In this weekly segment, ExchangeWire sums up key industry updates on ad tech from around the Asia-Pacific region – and in this edition: China brands tap mobile for awareness, not sales; Integral Ad Science & OMG form AU partnership to address ad safety; Xaxis wins programmatic deal to access China's digital inventory; and Cohn & Wolfe buys out India's Six Degrees.

China brands tap mobile for awareness, not sales

Some 82% of marketers in China said they were tapping mobile as a platform to raise brand awareness, rather than to boost sales in the e-commerce or offline realms. However, this is expected to change over the next 12 months as more consumers in the country purchase goods via their mobile, according to a survey by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), conducted with CollabCentral Consulting. The study polled 20 major marketers in China that represented brands with a combined marketing spend of almost USD$30bn globally.

The survey revealed that 26% of respondents expected mobile to continue being used primarily to support marketing and brand awareness in a year's time; while 48% said mobile would become a cross-purpose marketing and sales channel.

Marketers also were increasingly using mobile messaging apps, such as WeChat, as a key marketing communication tool; with 85% now using such tools compared to just 21% last year.

However, 74% pointed to the lack of integration between departments as a main barrier for online-to-offline (O2O) sales to take off. Some 68% highlighted the need for retail infrastructure to support integrated mobile payment or coupon redemption capabilities.

CollabCentral Consulting's founder and chief instigator Nishtha Mehta said: "Clear vision leads to action and this shift in recent months amongst the marketing community of China, to leverage mobile as a business driver beyond marketing and communication, is a great signal to start acting upon.

"Marketers need to be bold. The speed of change in China is unprecedented. What's relevant today may be replaced or outdated tomorrow. Move fast. Use test and learn cycles to establish best-practice principles, and then aim to scale these across brands."

Integral Ad Science & OMG form AU partnership to address ad safety

The deal will see Omnicom Media Group using Integral Ad Science's tracking tools across its client accounts to address issues related to ad fraud, viewability, and brand safety.

OMD Sydney's head of interactive, Dan Robins, said: "The time for discussion over ad verification is fast receding, and we believe the market and technology are now in the right position for us to make a clear stand on issues that need addressing in the industry."

He noted that ad fraud and brand safety remained key challenges, adding that the agreement with Integral aimed to resolve this. "This partnership does not change our view that viewability is a metric we should work with publishers and clients on to strive towards better outcomes all round. Rather, it strengthens our ability to have open conversations based on solid data for both in-campaign optimisation, as well as at the overall publisher level", Robins said.

Xaxis wins programmatic deal to access China's digital inventory

GroupM's Xaxis has secured a deal with several of China's major digital media players to access premium inventory via programmatic buying.

Its agreement with Youku Tudou, Tencent, iQiyi, Sina Weibo, UnionPay Smart, and Xiaomi, also will enable the ad tech firm to tap data across these platforms through its data management platform (DMP), Turbine.

Xaxis said the partnership will "endeavour to bring more accurate targeting and greater reach for advertisers", as well as establish industry standards in the market.

GroupM China CEO Patrick Xu said: "The huge opportunities lie in predicting your target audience's next moves based on similar users’ past history, and which content consumption pattern will trigger action from your consumer.

"The partnership will help us better understand users and reach out to them better. More importantly, these parties will come together to develop an industry standard to ensure its rapid and healthy development," Xu said. "We are eager to further develop our partnerships with more media and data sources within China.”

Xaxis China managing director Mickey Zhang added that programmatic buying enabled more efficient way of accessing "sought-after premium inventory", particularly online video. He added that the new partnership would help beef up audience intelligence; which would allow the GroupM company to deliver better campaign performance and efficiency.

"With that, we can empower our advertisers to make increasingly well-informed, data-driven programmatic buying decisions in real-time," Zhang said.

Cohn & Wolfe buys out India's Six Degrees

Six Degrees Co-Founder Rishi Seth

The New York-based agency has unveiled plans to acquire a majority stake in Indian PR agency, Six Degrees PR, as well as the latter's content and marketing subsidiary, Alphabet Consulting.

The purchase would expand Cohn & Wolfe's regional presence to 11 offices across Asia-Pacific, including Six Degrees' offices in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore. Part of the WPP group, Cohn & Wolfe opened its own Indian outfits in Delhi and Mumbai in 2012, servicing clients in India that include Ruckus Wireless, Wyndham Hotel, and Lufthansa Passenger Airlines.

Six Degrees co-founder Rishi Seth said: "We believe Cohn & Wolfe is the best partner for the culture, passion, and energy of Six Degrees and Alphabet Consulting. We are excited to start this new journey to make a bigger play for growth through integrated marketing services."