APAC

Marc Barnett is the GM of Microsoft Media Network & Microsoft Advertising Exchange. Here he discusses the growth of the Microsoft Ad Exchange in Australia and NZ, the relationship with retargeters and third party buyers, channel conflict and data monetization.

Can you give us a little background on your new role as GM of Microsoft Media Network? What does your remit entail and what territories do you cover?

In my new role I am responsible for leading and driving the growth of the Microsoft Media Network and the Microsoft Advertising Exchange across Australia and New Zealand.

Late last year, the Microsoft Media Network was brought into the joint-venture between Microsoft and Nine Entertainment Co. This change, coupled with the launch of the Microsoft Advertising Exchange, gives us a unique opportunity to offer advertisers access to our data-driven suite of products at scale along with the option to buy through our RTB-enabled Exchange. We have increased our investment in this area of our business over the past four months and the team will be expanding to include 25 people across sales, operations and media buying by the end of March.

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We are delighted to announce another eleven speakers for ATS Sydney on March 13. The event is fast approaching and preparations are in full-swing. The addition of the following new speakers promises to make this perhaps the best ATS yet, and a superb inaugural event in Australia. Read below for more about our new speakers and check out the event page for full bios, an updated agenda and how to book tickets.

That new ATS Sydney speaker list in full…

Stuart Spiteri, Chief Operating Officer, News Digital Media

Stuart Spiteri joined News Digital Media in December 2011 from Google’s Singapore office, where he was head of platforms across the Japan and Asia-Pacific region. In addition to leading the growth and direction of News Digital Media’s portfolio of standalone businesses, Spiteri works closely with News Limited’s divisional leadership teams to develop and grow News’ newspaper and magazine websites, tablet applications and mobile sites.

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Vicki Lyon, Managing Director SpotXchange Asia-Pacific on why real-time bidding is a win-win for advertisers and publishers.

It is not surprising that advertisers are moving more of their ad dollars into Online Video, with Frost and Sullivan predicting Australian video expenditure to increase from $33m to $350m in three years and we are also seeing publishers looking to cash in.

Real-Time Bidding (RTB) for video is gaining traction in Australia and Asia-Pacific. Publishers, and in particularly Advertisers, are becoming more aware of the effectiveness and convenience that RTB offers. Just like RTB for display, it will revolutionise the way online video inventory is bought.

RTB: A win for advertisers and a win for publishers.

Online video offers an engaging experience for consumers that translates into the potential for high-quality advertising impressions from desirable audiences that can be delivered at scale.

RTB helps advertisers eliminate waste, increase performance and simplify the media trading process. Advertisers can enjoy real-time control over executing targeted campaigns and more efficient buys. Demand for RTB-enabled video is growing exponentially and this will continue as agencies, their trading desks and DSPs all look to adopt programmatic buying beyond just display.

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James Zipeure, Chief Operating Officer for VeNA (Video and Entertainment Network Asia) discusses how  online video is now worth $1.5B + across Asia Pacific region, and with the likes of Sony investing in IPTV and telcos decreasing barriers to entry via pre-paid, faster downloads and video advertising platform based technology now makes video real contender to TV.  Zipeure puts forward how greater emphasis must be placed on real-time analytics and fast tracking the shift in buying patterns through real-time optimization and deep transparency across ads, content, viewers and performance and goes onto discuss whether there is way TV and video advertising can work hand in hand.

Once upon a time when TV advertising first started, it signified a new era for brands.  TV delivered an incredibly effective way of getting a message out to a load of people really quickly.  TV soon became a must have for marketers and advertisers alike.  Now, 80 years on TV is still going strong – the global TV advertising market is worth $169B and increasing with the Asia Pacific market is now worth roughly $62B.  Over the past decade though we have seen extraordinary growth in new communications channels – in particular online – and more recently online video which has fuelled the arguments that TV is losing its ability to deliver both audience and cost effectiveness due to the divergence of consumer media consumption and in particular viewing habits.

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Wout Van Damme the CEO of Funbox, a multi-channel performance trading desk, discusses how technology is only as good as the people using it and says that trading desks are ultimately responsible for advertisers brand safety. He also talks about Funbox’s strict processes and protocols and how these ensure advertiser’s brand safety.

We have seen a lot of media coverage around brand safety on ad exchanges recently and the reality is that there are risks involved with running campaigns on exchanges and DSP’s. This should however not discourage advertisers from running on exchanges, as the good news though is that these risks can be mitigated.

Let’s first look at what the challenges are in terms of brand safety. A decent percent of internet traffic is  torrent related or holds otherwise unwanted content and the reality is that these sites do find a way onto exchanges. Some exchanges police this to the best of their capabilities and some don’t police this at all. Without proper targeting it is possible ads will run on these sites. Avoiding these categories is an obvious choice, but publishers or networks might accidentally or deliberately misclassify a site and for example classify a torrent site as a technology site. The other issue with classification is that an exchange, publisher or network all might have different ideas as to what brand safe is, from what you or your client might think.

User generated content sites also pose a potential threat to brand safety. Some UGC sites allow users to upload ad serving code. We have found instances of misuse of these UGC sites, where an ad tag is uploaded onto a UGC site (for example – blogging platforms) which are then served out on iFrames on non-brand-safe sites. To the eyes of the advertiser tracking the impressions, it would appear that the ad is serving on the ostensibly brand-safe UGC site, and not a non-brand-safe site.

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Grant Watts is Amobee’s Managing Director of Asia Pacific. Here he discusses the rapidly changing mobile landscape and why by 2015 Asia will be a US$7 billion mobile advertising market.

Can you give an overview of Amobee and its offering and strategy across the APAC region?

Amobee is working with large-scale advertisers, publishers and operators to deliver mobile advertising solutions and technology – from text to rich media, across all devices – at the global and regional levels. We run mobile ad campaigns for some of the biggest and best brands including eBay, Nokia, Skype, Zynga, Google, Groupon, InMobi and Telefonica, delivering unparalleled results.

While running campaigns across Asia, we’re also aggressive in all key Asian markets – Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, India, Australia and New Zealand – meeting with operators, advertisers and others, understanding their needs and introducing our capabilities.

Everyone we meet is very impressed with our mobile advertising technology and solutions. We’re already working with Asian-based companies such as InMobi, Globe (Philippines), Ugama (India), Ambient (Vietnam) and MCM (Indonesia) and expect to make additional partner announcements in the near future.

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The long awaited programme for ExchangeWire’s first Ad Trading Summit in the Southern Hemisphere – ATS Sydney – has been announced. With keynotes from some of the biggest and brightest in the industry from the APAC region, the ATS Sydney panel sessions and speaker lineup promises some lively debate on the day. This event is not to be missed. The conference will also feature a “Fireside Chat” on the future direction of the industry in APAC, hosted by IAB Australia’s Paul Fisher.

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The upcoming ATS Sydney conference in March is fast approaching and our panel is rounding out with some impressive speakers from the region. ExchangeWire is happy to announce the addition of Mark Britt CEO of ninemsn and Brett Wilson CEO of Tubemogal.

Mark Britt took the helm of the ninemsn group of companies in September 2011. The ninemsn network has a collection of over 50 sites and is Australia’s largest online content publisher with more than 9.7 million people visiting the site each month – that’s 67% of Australia’s online population.

As Group CEO, Mark Britt runs all ninemsn group activities across Australia and New Zealand including: ninemsn, Windows Live, Bing, Cudo and investments in iSelect and RateCity. Before being appointed CEO he sat on the ninemsn Board of Directors.

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Chris Brown is team lead at DoubleClick Performance Products in Australia, South East Asia and NZ. Here he discusses the progress made by the DoubleClick Ad Exchange in the region, timeframes around when mobile and video inventory will be made available and the recent Direct Deals launch.

Can you give some overview on the progress made by the DoubleClick Ad Exchange in the Australian and APAC markets? What similarities and differences did you see in relation to the UK and US markets?

The Australian market was already primed for exchanges due to the DoubleClick Ad Exchange 1.0 having been launched here in 2008, and RightMedia already being active in this market. Uptake was swift on the buy-side due some of the big holding companies strategies, and local independent agencies and Ad Networks always being close to ‘game-changing’ developments in the online world.

The major difference I saw from an agency perspective was how autonomously they were acting in this region. Country by country – each agency has a different take on how they should approach exchange buying.

A major similarity I saw was how some publishers perceived exchanges. They wanted to get involved as they were seeing the focus that agencies were giving, but were unsure on how-to.

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