Data sophistication is rising in Asia, says newly appointed Lotame APAC MD Alex Sibois
Data management platform (DMP) Lotame has hired digital advertising and programmatic industry veteran Alex Sibois to lead its APAC operations, based out of Singapore. Sibious joins the DMP from a spell advising tech firms on international growth, such as the now Facebook-owned LiveRail and also Ooyala, now owned by Telstra.
Speaking to The Drum about his new role, he predicts further growth in the region as marketers’ use of data becomes more sophisticated.
He says the region is already well-established for the business but, due to the varying levels of sophistication, there is still space for continued growth.
“Australia is very sophisticated compared to other other markets and places like Singapore and Japan are working differently. Japan tends to have very insular markets, it’s very consolidated and centralised. South East Asia is growing very quickly but it started from a very low adoption rate,” he explains.
According to Lotame, 30 per cent of its business is generated outside the US market and its clients include publishers and brands such as Hearst, Perform, Times of India, Media Corp, Singapore Press Holdings, Star Publications, Wego, IPG Mediabrands and many more.
The growth will come from new clients in high growth markets but, according to Sibois, an increased understanding of the importance of data to marketers will drive growth from existing clients too.
“What we saw was that a few years back we were heavily educating the market and the brands to understand what data means. Today the education process is still ongoing but people have now all heard of or are working with a DMP. They are all aware of the importance of that strategy and investment,” he says, “In terms of next year, we’ll continue growing our existing base of clients because once you integrate a DMP platform in a client-side business, it grows as more complex ad platforms can be added. A client grows with a DMP and a DMP enables growth to a client.”
The growth of the marketer-side adoption in APAC means, much like other markets, a key trend for 2016 will be how the ad tech and martech worlds meet, and is something Sibois says he is keeping a close eye on.