Arun Kumar, President of MAP G14, Discusses Their APAC Expansion & Why Local Partners Are Important

Mediabrands Audience Platform (MAP) is expanding multidirectionally in the APAC region into China, India, Japan, Australia and Southeast Asia. Here Arun Kumar, President of MAP G14, discusses with ExchangeWire the state of the region and what to expect for 2013.

Can you give some overview on the MAP solution in the APAC region in terms of trading approach, technology and staffing resource?

We have expanded rapidly in the region in 2012, especially in the bigger markets like China, India, Japan and Australia. In Southeast Asia, we have developed centers of excellence to help drive product adoption. We have extended our technology solutions wherever appropriate to APAC markets, but have been conscious to include local solutions from partners.

SE Asia has pretty high mobile use in terms of internet access, can you give some insight into the mobile strategy being deployed by Cadreon and MAP?

Yes, SE Asia is high on the radar when it comes to mobile, but our focus extends beyond mobile RTB which is currently limited in terms of available inventory. For us, and for our clients, the bigger play is to ensure that communications are designed from the beginning to take advantage of the third and fourth screens, and the role they each play in our consumers’ media and purchase patterns.

How is RTB adoption in APAC helping agencies and advertisers in the region?

RTB has a direct impact on performance of campaigns. It's also letting advertisers understand their audiences a lot better. We have often seen that campaigns with broader audience definitions offer up interesting segments that buy into a brand/product. It also allows advertisers to optimise their budgets since they can start/stop campaigns whenever they want.

Tell us about the MAP expansion into Japan and China. How different will the approach be there versus existing solutions in other APAC markets?

The ecosystems are very different and obviously the reach of many of our global partners in these markets is limited. Therefore, local knowledge and partnerships are necessary and we are lucky to have leaders in these markets who have strong remotes, are strong in product knowledge and have fantastic relationships. The challenge lies in adapting our models to work with local partners who may not be as sophisticated as partners are in EMEA and the US. We do see, however, the need for a joint development of the market. We are happy when we help our partners evolve because in that process our solutions evolve as well.

How evolved is the Chinese market, given that every ad network is now claiming to be a DSP or an exchange? Is there enough liquidity to trade in the market? Could China hold the biggest potential for growth of programmatic buying in the whole region?

There are very few genuine DSPs and inventory is still limited. That is changing and it will do so rapidly in 2013. While China is a large internet market, Japan has a greater adoption rate in RTB services and that will continue to remain true in 2013. RTB accounts for some 0.2% of the total internet advertising spend in China whilst in Japan, it's about 10.5%.

While inventory has become available through exchanges and DSPs, APAC still has the challenge with data. Will we see growth of the third-party data market in 2013. While it will grow, there will be greater usage of first-party data, and hopefully the global data players will have a greater focus on the region in 2013.

Australia has been your most successful market in the region, having matured over the last year or so. How has this market developed over the past 12-24 months?

Australia's take-up of digital services has always been quite high, and for us, its a star market. We look to incubate most of our new offerings in Australia first due to the nature of the market and the talent that we possess. Programmatic buying has taken off inspite of initial beliefs that publishers would not sell their inventory through DSPs or exchanges. Mobile is where we see growth next since it is the one area where the Australian market has not really grown as much as it potentially can.