Alex Khan is CEO of Catcha Digital Asia. Here he discusses the CDA offering, trends in the region's online display market and the impact ad exchanges are likely to have on the sell-side.

Can you give an overview of the Catcha Media Group, Catcha Publishing and Catcha Digital Asia and its offering across the APAC region?

Catcha Group (CG) is one of Southeast Asia’s largest and most dynamic media holding companies. Its portfolio includes a wide variety of media related assets such as Catcha Media, which is one of the region’s premiere magazine and online publishers with a monthly reach of 9 million people. It also includes CDA (Catcha Digital Asia) one of the region’s most dominant online Sales Representation Houses. CDA works with blue chip publishers such as ViKi.com, NetShelter, Malaysian Insider, Goal.com and many more in order to establish sales revenue in the region. CG is the founder and are a major shareholder in Iproperty.com, Asia’s largest property portal. All of these combine to make CG one of the top media brands in Asia.

How is Catcha Digital Asia differentiating itself from its competitors?  Does having access to proprietary data and inventory put it in a strong commercial position?

CDA differs from the competition in a number of ways, not least in the experience of staff (all CDA staff have worked in a number of markets from across the globe). Our technology: we use a bespoke version of the Helios IQ platform from AdTech that enables CDA to deliver large complex campaigns in multiple countries and track all forms of ROI for our clients. The publishing clients are also key. CDA looks for local and regional publishers who want to have a tailored sales solution that suits their organisation. This allows CDA to provide advertisers with more detailed information and bespoke solutions for their campaigns. Once this is agreed, CDA can then also provide a reach & frequency solution and a direct ROI model to compliment the overall campaign objectives. This puts CDA to be in a somewhat unique position of providing a total solution.

How developed is the ad network market in the region?  Do ad networks have access to similar sized budgets as they do in the US and Europe?

The ad network market is continually developing in the region and is gaining in share of budgets. Budgets are still relatively small when compared to the US and Europe as in SEA the share of overall marketing spend online is around 5/6% depending on which studies you believe; and this results in smaller campaign budgets with some % earmarked for ad network delivery. There is still some development of the market needed for marketers to fully embrace online as an advertising channel and ad networks as part of that channel. The size of budget also depends on whether the campaign is regional or local and what the objectives are, like brand v ROI/ reach v targeted audience.

What challenges do advertisers and agencies face when it comes to buying online media in APAC? Are online media budgets reflective of online populations in the region?

I think the main challenge is trying to achieve too much with the size of budget allocated. It is plain to see that the region is fast growing as an online powerhouse with Asia Pac growing at around 6% (30M new internet users) last year. The major countries in SEA have seen double digit growth of between 11% and 32% in the last year with Indonesia the biggest.

How widespread is behavioural targeting?  Are agencies and advertisers buying into its potential?  What is Catcha Digital Asia’s offering in this area?

There has been a distinct rise in the number of requests for behavioural targeting and CDA certainly offers this. However, we are also very clear with advertisers and their agencies that BT can only really work for a specific brand / campaign when it runs for up to 12 weeks. This is so the pool of cookies generated is relevant to the campaign and not just a generic pool of cookies that have been generated from other campaigns. This way the impact from having BT added to a campaign is more demonstrable. Of course, this also means the advertiser must commit more money and look to have the campaign run over a longer period in order to build the cookie pool. Once this has been generated for a brand / service then this can be used on any subsequent campaigns. Results are better and so the budgets get higher.

There’s been a lot of debate in Australia recently around whether or not ad exchanges will commoditise publisher inventory, resulting in downward pressure on CPM prices.  What’s your view on exchange trading in the APAC region?

With so much inventory being generated now in the region ad exchanges are inevitable and can play a useful part. I can see a time where the larger publishers will use exchanges to sell their remnant / 2^nd class inventory and maintain their premium sales in house e.g. bespoke executions, targeting specific audiences and sections and home pages.

Does Catcha Digital Asia have an exchange strategy?  Are you likely to work with exchanges, DSPs or Agency Trading Desks?

Let’s just say CDA is keeping a very close eye on the developments.

In terms the automated buying across exchanges and SSPs how far is the APAC market behind Europe and the US?

I would say that APAC is playing catch up on the US and Europe but how long it will take... who knows.

How developed is the third party market?  Are Bluekai, Exelate, Quantcast are they active in the region?

I am not too sure what these companies or like minded ones are up to in the region but, I would be very surprised if they are not watching the market very closely as it is growing so much.

Is Catcha Digital Asia doing much in the data space – in terms are you leveraging first party or third party data to deliver more value for advertisers?

CDA looks to deliver whichever combination achieves the campaign goals. Advertisers to date haven’t been willing to invest in data sources or even basic research studies and that has restricted the % of budget for online versus traditional media.  It is the job of suppliers like CDA to encourage this in the future and as the market matures.

Will the continued growth of video and mobile impact media buying strategies or publisher’s inventory availability on ad exchanges in APAC?

Video inventory is growing at an amazing rate and this is a very good example of the kind of inventory that publishers / media owners will keep as a premium in house solution. It is high value inventory that offers advertisers true 121 engagement with a user who has chosen to watch the video stream.

What trends are we likely to see in the APAC region over the next 6 – 12 months?

We will see a greater degree of spend online with the rise of DSP’s / exchanges playing a crucial role in the support of specific premium sites. TVC’s will play an increasingly important role as it allows those advertisers who have large TV budgets to utilise the online channel in a very close proxy to how they buy TV.