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quantQuantcast, an AI technology company focused on the marketing and publishing industries, announced that it will expand its advertising solutions into seven markets across Asia, connecting brands with an online audience of up to 300 million consumers. The company already operates in Australia and New Zealand.

Marketers across Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand will now be able to tap into Quantcast's live data insights drawn from more than 100 million online destinations to drive more effective brand awareness and performance campaigns.

Andrew Double, Quantcast's Australia and New Zealand Managing Director, will taking on an expanded role to lead the company's growth in the Asia-Pacific region. The expanded team will join Quantcast's existing engineering center in Singapore and be led by Sales Director for the Asian markets, Chris Scudder, with further hires in 2018.


APAC Effie has announced Elaine Chum of Philips as the final Head of Jury and revealed the full line-up of judges for the 2018 APAC Effie Awards.

ElaineElaine Chum is the Head of Digital for Philips ASEAN Pacific for the Consumer and Health Care business and comes with a wealth of experience in digital marketing. In the four years at her current role at Philips, she led the digital transformation journey and setup of The PULSE which focuses on end-to-end digital management, performance management and driving DROI across digital activations in the region. The work of her team has won the acclaim of various industry awards in the region.She first joined Philips 12 years ago, where she worked on digital strategy & enablement and digital marketing communication roles for the consumer business focusing on Europe and China at the Philips headquarters in Amsterdam.

The jury line-up this year’s Effie Awards consists of some 200 judges, with rich knowledge and expertise across the Asia Pacific region. There is a diverse representation of judges from the various disciplines along with strong support from the clients.

The Head of Juries for this year awards are:

David PORTER - Vice President of Global Media of Asia, Africa, Middle East, Turkey & Russia for Unilever

Elaine CHUM - Head of Digital, Philips ASEAN Pacific

TAY Guan Hin - Global Executive Creative Director, J. Walter Thompson

Joanna FLINT - Managing Director, Agency Business, Google Asia Pacific

Rupen DESAI - Vice Chairman for Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, Edelman

Ruth STUBBS - Global President, iProspect

Sameer DESAI - Global Head, Consumer Healthcare, Mundipharma

Silas LEWIS-MEILUS - Global Media Lead, McDonald’s

For the full jury line-up, visit www.apaceffie.com.


Irdeto has acquired Denuvo, the world leader in gaming security, to provide anti-piracy and anti-cheat solutions for games on desktop, mobile, console and VR devices. Denuvo provides technology and services for game publishers and platforms, independent software vendors, e-publishers and video publishers. The partnership brings together decades of security expertise to help prevent revenue loss for game publishers and disrupt undesirable cheating in the gaming environment. The partnership also enables Irdeto and Denuvo to grow the addressable market for its core technology and anti-piracy services.

Denuvo will continue to operate as usual with all staff retained and the Denuvo HQ along with its sales operations will continue to function. Its anti-tamper technology prevents hackers from copying and reverse engineering games to redistribute the content. Denuvo will leverage Irdeto’s security expertise, anti-piracy technology, Irdeto Cloakware™ software security and application protection technology and IP to strengthen Denuvo’s own core offering. Cheating on gaming platforms is also a challenge which must be addressed, as it can distort virtual in-game economies. This makes the game less enjoyable, or even unplayable for gamers, and can be used to manipulate or bypass in-game micro-transactions. Denuvo’s anti-cheat technology prevents hackers in multi-player games from manipulating and distorting data and code to gain an advantage over other gamers or bypass in-game micro-transactions. This prevents dilution of the value of the game for the user and the game studio.

The Denuvo technology enables binary protection for games and enterprise applications across multiple platforms, including desktops (windows), consoles (PS4, Xbox), VR devices and mobile gaming. Denuvo also provides additional technologies for use beyond the gaming market to protect B2B software, e-books and video assets for Hollywood studios, including protecting the Hunger Games trilogy.


yituYITU Technology (YITU), a leading pioneer in Artificial Intelligence (AI) research and innovation, officially launched its first international office in Singapore. The new office will serve as a regional hub for YITU to bring its award-winning AI and facial recognition solutions to customers and partners in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Macau and Oceania markets, as well as serve as a platform for the company to work with private and public organizations in the region looking to deploy intelligent solutions for the digital age.

Headed by Lance Wang, the General Manager of Southeast Asia, Hong Kong & Macau at YITU Technology, who previously worked at YITU's headquarters in Shanghai, the Singapore office will serve as a sales, marketing and operations center, with plans to establish a Research and Development (R&D) hub by end 2018. The office will also focus on delivering AI solutions to the financial services and public sectors, with plans for expansion into other key verticals, including healthcare and transportation sectors in the region.

Founded in 2012, YITU is focused on developing algorithms to ensure high accuracy in its AI solutions for targeted industry offerings, especially in the financial services and public sectors. The company’s facial recognition technology for ATMs has been deployed by China Merchants Bank and the Agricultural Bank of China, which enable face-authenticated cash withdrawals at ATMs without the use of a bank card. In addition, the company's intelligent security platform has enabled organizations to implement state-of-art surveillance to enhance public safety and effect safer working environments.


Adobe has appointed Damon Scarr into the new role of Head of Ad Cloud Sales for Asia Pacific (APAC), announcing Philip Cronin will join Adobe to lead partner engagement, including the launch of a Partner Reseller Program in the region.

Damon ScarrFollowing four successful years leading the development and expansion of the Adobe Partner business in APAC, Scarr will take on responsibility for the enterprise sales go-to-market strategy and growth acceleration for Adobe’s Ad Cloud business across the region. As media consumption increasingly shifts to mobile devices, delivering relevant customer experiences is a key focus for brands across APAC. With deep integration into Adobe Experience Cloud, Adobe Advertising Cloud is uniquely positioned to deliver personalized advertising experiences at scale.

Philip Cronin
Cronin
brings extensive corporate experience to Adobe, including 18 years with Intel, four of those years as Director for APAC and Japan, where he worked closely with Fortune 500 companies and partners. Most recently he was a Director at eClipse Innovation, a business consultancy focused on delivering business and sales strategy, change management, advisory, marketing programs and innovation solutions for businesses in APAC. Cronin is an advisor to Australian and international governments and has served as Chairman of the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA).


gavinSpotX has appointed Gavin Buxton as Managing Director of Asia to drive growth in cross-screen programmatic video in Asia. The company enables publishers and broadcasters to monetize their video content through its modern ad serving technology and programmatic infrastructure available for all devices.

Buxton has over 17 years’ global experience in the digital advertising space, having worked in leadership roles at tech and publishing companies, including Microsoft, Turner Broadcasting, and LinkedIn, with the last eight years based in Asia. Buxton joins SpotX from mobile adtech company S4M, where he led the successful establishment and growth of the business across the Asia-Pacific region. He is an active participant within the advertising industry and currently sits on the board of the IAB Singapore.

Based in Singapore, Buxton will focus on bringing SpotX’s advanced video ad serving technology, across digital and broadcast mediums which are still largely nascent in many countries within the region. He will lead SpotX’s continued expansion across South East Asia, South Asia, and North Asia. He joins SpotX Asia’s existing leadership team of Alvin Ling, Katherine McHugh, Ken Harada, and Mandy Davenport.


JTSpeedCast International Limited announced the appointment of John Truschinger as Chief Information Officer (CIO), reporting to Chief Executive Officer Pierre-Jean Beylier.

Mr. Truschinger is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps where he served as a Sergeant until being honorably discharged in 1981. He has 35 years' experience working in IT and Supply Chain, and most recently held the position of SVP and CIO for Transocean until 2015. Over the past two years John has worked as a private consultant, providing IT, executive coaching, and team-building related services to corporations. As Speedcast's CIO, he will be based in Houston and will assume global responsibility for IT, Supply Chain, QHSE and Facilities, which were functions previously under the COO. He will also be in charge of a new department, Digital Transformation, which is being created as the Group intends to further enhance its customers' experience.

Truschinger will begin his role at Speedcast on January 15, as the organization increases its focus in 2018 on streamlining operations and providing an exceptional customer experience.


apac singapore skyline W620 H387e-Spirit opens new office in Singapore and signs first Tokyo-based customer TSI Holdings.

e-Spirit's FirstSpirit Digital Experience Platform, offered through a SaaS or on-premises model, helps businesses engage customers and increase revenue with personalized, content-rich digital experiences anytime, anywhere. Savvy digital marketers across all industry sectors rely on the FirstSpirit platform for individualized and synchronized content delivery across all channels to differentiate their companies and compel their users to action.

The maker of the FirstSpirit Digital Experience Platform announced its expansion into the APAC region—including Japan, Australia and New Zealand—with a new office in Singapore that will support APAC as well as provide e-Spirit's global customers greater reach within the region.

Udo Sträßer, chief revenue officer for e-Spirit, will manage the company's customer success, as well as the sales and marketing teams in the region, while ensuring operational excellence.

e-Spirit recently signed TSI Holdings, a Japanese company based in Tokyo which manages a portfolio of apparel brands, as its first APAC customer that selected e-Spirit's FirstSpirit Digital Experience Platform to manage its global web presence, with a pilot launch of two sites beginning in March 2018.


irdetoIrdeto announced that it has expanded its long-term security partnership with Tata Sky, India's leading content distribution platform providing satellite pay TV services. As Tata Sky’s trusted security partner, Irdeto manages the planning and deployment of the project for Tata Sky to ensure the seamless integration of both Irdeto security technology and third-party solutions.


The highly competitive satellite pay TV market in India requires operators like Tata Sky to continue innovating to meet consumer demand for premium solutions and services. With Irdeto, Tata Sky has a reliable and trustworthy security partner to ensure the secure delivery of content onto any device across its satellite and OTT platforms in India.Tata Sky will implement Irdeto Cloaked CA and Middleware to deliver an improved customer experience while ensuring that its valuable content remains secure. In addition, Tata Sky recently selected Irdeto to enhance its end-to-end solution for OTT services. Irdeto’s OTT solutions simplify the operations and workflow of supporting multiple digital rights management (DRM) systems.


Cognito announced the official opening of its Hong Kong office as it continues to expand its presence across Asia Pacific.

Establishing a full-time presence will allow Cognito to meet the growing demand from current and prospective clients, as well as provide a platform for servicing the Greater China market.

Dan Bradley has joined the team on the ground to lead, develop and grow the business by focusing on driving integrated communications and marketing solutions across both traditional and digital media for its growing list of clients. He has joined Cognito in early 2017 and brings more than twelve years of experience in financial services communications drawn from both agency and in-house roles. Most recently, he was PR Director at Thomson Reuters, and was previously PR Director for SunGard covering EMEA and Latin America.  Before moving to in-house communications roles, he worked at leading financial services PR agencies in London, servicing a range of corporate accounts and listed companies.

Cognito’s Hong Kong office starts its operations with a strong list of clients on global retainers and local contracts, including names from across the financial services and technology industries. These include global tier 1 asset and wealth managers plus emerging FinTech players and related service providers.