Singapore – Commerce media firm Criteo has announced ‘Commerce Grid’, a supply-side platform (SSP) intended particularly for publishers and agencies looking for programmatic integration of media and commerce.

Leveraging Criteo’s innovative AI technology, which analyses real-time commerce signals, advertisers can target potential buyers across multiple channels, devices, and periods of their purchasing journey by integrating these audiences with a premium inventory. Furthermore, publishers can benefit from Criteo features like shoppable formats and commerce insights.

Brian Gleason, chief revenue officer at Criteo said, “Commerce Grid is another milestone in our transformational roadmap, enabling our existing and future clients to engage in the massive commerce media opportunity. While publishers recognize the opportunity, they’ve also struggled to find a clear path on how to access commerce budgets and buyers.”

He added, “With Commerce Grid, we’re able to connect them directly to commerce demand and opportunities, while giving agencies and brands the flexibility to access desired commerce segments, coupled with premium supply, through their preferred demand platforms.” 

Omnicom Media Group (OMG), the media services division of Omnicom Group, served as the exclusive agency partner for said launch.

Megan Pagliuca, chief activation officer at OMG, commented, “Commerce Grid marks a significant step forward for the industry by enabling both flexibility and performance. This gives us a new opportunity to find and reach the right audiences by leveraging existing buying systems and workflows to deliver superior commerce outcomes for our clients.”

Singapore – Lemma, an independent omnichannel Supply Side Platform (SSP), has announced the appointment of Charles Less as regional head for Southeast Asia. Less is formerly of Pancast and in the new role at Lemma, he will be helping to grow its programmatic DOOH business in the SEA region and increase its local presence.

The company said Southeast Asia is a crucial market for its business owing to the growing demand for programmatic DOOH technology in the region. Less’ primary role in the expansion plan will be to define the go-to-market strategy, optimise business models and processes, and cultivate relationships with digital agencies, direct brands, and DOOH screen owners throughout the SEA.

A seasoned sales & advertising business leader with over two decades of experience, Less brings with him a proven acumen in scaling businesses across agencies, corporate media houses, and start-ups. At Pancast, he served as director of revenue and, throughout his career, he’s also held other leadership positions at companies like Iflix, ESPN Star Sports, A+E network, and others.

“Joining Lemma is an exciting opportunity to be part of an organization that is at the forefront of programmatic DOOH technology,” said Less. “I am looking forward to working with the team to drive growth in Southeast Asia and help our clients leverage the power of programmatic DOOH to reach their target audiences effectively.” 

Meanwhile, Gulab Patil, Founder & CEO of Lemma, commented, “Programmatic DOOH continues to scale worldwide, and this media has enormous potential in Southeast Asian markets. Lemma has launched numerous first-to-market programmatic DOOH campaigns and envisions using its technology platform to transform DOOH into mainstream digital. With the addition of Charles to the team, we intend to scale our business to new heights with a powered-packed team, ready to take on a new market.” 

Lemma has over 350k connected screens globally, including a significant share in the SEA region. Notable brands such as HP, OLX, and Guinness have onboarded Lemma’s programmatic DOOH platform, which is integrated with leading global demand-side platforms (DSPs).

Sydney, Australia – Independent omnichannel sell-side advertising platform Magnite has announced the launch of its singular supply side platform (SSP) Magnite Streaming, which combines technology from the Magnite CTV and SpotX platforms.

Magnite Streaming empowers media owners to maximise the value of their assets holistically across live and VOD inventory, CTV and OTT environments, and addressable linear, while gaining insights to more efficiently and effectively drive their businesses. 

Some of its CTV and OTT clients include Nine, TVNZ, Emtek Digital and Samsung Ads. Magnite Streaming also provides advertisers with unparalleled access to CTV and OTT inventory, audience targeting capabilities and real-time reporting.

The SSP’s features include comprehensive seller deal management capabilities to monetise all types of long-form video content, inventory curation tools purpose-built for video such as advanced podding, frequency capping and reserved/upfront inventory management, and multi-faceted audience activation features including seller defined audiences, third-party data integrations, and secure data matching, amongst others.

Juliette Stead, head of JAPAC at Magnite, commented, “Magnite’s combined expertise across all digital video formats makes us the strongest omnichannel technology provider for premium publishers to count on. Our experienced team is able to effectively address the diverse opportunities and challenges that arise in video advertising, having executed many exciting streaming video campaigns in partnership with leading broadcasters and streaming publishers throughout JAPAC, such as Nine, TVNZ, Emtek Digital and Samsung Ads.” 

She added, “Through Magnite Streaming, we’re reinforcing our commitment to address the unique needs of our clients and helping set them up for long term success to propel the progression of ad-supported CTV and OTT.”

The recent SSP launch comes after the recent news of Magnite’s global, two-year expanded partnership with Disney Advertising.

Singapore – European-headquartered digital media, gaming and entertainment company Azerion has announced the formal launch of its high-impact ad auction and gaming SSP ‘Azerion’s Improve Digital’ in Australia and Southeast Asia. This follows Azerion’s APAC launch in July this year.

The proprietary SSP enables publishers to sell digital ad inventory across their web, mobile and app-based properties, while allowing advertisers to deliver high-impact creative ads to consumers with a strong focus on brand and performance results.

In addition, it enables advertisers to reach highly engaged and diverse audiences across Azerion’s owned-and-operated web properties, as well as independent digital publishers. The company’s advertising auction platform provides media buyers with high-impact ad formats across publisher sites and game titles through standard display, native, skin and video ads.

As a full-featured SSP, it allows multiple ways of monetising publisher inventory including header bidding, programmatic guaranteed or via private marketplaces. The burgeoning in-game advertising also brings more choice and flexibility for sellers and buyers to connect directly and conduct ad transactions.

Elizabeth Grant, operations and commercial director for JAPAC at Azerion, said, “The cornerstone of Azerion’s advertising auction platform Improve Digital is that by merging in-game advertising with our high impact creative technology, we place attention, brand and performance at the centre of every marketing campaign.”

She also added that the Asia-Pacific market is yet to reach its full potential and presents an untapped opportunity for advertisers seeking to reach gaming audiences, which vary wildly in demographic and cultural background.

“The gaming audience is growing exponentially across mobile, casual and social formats and brands have a unique opportunity to take part in this growth. We expect advertisers to increasingly embark on the journey of deploying our gaming and technology expertise to connect with hard-to-reach audiences across web, mobile and app,” she added.

South Korea – Hivestack, the independent programmatic digital out of home (DOOH) ad tech company has announced a partnership with Hello Media, Korea’s largest digital out of home media provider within hospitals and medical centres, to offer brands, agencies and omnichannel DSP’s the opportunity to buy their premium DOOH inventory programmatically through the Hivestack Supply Side Platform (SSP).

Through this partnership, Hello Media will be able to drive additional revenue via programmatic DOOH campaigns, from both local advertisers in Korea and global advertisers looking to target audiences across their 1,800 screens in over 1,200 hospitals in Korea. Hello Media’s advanced hardware technology offers the opportunity for traditional out of home (OOH) advertisers to expand into the DOOH landscape and with Hivestack’s truly programmatic, global marketplace, advertisers across Korea will be able to optimize the scope of programmatic DOOH advertising at a global scale.

Kyuhan Lee, CEO of Mobin, Hello Media, shared, “We are thrilled to partner with Hivestack, the leader in programmatic DOOH globally. We are planning to expand into various media channels in the future, and we look forward to expanding our partnership with Hivestack to launch numerous campaigns for clients both within Korea and internationally.”

Yoonseung Jekal, director of publisher development, Hivestack, Korea, commented, “It is a very exciting time for the OOH market in Korea and we are excited to partner with Hello Media to accelerate the adoption of programmatic DOOH in the market. Hivestack is at the forefront of digital transformation globally and with our market-leading technology, combined with Hello Media’s impressive array of Healthcare inventory, we can deliver incredible outcomes for domestic and international advertisers looking to reach audiences across the region.” 

Singapore – Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), for the roll-out of its global campaign ‘Here for Good’, has partnered with dentsu for the use of its programmatic supply solution, dentsu Curate. 

SCB’s ‘Here for good’ has been piloted in September 2020 in more than 30 global markets, reinforcing the importance of global trade and SCB’s role in driving it. Around the same period, global communications network dentsu has launched dentsu Curate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKMBmDZaMVo

Dentsu Curate is a proprietary programmatic supply solution and is a proudly built-in Asia product. The communications network developed the solution in response to the emerging transparency issues in the programmatic industry, specifically the often-cluttered ecosystem where advertisers had to deal with a myriad of intermediaries and varying auction techniques. With a lot of work already going into demand-side optimization, dentsu Curate is positioned to be a strategic solution for clients’ supply path optimization (SPO) and curation needs, aimed at driving increased media visibility and campaign performance for brands. 

SCB was a marquee client for dentsu in the Asia Pacific region and was an early adopter of dentsu Curate.  

“To achieve the objective, dentsu Curate followed a meticulous planning and execution process; starting with the analysis of historical performance using granular data from existing demand and supply sources to identify and eliminate opaque supply paths and intermediaries. This was followed by curating high-quality video placements directly from publisher partners to drive engagement with complete transparency,” said Sunil Naryani, vice president for Commercials & Partnerships at dentsu Asia Pacific.

Asma Quadri, client partner at dentsu Asia Pacific, said that Standard Chartered has been a strategic client and has always challenged the network to bring constructive innovation in its work. 

“We are appreciative of their trust and openness to trying new solutions and we are delighted with the strong campaign improvements seen with dentsu Curate, highlighting the need and importance of incorporating a strong supply strategy to programmatic, alongside the ongoing DSP buying optimizations,” said Quadri.