In this weekly segment, ExchangeWire sum up key industry updates on ad tech from around the Asia-Pacific region – and in this edition: AU sees increased use of ad viewability; Mobile preferred over desktop in APAC path to purchase; China mobile video ads exceed £606m in Q2 2016; AU agency adds VR & AR services; and AU executive appointments at OMD & IAB.

AU sees increased use of ad viewability

More agencies in Australia are reportedly turning to attribution modelling, ad fraud detection, and viewability tracking tools.

According to IAB Australia's latest 'State of the Industry: Marketing & Advertising Technology' report, the adoption of such tools had "increased markedly" among local agencies aiming to drive better results for brands and publishers.

The report also found increased use of tag management and DMPs, said IAB, adding that the higher adoption of tracking tools had enabled agencies and marketers to take better control of their ad spend and campaign monitoring. Only half of marketers, though, were tapping attribution modelling, indicating that more education was needed to help them optimise such platforms.

The report further stated that data visualisation, DMPs, and ad fraud detection technologies would see higher adoption over the next six months.

IAB Australia CEO Vijay Solanki said: "It's clear that attribution is now both a need and an opportunity for marketers, highlighting the ongoing importance of the measurement of effectiveness […] IAB will continue to work closely with marketers to provide them the support they need."

The bureau's technology council chair and ANZ managing director of AdRoll, Ben Sharp, added that the increased use of DSPs and DMPs further indicated that more marketers were turning to ad tech tools as part of their marketing strategy. "Marketers also are striving to get a better understanding on how to be more efficient, with attribution modelling having one of the largest increases year-on-year", Sharp said.

According to the report, adoption of attribution modelling climbed 13% over the previous year, while ad viewability tracking, as well as DSPs, also increased 12% each. The use of tag management grew 10%, while DMPs also climbed 9% year-on-year.

Among agencies, the adoption of ad fraud detection increased 19%, while brand safety ad tracking grew 14%, and DSPs climbed 13%.

The second in its series, the annual study polled almost 200 respondents in the industry, the majority of whom had more than six years experience and held senior positions.

Mobile preferred over desktop in APAC path to purchase

Online retailers in the region are seeing, for the first time, more than half of their sales originating from mobile devices than desktop, reveals Criteo's State of Mobile Commerce Report for the first half of 2016.

Mobile accounted for 54% of all e-commerce transactions in Southeast Asia, and a higher 60% in Taiwan, said Criteo, adding that retailers able to capitalise on this would be successful in driving transactions in upcoming shopping seasons.

According to the report, top retailers in the region clocked a 37% year-on-year growth in mobile sales for the first half of the year, with mobile's share of overall e-commerce transactions growing 19%.

The Asia-Pacific region, including Southeast Asia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, led the global pack in the percentage of online transactions made on mobile devices. Mobile apps fuelled a larger portion of shoppers down the purchasing funnel, converting at three-times the rate of mobile web.

Criteo's Asia-Pacific executive managing director, Yvonne Chang, said: "Mobile commerce has reached a tipping point and is surpassing desktop purchasing as regional retailers continue to invest in mobile shopping platforms. However, retailers must go one step further and create a truly seamless mobile and cross-device experience to engage users along their digital paths to purchase.

"Brands that master the mobile trend will have a headstart over competitors, as well as the momentum to lead the pack in the shopping seasons ahead", Chang said.

Marketers can no longer afford to ignore mobile as a primary platform to drive online sales, said the retargeting vendor, urging retailers to integrate their mobile web and app presence with personalised mobile targeting to better engage shoppers.

The report found that retailers with sophisticated mobile app presence clocked up to 54% of their mobile transactions in-app in Q2 2016, up from 47% in the previous year. Criteo said features such as home screen presence, instant loading, offline content, and personalisation provided a richer and more immersive consumer experience.

China mobile video ads exceed £606m in Q2 2016

Mobile video ad revenue in China has exceeded 5bn yuan (£606.45m) for the first time in the second quarter of 2016, accounting for 60.8% of overall online video ad spend.

The segment's revenue dipped slightly, but still clocked a year-on-year growth of 118.6% for the quarter, said local research firm iResearch.

Online video revenue for the country climbed 77.8% year-on-year in the second quarter, generating 15.18bn yuan (£1.84bn). iResearch attributed the growth to seasonal demands and the rapid development of terminal device business among some video companies. The number of paying online video audiences also increased to 18.2%.

For the quarter, advertising accounted for 55.2% of overall revenue for the online video industry, fuelled by high-quality video content, such as 'Running Man' and 'Go Fighting!', which saw high viewership numbers. Total online video ad revenue grew 47.5% year-on-year to reach 8.38bn yuan (£1.02bn) in the second quarter.

AU agency adds VR & AR services

Australian PR agency Zing have introduced virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) services in their communications portfolio, creating a new unit called 'ZVR'.

Driven by growing demand from clients for VR and AR content, the new entity would specialise in content creation and activation.

Zing's creative director Preya McMahon said: "VR has been on our radar for a few years now. […] I saw the opportunity for clients to enrich their campaigns through powerful storytelling that reaches consumers in a hugely exciting and immersive way."

ZVR had collaborated with Sydney-based VR studio, StartVR, to offer VR and AR products. Preya added that these enabled various content features, including 360 shoots, stitching, and holograms, as well as facilitated a new app to allow VR and AR content to be stored and tapped on Google Android and Apple iOS platforms.

OMD's AU CEO Aimee Buchanan

AU executive appointments at OMD & IAB

OMD Australia have promoted Aimee Buchanan to CEO, taking over responsibility for the company's assets in the country and leading a local team of more than 500 employees.

Buchanan has more than 16 years of media experience in Australia and joined OMD Sydney in 2011 as their business director, before moving up the ranks to managing director in 2014.

In a separate announcement, IAB Australia revealed Gai Le Roy would be returning to the bureau as research director from November 2016. The role would see Le Roy leading IAB's efforts in media consumption and commercial measurement, as well as drive local adoption of cross-media measurement.

"While all audience measurement systems face challenges, digital is often held to an even higher standard, thanks to its ability to track and compare across different measurement and analytics platforms", she noted. "I'm encouraged now to see that the industry, across all sectors, is showing a real appetite to move towards genuine cross-media measurement and this is something that I will be focused on developing further."

"While we need to keep evolving and solidifying our standard media currencies, the real work of evaluating effectiveness of media spend is still to be done", she added. "I look forward to moving our measurement capabilities towards the ability to assess outcomes of different devices, environments, audience targeting, and ad formats to establish what makes marketing communications work."

Le Roy would be returning to IAB after a year in behavioural research firm, Gateway Research. She also previously worked with Fairfax Media as general manager of audience insights and research, and at ninemsn as insights manager.