AsiaMX aims to capitalise on importance of TV ads

This presents a huge opportunity for Singapore-based Asia Media Exchange to offer cross-media advertising management throughout the region and Thailand.

“We aim to be the ‘Alibaba’ in the regional advertising industry that provides a programmatic TV advertising exchange for advertisers, TV networks and online publishers,” the company’s co-founder and chief executive officer Basil Chua said last week. 

 

Inventory target

AsiaMX targets to have a total inventory of over US$200 million (Bt7.09 billion) from programmatic ad assets for leading pay and free-to-air TV networks, online publishers and video-on-demand providers, increasing from its current inventory of US$60 million.

Thailand was the key market for his company, as the ecosystem of the Thai TV business was ready for this new method of ad trading. 

The launch of digital TV two years ago was the game-changer. 

The free-to-air TV business has become more fragmented, moving from a duopoly, while multi-screen TV rating measurement will soon be in place. 

“With such fragmentation, it seems to be difficult both for TV networks and advertisers to find a point of effectiveness in advertising investment.

“Equipped with our technology, the consolidation and compression of the large advertising inventory could lead them to reach that point,” he said. 

AsiaMX aims to work with all digital TV networks and key players in the pay-TV business as well as online publishers in the Kingdom. 

It has already supported BEC-Tero Entertainment and Nation Broadcasting Corporation, the operator of Nation TV, as well as Asia Satellite TV and Dek-D Interactive. 

 

Optimising slots

It was working with sales teams at TV, online publishing and VOD providers to optimise its clients’ available ad slots by using data and automation to ensure that they get privileged access to high-value TV commercials, ranging from campaign planning, booking and managing |to performance measuring. “We believe our service is the first of its kind in the ad industry, as we can manage ad inventory effectively in TV prime-time, online video and mobile advertising,” he said. 

Despite the challenge of the rapid rise of online content consumption, TV advertising in the present day is still playing a crucial role in the media industry. 

According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, advertising on TV – including linear, on-demand and online – continues to grow in the Asia-Pacific region with the projection of $53 billion in 2019. 

“From my 25-year experience in the regional media business in Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Bangalore and my home city Singapore, I would say that ad trading in the TV industry has never changed in 75 years,” he said.