Industry thoughts about publisher-led programmatic platform MPPM

Addresses issues of digital brand safety online.
Last week on 23 February 2018, the Malaysia Premium Publishers Marketplace (MPPM) partnered with Innity to offer Malaysia its first publisher-led programmatic advertising marketplace platform.

This will provide advertisers with more control to layer on their own data, audience insights and program advertising across MPPM’s eight leading publisher-led consortium that includes Star Media Group, MCIL, Utusan Malaysia, Kosmo, China Press, Guang Ming Online, Nanyang, and The Edge.

A private marketplace is an invite only marketplace where high caliber publishers offer their ad inventory to a selected group of advertisers.

A virtual marketplace operated by sellers to represent their high value or premium inventory, providing programmatic access to select buyers (via a DSP) who agree to transact based on pre-negotiated terms.

True private exchanges offer access to inventory that is not otherwise available within the open market.

According to Phang Chee Leong, CEO and co-founder of Innity, the introduction of a publisher-led programmatic advertising marketplace will allow advertisers to have more control and ease of access while benefiting from our custom ad products, premium publisher inventory, MPPM’s first-party data, Innity’s second party data and third party sources, all within a brand-safe environment.

This is also a result of many advertisers complaining about issues of digital brand safety online.

MARKETING magazine decided to find out what are the opinions from the industry on this partnership.

Sajith Sivanandan, MD of Google Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines and New Emerging Markets says, “We look forward to working with our friends at MPPM to help Malaysian publishers and advertisers grow and improve the digital ecosystem together.”

Padmanabhan Ramaswamy @ Paddy, CEO and co-founder of InsightzClub adds, “Programmatic buying platforms involve a certain learning curve for the algorithms to start optimizing. So for such organizations to really start adopting this, hand-holding would be needed. I think this is the future, the essence of programmatic buying is DIY.

I guess it is not about ganging up but the main utility of programmatic buying is automation and you don’t need agency consultation…agency consulting will be an add-on top of this.

For example, P&G has already started globally moving more than 30% of their business to programmatic and continuing to cut agency costs, so it is the future for sure. It’s more prominent in more mature markets but will hit Asia soon enough.”

Ranganathan Somanathan, CEO for Malaysia & Singapore, Omnicom Media Group (picture) tells MARKETING, “The guiding principles of the platform is brand safety, premium inventory and self-service.

The one that is a differentiator is the self-serve part as it allows for agility as we optimize campaigns real-time.

Layering with data, if this allows for addressable audiences, it will be a compelling solution.

With more options for quality sources of audiences from local publishers, the better the ecosystem will be.”

Tom Hogg, Managing Director of Trade Indy Malaysia comments, “It’s great that Malaysian marketers are getting more choices to target their customers online. Now the work begins to identify the platforms which deliver the best ROI.”

Lai Shu Wei, Vice President of Marketing and Operations at Telekom Malaysia shares, “It will be interesting to see the efficiencies given the shared data by publishers. And the effectiveness of the balloon and billboard push formats.”

Premesh Chandran, CEO of Malaysiakini says” “Publishers have to be more active in co-operating, setting the ground rules and floor pricing for advertisers and programmatic ads going through Google and Facebook.

Marketplaces like Innity’s are welcome as well. With budgets moving online, publishers working together can ensure a fair share of revenue, which reflects the costs associated with producing good journalism.

A great way to reward fact news is to reduce revenue going to fake news sites. Premium marketplaces are a good way to go.”

Spencer Lee, Head of Commercial at AirAsia Berhad (picture) stated that, “Digital is beyond Google and Facebook. More adults in Facebook now are driving the young away. In the end, it is what the brand’s KPI is, what the key measurements are about, especially towards cost, ROI and brand safety.”

Timothy Johnson, Senior VP of Marketing, INTI International University & Colleges gave a positive response. “As an advertiser, we are always seeking platforms that deliver ROI’s that exceed industry benchmarks coupled with an ability to deliver the right message to the right consumer. I will definitely be exploring this to drive my performance marketing.”

Abdul Sani Abdul Murad, Group Chief Marketing Officer of RHB Bank (picture) told MARKETING magazine that this was an interesting development. “Gives MPPM publishers a stake in the online space to win/defend their readership.

“Its outcome I presume would be highly dependent on the quality not just the available inventory but also the ad space for advertisers to effectively catch the eyes of readers. If it is based on the current framework, effectiveness may still be a challenge.”

Digital General Manager of Trapper Media Group Ang Shao Ting believes that with the right pricing strategy and technology advancement, MPPM can go far!

As a local agency ourselves, I am very positive about this local collaboration. This will definitely help to improve the current situation in local digital advertising scene.

With all strong and established publishers and adtech providers coming together, it helps to elevate our local solutions to be competitive, especially in this day and edge where global publishers are taking much of the digital budget pie due to technological and data advantages.”

“We definitely want to see a more free, competitive and healthy local scene especially when it comes to digital advertising.

“This collaboration helps empower local strength to not just be competitive, but to provide marketers with more ways to put together a stronger digital media mix with the right balance of platforms.”

Prashant Kumar, Senior Partner, ENTROPIA told MARKETING that “Very progressive step. It’s been overdue for at least five years. A marketplace of high-quality intentions met with delightfully rich mid-funnel formats in credible environments, is exactly what brands today need. I wish Fabian and Heather, Entropia’s absolute best.”

Last year, CtrlShift, an audience solutions company, tied up with seven leading publishers in Malaysia in their efforts to launch the region’s first independent private marketplace for digital advertising called “AMP”.
MARKETING also went to dig out on what the head honchos had to say about this.

An anonymous person commented that CtrlShift’s business seems more pragmatic and clearer. Maybe it’s the articulation of the business solution that makes it appear more business-friendly. However, there are many hidden costs since they are still middlemen.”
We are still awaiting comments from Facebook and CtrlShift.