Unruly returns to Australia with Sydney office

The launch is the second official office Unruly has launched in Asia-Pacific following the opening of its regional headquarters in Singapore last April.

While Unruly’s social video solutions have been established in Australia since 2008, the time had come for a “pro-team on the ground” that combines local knowledge with expertise in Unruly’s products, explained Phil Townend, Asia-Pacific MD.

“The market is mature and sophisticated enough, and so we’re going full-tilt at it,” he added.

The new team of four, located in Surry Hills, will be headed up by the company's former Nordics MD, Lance Traore. 

“I believe that our mobile-first approach towards native video advertising will be especially valuable to brands in the Australian market, which has a shortage of premium video inventory,” commented Traore. He added that Unruly also brings the ability to use data to optimize for engagement metrics that are not currently available on other DSPs.

“With video engagement rates higher than the global average across the hundreds of campaigns we have run in Australia, and 83 per cent of Australians now owning mobile phones, we know all too well the huge social-video opportunity there is for brands looking to engage viewers at speed and scale,” said Traore.

So far, Unruly has run about 20 to 30 distribution campaigns in Australia with a client list that includes Kelloggs, Visa, Intel and Samsung.

Its presence in the market will also lay the foundations to customise and launch its ShareRank tool, which predicts the likelihood a video will be shared. “Because it’s based on human emotion and behaviour, it has to be customised for each market. Australia, we believe, is ready for a bespoke product,” said Townend.

Clients who have seen a demonstration expressed high interest in the product, he added. Unruly expects to be able to launch ShareRank in Australia within the year.