Mediacorp and SPH collaborate to form joint programmatic trading desk
Two of Singapore's largest media companies, Mediacorp and Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), have announced that they will collaborate on a joint venture called Singapore Media Exchange (SMX), a programmatic advertising trade desk alliance that will be launch in 2018.
Rivals Mediacorp and SPH will collaborate in a new joint venture called Singapore Media Exchange
To be led by a chief executive that will be independent of the two companies, SMX will provide advertisers access to digital inventories owned by properties from both companies like The Straits Times, TODAY and Channel NewsAsia across desktop, mobile, web and mobile apps.
Parminder Singh, Mediacorp's chief commercial and digital officer said: “Trust is paramount for brands. Coming together in this venture enables SPH and Mediacorp to scale the benefits of our trusted media environments."
"The strength of our offerings also lies in creative, engaging advertising formats and bespoke automated solutions that give brands the ability to build effective, coherent stories and campaigns and more meaningful connections with their customers."
Singh demurred when asked how much the investment into the joint trade desk will cost both companies and the figure they will allocate to ad spend for promoting it, only saying that both companies are ‘committed to making the joint venture successful’.
“It is a bit too early to talk about revenue sharing, but both SPH and Mediacorp is committed that in terms of inventory, we provide the requisite inventory that will make this partnership successful,” said the former Twitter managing director for Southeast Asia.
“It is also premature to think in terms of actual figures when it comes to spending (on this investment).
“We do have an agreement on the spending we are putting into this venture, but we are committed to reviewing this from time to time and making sure that we have all the inventory that is needed to make this successful.
“It is an evolving situation and we will do whatever it takes in terms of inventory, investment and ad spend.”
Added Tan Su-Lin, SPH senior vice president for sales strategy and operations: “In terms of marketing this (trade desk) to our trade partners, we are already working closely with them, so we will continue to engage them and we are committed to making sure that the market knows about this.
“We will put our weight behind this venture to make it successful.”
The partnership comes as some experts believe that aside from ecommerce, Alibaba and Amazon have also become publisher platforms and are expanding their advertising inventory to become major players.