Hakuhodo ties up with GrabAds

Hakuhodo DY Holdings has partnered with GrabAds, Grab’s advertising business unit, to co-develop online-to-offline (O2O) campaigns aimed at consumers in southeast Asia.

The pact enables Hakuhodo's clients to use GrabAds' first-party data to better understand changing consumer tastes in the region and its superapp advertising expertise spread across GrabCar, GrabFood, GrabMart and GrabPay.

Since 2018, Hakuhodo companies and GrabAds have developed several campaigns that have combined online reach with offline brand experiences. Masato Aoki, corporate officer at Hakuhodo, said in a release that Hakuhodo was the first Japanese advertising company to sign a "regional multi-year partnership with Grab." This deal is important to the Japanese network because according to a recent survey, 80% of Southeast Asia's senior marketers are planning to increase ad distribution on the Superapp platforms in 2022.

Ken Mandel, regional managing director and head of GrabAds and Brand Insights, said the superapp was "delighted" to help Hakuhodo's clients better understand "superlocal behaviors, trends and tastes across Southeast Asia and harness the power of superapp advertising to accelerate omni-channel marketing in this region".