Mediacorp, SPH launch premium marketplace, with Hari Shankar as CEO

Singapore Media Exchange (SMX), a premium marketplace announced by Mediacorp and Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) in August last year, has officially begun operations and has named Hari Shankar as CEO.

The company also named AppNexus and Lotame as core technology partners. 

Shankar has more than 15 years of experience in media management and was most recently managing director at Havas Media's Ecselis. He previously held leadership roles at Paypal and Performics.

“Brands are looking for quality choices in the marketplace,” Shankar said in a press statement. “SMX is a harbinger of things to come in the programmatic space in Singapore, following similar developments in other parts of the world. I am incredibly excited to lead this initiative to deliver a premium, brand-safe alternative for programmatic buyers in Singapore.”

SMX plans to sign "other like-minded premium publishers" onto the platform and said there is already keen interest.

Julian Tan, executive vice president of the Digital Division at SPH and director of SMX said SMX will provide advertisers with a trusted environment at scale.

SMX selected AppNexus and Lotame have after a six-month review. AppNexus will power the exchange across all digital channels (desktop, mobile) and formats (display, video, native), while Lotame will support its data capabilities, including unifying audience data across its coalition partners, the company said. 

SMX offers an ad sync feature that allows advertisers to synchronise programmatic buys with TV event triggers, and SMX said it will be one of the first strategic partners of the Advertising ID Consortium when it launches in APAC. 

"Since announcing the SMX initiative, we have been firing on all cylinders to rethink a different kind of ad exchange that marries the unique strengths of our co-operative partners," said Roger Moy, head of consumer insights and analytics at Mediacorp and chair of SMX.