, which perfectly aligns with Anzu’s values.”

Fully GDPR, COPPA, and CCPA compliant, Anzu’s innovative SDK technology integrated into games delivers high-quality direct traffic with complete control over ad placements and first-party data.

On the other hand, OpenX is a recognized global company in programmatic advertising, delivering value across every type of connected screen and format. The company powers effective and impactful audience targeting on the open web by enabling marketers to leverage first and third-party data to reach their target audience across OpenX’s global network of publishers.

Online video consumption reached new heights as a majority of people were forced to spend a greater amount of time indoors. According to Limelight’s State of Online Video 2020, viewers spent almost eight hours per week consuming various types of online video content.

In Southeast Asia, a majority of this growth is being driven by mobile video consumption. No surprise then, that mobile video advertising spending grew by 65 percent in this region.

Premium video advertising’s popularity continues to soar. According to Verizon Media’s Video Advertising Study in January 2020, two-thirds of marketers said that video will continue to offer a higher return than other ad formats.

OTT and short-form social video are the platforms of choice for a majority of video consumers today. But there is another platform that offers marketers with an avenue to reach consumers with premium video content outside of the internet: Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) media.

DOOH screens are now present across every possible consumer touchpoint outside the home. There are now millions of public screens installed in venues like shopping malls, transit hubs, bus shelters, office buildings, residential lobbies, and more. This is in addition to the roadside and building facade screens that have been replacing static billboards.

DOOH ads have not traditionally been considered part of video marketing budgets but it is now starting to achieve a scale of presence and automation that will enable it to challenge for a share of the pie. The following is a summary of the biggest shifts happening in this space.

More than Just Billboards

Enough has been said about the impact of pandemic-battling lockdowns on the outdoor advertising industry. One good thing to come out of this was that it pretty much forced the hand of industry stakeholders to embrace data and technology to change the narrative around DOOH media.

By embracing dynamic movement data, DOOH providers are now able to show the potential of audiences exposed to the site for upcoming campaigns. One of the trends that emerged during some forms of lockdowns was that people were still moving about but these journeys were taking place closer to home, where they would still come into contact with some form of DOOH screen.

This repositioning exercise showed marketers that DOOH screens are ever-present and that there are opportunities to reach audiences with video assets in contextually relevant environments like grocery stores.

Growing Availability of Programmatic DOOH Solutions

While DOOH screens have been available for quite some time now, it is only possible to consider them for premium video campaigns when the inventory is accessible at scale.

Advertising technology solutions that make automated buying and selling of DOOH inventory possible are now mainstream and the connected assets are available for buyers to activate from anywhere in the world alongside other digital video platforms.

Digital marketers are now starting to leverage the unique characteristics of DOOH as a video advertising platform. For example, DOOH ads are always 100 percent viewable and make a bigger impact simply due to its large physical presence.

For example, this Snickers Hunger Bars Campaign in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia amplified an online campaign by featuring real user-generated content on premium digital billboards.

Non-Traditional DOOH Screens Lead Shift to Impression-Based Buying

Large digital billboards, which basically replaced static billboards in the same locations, heralded the arrival of DOOH media as a marketing channel. However, it is the incredible growth of indoor digital screen networks that have helped it achieve the scale it has now.

Traditional billboard media owners were just that – media owners. Today, any physical establishment that has installed a digital screen can become a DOOH media owner. This could be an independent gym owner with one screen or a nationwide supermarket network with 10,000 screens across their locations.

The interesting thing about these non-traditional media owners is that advertising revenue was not the primary goal of their screen installations. They were installed to enhance communication with the establishment’s visitors or even engage them with entertainment content.

This is a medical supplier in Indonesia which installed hand sanitizers that now double up as ad screens

There is now a growing trend of these players partnering technology providers to equip their screens with programmatic ad-serving technology to make the space available to potential video marketers.

A smart vending machine in Singapore went with the same route with machines now displaying video ads

A recent example of this in Southeast Asia is a medical supplier in Indonesia who installed hand sanitizer stations in retail spaces that now double up as advertising screens. Another is a smart vending machine operator in Singapore whose screens can now serve contextual video advertisements when not being used to purchase a product.

Delivering Incremental Video Reach

Since DOOH screens are present outside the home, they don’t directly compete for audience attention with personal screen time. They are also non-intrusive as they are not consumed at the beginning or in-between other video content.

Cross-media planning tools can now ingest DOOH audience data and available inventory information to identify opportunities to allocate an effective portion of video spends to deliver incremental reach. With the growth of new screen networks, the potential DOOH media reach now surpasses broadcast and cable TV in some cases.

These critical developments – positioning of DOOH as a video medium, availability of data, and automation technology, along with the scale achieved by non-traditional advertising screens – could not have come together at a better time. As global markets reopen and screen-fatigued consumers start going outdoors again, DOOH will be more visible and impactful than ever. Now marketers have the right tools to run effective ‘video outside’ campaigns as well.

This article was written by Mehul Mandalia, Co-Founder and Head of Demand Platform at Moving Walls.

Singapore – InMobi, an independent marketing cloud company, has recently announced the recent appointment of former executive from video advertising platform Unruly, Valerie Jaquet, as InMobi’s new director of agency and programmatic business in Southeast Asia.

She had a five-year stint at Unruly, where she stood as its vice president for programmatic sales in APAC. Prior to InMobi, she had also worked with global programmatic buying group Dentsu Amnet and media company FairFax. Overall, she brings in over 15 years of digital advertising and programmatic experience. 

Through her new role, Jaquet will be focused on leading regional growth and scaling InMobi’s agency and demand-side platform (DSP) partnerships as well as overseeing the company’s programmatic business and operations.

Speaking about her appointment, she said, “In today’s fast-paced connected consumer landscape, it is imperative for brands and marketers to leverage data and technology in the right manner. InMobi is doubling down on its efforts to build the future of marketing, adtech, and data and I am excited to be part of this change and looking forward to expanding our reach and foothold within Southeast Asia.”

Meanwhile, Rishi Bedi, vice president and GM for Southeast Asia, Japan and Korea at InMobi, commented, “I am happy to welcome Valerie as our new Director and look forward to working together to drive stronger growth across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Philippines markets in 2021. Her rich experience, as both publisher and agency, is complementary to InMobi’s regional growth plans.”

InMobi’s latest appointments come as the Southeast Asian market is becoming a focus market for InMobi, with great growth potential on mobile marketing and programmatic fronts. This has been the case in their recent findings, where they note that mobile ad spending grew by 65% in the region.

Shanghai, China – In-game advertising solution Anzu has announced that it is now entering the Chinese gaming market, and has sought Chen Zeng to lead its expansion in Mainland China as its strategic partner for China.

Anzu’s expansion speaks for its previous goal after it concluded its US$9M series funding last February this year led by WPP and Sony.

In regards to Zeng’s background, Zeng is an industry professional with more than 15 years of experience in the IT industry and an impressive track record of building technology-focused advertising brands in China. Before joining Anzu, Zeng spent five years as the General Manager of mobile ad tech Glispa China. He was also the head of sales at mobile marketing company MobPartner China, as well as leading InMobi China’s business development team.

Speaking about the partnership, Zeng said, “I am beyond excited to assist Anzu with its expansion into the region. Anzu’s unique and creative platform is a game-changer and Chinese advertisers and game developers will be eager to tap into the power of this disruptive technology. I am committed to seeing Anzu’s operations in China succeed and have no doubt that success is only moments away.”

Anzu has always ramped up its global presence prior to its China expansion, as it has forged partnerships with companies such as Eskimi and AdColony to bring in-game advertising to a greater reach, as well as with game developers like those of the game World Cricket Championship.

“Anzu has been operating in the APAC region for some time, but expanding to China specifically brings us one step closer to becoming a company with global operations. As the number one gaming market globally, China is overflowing with opportunities, and this partnership helps circumvent the Great Firewall,” said Itamar Benedy, co-founder and CEO of Anzu.

He added, “I’ve known Chen since the days of Glispa and am thrilled to be working with him again on this joint venture which promises exciting synergies for the local gaming industry.”

California, USA – Programmatic digital advertising company PubMatic has announced that it is now expanding its fraud-free program to omnichannel clients, specifically those handling inventories of connected TV (CTV) and over-the-top media service (OTT).

The program is designed to expand scale and engagement opportunities for buyers and promote the development of the rapidly growing CTV sector, from a limited number of top-tier channels and apps, to a broader range of channels and apps with unique high value audiences.

Furthermore, it is expanded to include a money-back guarantee for demand-side partners if fraud is verified on PubMatic’s platform.

“We see tremendous upside potential in the transition from linear TV to connected TV, but fraud concerns have prevented some buyers from fully benefiting. We are confident in the quality of inventory on the PubMatic platform, and our fraud-free program should give buyers confidence to bid on quality CTV inventory at scale,” said Paulina Klimenko, chief growth officer at PubMatic.

She further says that publishers are creating a wealth of new premium TV content and that they are attempting to remove the major challenges and risks. 

“PubMatic is helping DSPs, agencies, and advertisers take advantage of the dramatic increase in opportunities to engage the huge numbers of viewers shifting to CTV,” added Klimenko

With many buyers continuously buying from a small number of CTV publishers due to concerns over quality and fraud, PubMatic’s fraud-free program aims to enable buyers to embrace the full potential of programmatic bidding, where efficiency and control do not need to be traded off against each other.

In addition, PubMatic believes the full potential of programmatic CTV can only be realized when buyers have confidence that their investments will reach real consumers within their intended contextual environments.

“PubMatic employs a rigorous inventory review process for publishers across all platforms and formats (mobile, desktop, digital video and CTV). Leveraging a combination of expert human analysis, proprietary and third-party fraud detection tools, PubMatic vets publishers prior to onboarding and implements pre-bid and post-bid protections to detect and filter out invalid traffic and other nefarious activity, and has historically achieved low fraud levels,” the company said in a press statement.

Singapore – Xaxis, the programmatic unit of media investment company GroupM, has announced a new partnership with Singapore-based proptech Really Singapore, as Xaxis extends its programmatic DOOH (Digital-Out-of-Home) network in Singapore, particularly among the prized audience segment of affluent consumers.

The Premium Audience Advertising Network features Really’s ‘eScreens,’ a network of digital notice boards installed in high-traffic locations across a growing number of condominiums throughout Singapore. As work-from-home (WFH) protocols become the new normal for many Singapore residents, Really’s ‘eScreens’ are presenting advertisers with new opportunities to engage the island’s high-income working professionals.

Joerg Zeugner, CEO at Really Singapore, said, “We are excited to collaborate with GroupM and Xaxis, two digital-forward entities owned by the world’s largest advertising company, WPP. This is where the best in PropTech meets the best in AdTech – a strategic alliance that opens up for brand owners the opportunity to effectively engage a valued audience segment living within premium, gated, and exclusive communities.”

Through the ‘eScreens’, property managers will now have the ability to distribute real-time updates for the benefit of their residents at any time, from anywhere. For brand owners and advertisers, these screens give access to a captive and recurring audience, with their content appearing alongside important updates, local news, and affairs of the estate. 

Felicia Poon, head of investment at GroupM Singapore, commented that as people continue to work from home, they see the partnership as a great opportunity to contextually and smartly engage them. 

“Really’s platform and technology will enable our agencies to enhance the value of our DOOH offering across condominiums in Singapore, cementing our position as the leading media company,” Poon stated.

Meanwhile, Josh Quek, managing director at Xaxis Singapore, said that the partnership roots from the past digital evolution of the past 12 months, which has introduced new ways of reaching audiences, in line with rapidly changing consumer behaviours. 

“Through this partnership with Really, we are pleased to be able to offer brands the opportunity to reach residents within the grounds of their condo. Delivering DOOH campaigns programmatically allows us to address concerns brands may have regarding measurability, proving that DOOH advertising truly is the future,” Quek stated.

Singapore – MARKETECH APAC, the APAC-wide news outlet dedicated to the marketing and advertising industry in the region, is launching a webinar that aims to prepare brands for the impending change in digital advertising: audience retargeting in a cookieless and privacy-first world. 

Cookies have long stood as the cornerstone for brands’ advertising efforts, and now that the industry is gearing up to foray into a privacy-first digital space, brands and companies remain in the dark on how they can achieve the best of both worlds – keeping consumers’ privacy intact while attaining campaign performance and driving conversions. 

Leading web browser Google Chrome has already announced its intentions to block third-party cookies by 2022, joining the pack, Firefox and Safari; and with this on the horizon, MARKETECH APAC aims to create a dialogue that would open the floor for brands and advertisers in Asia to discuss the best practices and approaches in maintaining creativity and innovation all the while adhering to safe measures in monitoring audiences’ browsing behavior and preferences. 

Titled ‘Creative & Media Innovation in Asia: Preparing your brand for a cookieless world’, MARKETECH APAC has roped in esteemed marketing leaders from various industries for a panel that would discuss the importance of first-party data and how brands in Asia are doing their share of adapting to the emerging privacy-first internet, and how tech agencies and brands can best navigate this new type of digital environment. 

The panel includes Eileen Borromeo, head of marketing of financial services company Payoneer for Southeast Asia and Pakistan, and Anny Huang, head of digital business of Singapore-based insurance company Income. Joining them is Travis Teo, executive director of Asia-wide ad tech Adzymic. 

Within the webinar, Teo will also be delivering a presentation that aims to dig deep on the landscape of programmatic advertising amid a new cookieless digital space. The presentation also aims to shed light on how programmatic creatives can fit into overall media strategy and process and will explore the topic of ‘Hacking programmatic display’, exploring how creative innovation and variation drive performance. 

Shaina Teope, regional editor of MARKETECH APAC, commented, “Just like ‘old habits’, we need to make way for new ones, especially if it has stopped serving peoples’ best interests, and this has been the case for digital advertising. For a long time, the use of cookies has only been benefitting best the brands and companies in hitting their campaign and sales objectives and it is time to draw the line. This webinar is positioned to help advertisers to take the necessary first step – and that is to recognize the problem and immerse in the conversation of how we can not only learn to adapt to a privacy-first digital advertising but the ways brands can be the very agents of the transformation into using first-party cookies.”

Meanwhile, Teo, who will be one of the speakers in the webinar, said, “Every change in the digital advertising landscape brings new opportunities and innovation to the space, despite the challenges and unknowns. While moving to a cookieless world remains an uncharted territory for most brands, it provides a great opportunity to reboot old practices and move to a more sustainable and responsible way of audience targeting, and re-focus on how creatives can help provide the necessary cut-through. I’m also keen to discuss with brands the practices and approaches they can adopt to best transit to a cookieless digital environment.” 

The webinar will be held on 2 June at 2 pm SGT. You can register for the event here.

Sydney, Australia – The Australian arm of out-of-home (OOH) advertising company JCDecaux has announced a new programmatic offering across its clients, in which the offering will be supported by the company’s newest hires and appointments.

The new programmatic offering called ‘JCDecauxPROGRAMMATIC’ will offer brands access to OOH with control and flexibility. Advertisers and agencies can execute and optimize campaigns in real time, with the company guaranteeing supply for programmatic advertisers, setting aside at least 5% of its digital networks to be published via its exclusive supply side platform (SSP), VIOOH.

JCDecaux’s sights are set on programmatic making up 2% to 4% of digital revenues in 2021 and 15% by 2023.

“Programmatic out-of-home is now part of the broader digital universe, sitting alongside programmatic online in omnichannel buying platforms. This gives us an opportunity to take a share of the US$9.5B invested in digital media in Australia each year,” said Steve O’Connor, CEO of JCDecaux ANZ.

As part of the wider programmatic offering, JCDecaux Australia has also announced new appointees namely Cassandra Cameron, who has been promoted into the expanded role of executive general manager, revenue strategy and operations; Brad Palmer as national programmatic director; and Kasey Climpson as programmatic operations manager.

Prior to their new positions, Cameron has worked with media company APN Outdoor as national training director and as a member of the DOOH council of the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Meanwhile, Palmer has worked as the national programmatic manager at both digital publisher Allure Media and youth media group Pedestrian Group, and Climpson has worked with APN Outdoor as well as campaign delivery executive.

“Programmatic out-of-home used to be just an idea, now it’s a reality and we are excited to be the pioneers in Australia. Our business is primed and ready to change the conversation, giving advertisers a solution for buying out-of-home that’s as easy, and as sophisticated, as web or mobile audience buying. By reducing operational barriers, we anticipate a range of new advertisers will leverage the power of this valuable channel,” Cameron stated.

In regards to their appointments, O’Connor said that these changes align the talent’s organization’s aim to deliver on their business strategy.

“Our unique programmatic offering changes the way advertisers can plan and transact out-of-home and reflects our strong commitment to growing the Out-of-Home channel and leading through change,” O’Connor stated.

“Today, more than ever, our clients look to us to understand the future, and the future is now. Advertisers can be confident that when they plan a programmatic Out-of-Home campaign with JCDecaux they will have access to Australia’s most desirable outdoor formats and locations, whenever they choose to be active,” Cameron added.

Manila, Philippines – The Philippine arm of adtech Moving Walls has teamed up with the Media Specialists Association of the Philippines (MSAP) to create measurements, transparency, and accountability strategies for the growing out-of-home (OOH) industry in the Philippines.

The partnership will utilize Moving Wall’s OOH programmatic platform ‘Moving Audiences’, allowing member-agencies of MSAP to plan static and digital OOH (DOOH) campaigns more holistically while adopting a data-first approach to its programmatic campaigns in this new currency for OOH.

First introduced in 2019 at the MSAP M-Possible media congress in the Philippines, the platform enables the collection of location intelligence data for both static and digital outdoor media sites, which builds a strong foundation of measurement and accountability. Media planners and buyers will be able to plan ‘outernet’ campaigns in an automated manner, gaining insights from around 35,000 sites globally while measuring campaign effectiveness in real-time.

“Both organizations recognize the current media landscape as well as the challenges faced by the industry, which include fragmentation of OOH and its perceived difficulty to prove ROI like its online counterpart. To address these challenges, automation & data, now considered the ‘push factor’ is needed to build a future-proofed outdoor industry,” both parties said in a press statement.

Furthermore, the programmatic OOH platform is capable of dynamic ad-content serving, audience retargeting, use of various triggers such as weather and time-belting.

According to Norman Davadilla, CEO of Moving Walls Philippines, the partnership is part of the company’s commitment to creating a ‘common currency’ for outdoor media planning and buying in the Philippine market, where OOH planning and buying have continued to be siloed.

“Our tech stack provides MSAP member-agencies with quick access to location data, plan and execute campaigns and provide their clients with post-campaign reports hopefully bridging the gap that should result in transparency and accountability of outdoor media spends. Ultimately, MSAP and Moving Walls are future-proofing a key media channel in the Philippines,” Davadilla stated.

“Our partners’ digital screens are strategically located in Metro Manila and key cities having a combined inventory of 244 digital screens, on average serving 500,000 impressions per screen,” added Davadilla.

Meanwhile, Moving Walls Philippines is in discussion to extend its supply-side subsidiary platform to outdoor media owners who are members of the Out of Home Advertising Association of the Philippines (OHAAP). The Moving Audience Registry and Moving Audience Content, both used to onboard media owner sites and automate their content management system (CMS) will ensure OOH inventories are available to MSAP member-agencies.

“The MSAP Board is delighted to partner with Moving Walls Philippines to accelerate the adoption of new technologies that ensure not just measurement and accountability but also automation. Many clients have been looking forward to newer ways of planning and buying OOH media and incorporating audience location data is truly an innovation for the industry,” said Michael De Castro, president of MSAP.

California, USA – Adtech PubMatic has been selected by media investment company GroupM to be its global sell-side platform (SSP) partner.

Entailed within the partnership is GroupM gaining programmatic advantages, as it has been given more efficient access to globally scaled, brand-safe inventory across OTT/CTV, mobile app, mobile web, and desktop environments for video and display advertising. 

At the same time, PubMatic’s publisher partners will gain access to unique, quality ad spend at scale from GroupM’s broad portfolio of global advertisers.

Part of the announced partnership comes from the stance of marketers who are prioritizing transparency as these brands build out their omnichannel advertising capabilities with a more streamlined set of strategic supply-side partnerships. PubMatic has long prioritized transparency, helping advertisers maximize their control and understanding of their campaign performance and providing tools to drive increased advertiser ROI.

“GroupM’s partnership with PubMatic brings our clients media transparency and an efficient path to premium inventory. As a global preferred partner, PubMatic gives brands access to their strong publisher footprint across the U.S., Europe, and Asia, particularly in the growing mobile app market, and provides leadership and innovation around programmatic CTV, identity, and audience addressability,” said Andrew Meaden, global head of investment at GroupM.

Furthermore, the partnership also allows advertisers to enhance their ID-based targeting to ensure addressability across channels without relying on third-party cookies or mobile identifiers like Apple’s Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA). PubMatic’s suite of addressability solutions, including Identity Hub and Audience Encore, provides various approaches that enable advertisers to increase scale across the Open Internet.

“We are thrilled that GroupM has selected PubMatic as a preferred global SSP partner to give their advertisers transparent inventory access and increased ROI through fewer, more strategic supply partnerships. As consolidation continues across the industry, this will also help to ensure that we provide our publisher customers access to unique demand from GroupM’s leading global brands,” said Jeff Hirsch, chief commercial Officer at PubMatic.