Innocean assigns programmatic trading responsibilities to Affiperf
Havas’ Affiperf signs exclusive global partnership with Innocean to handle all of its programmatic trading. A partnership announced between Affiperf – Havas’ programmatic pure-player – and Seoul-headquartered marketing communications group Innocean will give brands and marketers greater access to much-needed programmatic skills and technology.
Affiperf has been tasked with enabling Innocean’s team to grow its in-house expertise via a programme of training. The partnership has been signed for an initial 19 months, giving Innocean the ability to white-label Affiperf’s technology as part of the deal.
Lawrence Taylor, Head, Programmatic Trading, Affiperf, said that the companies have been working closely together on campaigns for clients such as Hyundai Kia, with the deal being a result of their successful track history.
Affiperf currently works across 45 countries and will have delivered 25,000 campaigns this year alone – up from 15,000 in 2013. “We’re seeing brands looking beyond mobile, video and display, and connecting with offline initiatives, such as linear TV and digital out-of-home,” said Mr Taylor.
He adds, “Programmatic is now entering something of an adolescent stage, following the past five years when it has been in its infancy. It gives marketers the ability to connect with audiences on a one-to-one basis and at scale, and as such, represents a truly organic form of marketing as it’s about people as well as numbers. We see organic marketing as the future.”
The programmatic discipline is not without its teething problems, however, such as the continued challenges around fraud and ad visibility. Affiperf’s scale is an advantage, enabling it to invest in strategies to counteract such threats – thereby driving both efficacy and efficiency in media spend for advertisers, and more meaningful connections between brands and consumers.
Moreover, the wider shift to programmatic is creating a requirement for diverse skills sets across data, analytics and creative – which has been recognised by Innocean with this move.
“In the global advertising market, we are witnessing the replacement of so-called ‘media buying’ with ‘audience-led buying’, both on and offline. For that reason, we are very excited to have Affiperf as our global programmatic trading partner. We will be able to enhance our client services and strengthen our competency as a result of this partnership,” said, JP Kim, Head of Digital at Innocean.
