Stuart Spiteri is Chief Operating Officer at News Digital Media - and worked previously at Google as the head of platforms for Japan and Asia-Pacific. Here he discusses his new role at one of Australia's biggest publishers, the challenges/ opportunities that lie ahead and some wider trends from the greater APAC market.

Can you give some overview on the new role at News Digital Media - and some background on your experience in the APAC region?

I joined NDM in December 2011 from Google in Singapore where I was head of platforms across the Japan and Asia-Pac region, looking after the display business including DoubleClick suite of products including Ad Exchange, plus Invite Media.

Prior to Google, I was with Akamai Technologies as MD of their Asia-Pac business for seven years, providing platform-led technological solutions to a broad range of blue chip organisations that included working closely with all major Australian publishers.

Before this I worked with a number of technology and consumer brands across Asia-Pac, including chinadotcom in Hong Kong where I built 24/7 Media Asia, the region's first ad network.

My current role is Chief Operating Officer of News Digital Media, where I look after the day-to-day strategic and operational management of the company.

Throughout my time overseas I always worked closely with the Australian market, and over time it became clear to me that the internet here was developing at a far slower pace than in the Asia-Pac region.

I knew the team at News Limited well, and when the opportunity arose to work with Australia’s leading digital publisher I knew it was the right move, offering me the ability to be at the forefront of market transformation.

As well as the day-to-day management of News Digital Media, my role is to provide executive digital leadership across all our brands. This involves informing and advising on the strategies that will help News Limited remain at the vanguard of digital publishing in Australia.

You're taking the helm of one of the largest of Australian publishers in a time of huge change in the online ad space. What specific challenges and opportunities do you see for big online pubs like News Digital News Media?

The pace of technological development is certainly unprecedented but there are a few key themes I see informing the market in the immediate future.

Video has the potential to be the big game changer of our time. Short form is progressing at a natural pace, but it’s live streaming that I see as the next big revolution. If you look at the ways sports rights are being handled in the US at the moment, a real niche has been carved out to integrate online with existing cable content rights.

Mobile remains interesting and there is certainly a great deal of opportunity for publishers and advertisers to leverage technology to engage more competitively. As mobile becomes the primary device for accessing the internet the way in which we think about online itself will change, the challenge is to make sure there is balance between current and developing platforms.

Social media will continue to be a base platform for many people’s online lives, and whilst Facebook, Twitter and Google + will retain their dominance, the rise of niche networks is interesting. Pinterest started as a specialist network for women in Mid-West America and has now gone global, I think we will start to see more of these special interest sites come up in the next twelve months.

Gamification is another key area to watch, particularly around education. There are some fascinating developments happening in this space where the idea of educating and developing new ideas in a format that is familiar and intuitive to young people is producing some remarkable results.

Underpinning all of these however is the rise of big data. The ability to target customers in increasingly sophisticated ways based on insights into real time behaviours and preferences will increase yields and performance in ways that will have a direct knock on to all platforms in the near future. In this climate context of delivery will remain important, but increasingly will be only one of many factors leading to improved performance.

Can you give some insight into how the online ad space is evolving throughout the APAC markets?

From my experience territories like Korea, Japan and China have been ahead of the Australian market. This is due to a more sophisticated infrastructure of course, but also the ability and appetite to take risks, innovate and be more creative in response and delivery.

Traditionally in the Australian market, regulatory restraints and the entrenched nature of local media operations, have meant innovation has not been as rapid as it could have been.

This is certainly changing as both local and international players have begun to harness the power of a more sophisticated approach to operating online based more and more on insight and data.

Are we likely to see significant growth and innovation in APAC's "emerging markets"?

I am confident that the next few years will see a significant rise in the so called ‘emerging economies’ particularly in India and China.

Australians tend to underestimate the wealth of the talent pools in these countries. India especially has a vast pool of globally minded and extremely skilled digital players who will very soon challenge the status quo.

The last few years has seen companies like Alibaba, Huawei and Haier at the front of the first wave of Chinese brands to go truly global. I have no doubt that there are a whole wealth of Asian companies ready to challenge the domination of established Western providers just waiting in the wings.

Are there strategies that regional advertisers and agencies could be executing to maximise the impact of online ad spend - particularly around data?

It’s clear to me that remarketing through insights into behaviour across multiple networks and sites is just one way to apply what we already know about customers into greatly improved brand response rates.

In today’s data rich environment, advertisers have the ability to track and match messages with consumers in many smarter ways than they currently employ.

I can’t stress enough how crucial data is to effective engagement, and whilst the market is certainly moving in the right direction there is still some way to go before advertisers really begin to join the dots in this area.

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