Localization is key in APAC
Surpassing television in 2016, the internet is by far the medium accounting for the highest advertising expenses in the Asia-Pacific region. Totaling more than 100 billion U.S. dollars, APAC has the second-highest internet ad spend worldwide behind North America. The region is home to some of the largest digital ad markets by revenue, with China, Japan, Australia, and South Korea making the global top ten. Moreover, Southeast Asia's digital ad market is the fastest growing in the world, set to increase its market size fivefold over the next decade.Digital ad spend in APAC is increasingly prioritizing mobile devices over desktop advertising, and the region's most significant market segments are search ads and video ads. One of the major challenges faced by advertisers in the Asia-Pacific is the region's linguistic and cultural diversity as well as the variety of local social media platforms and messaging apps. Thus, many companies and ad agencies have prioritized localization when entering APAC markets, music streaming giant Spotify being one example. For its launch in Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines, the platform rolled out ambitious video campaigns featuring cameos of local artists for each country.
Constantly evolving, constantly challenged
The digital landscape involves both unique opportunities as well as problems not experienced in traditional advertising. With the increasing application of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technology, programmatic advertising is currently revolutionizing the industry worldwide. In Asia, programmatic advertising already accounts for a more than 80 percent share of all digital ad spend.ML tech is also employed to tackle one of the industry's biggest threats, ad fraud. Every year, billions of dollars in ad spend are wasted in the Asia-Pacific region due to fraudulent activity by scammers inflating ad engagement with various methods. In addition, Google Chrome's planned third-party cookie deprecation in 2023 leaves the digital ad industry with yet another challenge, as cookies are among the most essential ways for brands and agencies to receive consumer data and place targeted online ads.
