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Programmatic bosses duel over whether transparency in Asia has been ‘won’

L:R Stevens, Williams, Truong, Law Smith, Spiteri, Hills

L:R Stevens, Williams, Truong, Law Smith, Spiteri, Hills

A panel of some of the most senior executives in the region on programmatic marketing saw the regional bosses of Krux and TubeMogul go head to head yesterday on the issue of whether the battle for transparency in digital had been “won” in Asia.

The exchange was sparked by a statement by Stuart Spiteri, managing director of Asia Pacific for data management platform Krux who told the audience at Adtech ASEAN in Singapore: “If you look at the industry the battle for transparency has already won.”

“There are some people who in segments of the industry have their heads in the sand but it is very clear that our technologies are all able to do this.”

This was immediately challenged by TubeMogul’s APAC managing director Phu Troung who said on the local level in Asia there was still a battle for transparency.

“I think the war has been won with the global ad networks that were across several regions but the local markets still have a lot to do on the transparency side,” said Truong. “Then you also have local ad networks on the mobile side which are very non transparent  — that battle has not been won at all.”

“On global level (transparency) is there but when you go down it’s really tough.”

Spiteri questioned his counterpart on how long these local player who may be engaging in arbitrage and other practices without disclosing them would be able to continue.

“How long are you going to hold out? If you a local ad network in Asia and Google is doing fantastic work in mobile adx how long are you going to be able to hold out for?”, said Spiteri, who has previously worked for BrandScreen and prior to that in Australia at News Digital Media.

Truong responded: “They have had relationships for years and years and years. It is really hard to unhinge… they are still there. Some of the calls we get (from clients) they are worried about transparency which to me is crazy.”

The comments were made on a panel that also included the Rubicon Project’s Jay Stevens, Google’s APAC programmattic head Robbie Hills, Craig Law Smith from Singtel, Greg Williams from MediaMath and Siva Ganeshanandan from Adobe.

Spiteri argued that in his view ad networks that did not provide transparency were largely being forced to evolve or killed off.

“The ad networks who were in a non transparent business model have largely all changed their business models or they are dead, been bought or sold,” he said.

“They have gone into other things which are more transparent. Now the agents of the buyers — some have changed and some have not.”

“It’s very clear where the haggling is, on that side of the house the agencies are moving, with a few notable exceptions there are couple holding out… but even they are struggling to create an environment where they can continue to create a black box.”

“I think it is unsustainable over the medium term given all these incredible technologies that we have which can shine a light on inefficiencies.”

Nic Christensen

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