Hooq forms OTT and gaming advertising alliance

Hooq has formed a digital alliance with telcos Airtel and Singtel and mobile video advertising platform POKKT to offer a scaled premium advertising solution across Southeast Asia and India.

The Hooq Media Exchange (HMX) will pool inventory from the four platforms, offering advertisers the ability to buy programmatic advertising across the exchange from one source.

The exchange claims to offer “hyper-targeted, quality audiences at scale, and all within trusted environments,” said Hooq chief commercial officer Vishal Dembla.

“Our strong partnership with Singtel, POKKT and Airtel provides programmatic buyers and their brands with premium, brand-safe choices,” he added.

Singtel co-owns Hooq, along with Sony Pictures Television and Warner Bros. Airtel owns its own OTT video platform, called Xstream, which will be included in the exchange.

Bharti Airtel chief product officer Adarsh Nair said: “HMX will helps international marketers to connect with Indian consumers through Xstream, Airtel OTT video platform. The smartphone has become the most important screen in our lives and we believe initiatives such as HMX are a big leap towards building sustainable growth models for the OTT industry in a massive consumer market such as India.”

As part of its long-term plan, HMX is exploring strategic collaborations and investments in new programmatic features to meet evolving advertiser needs, it said.

POKKT primarily offers rewarded video ads within mobile games. It is integrated with more than 300 games and app developers in India, MENA and Southeast Asia, and claims to tap into more than 300 million mobile gamers in Southeast Asia.

"Hooq Media Exchange (HMX) is a great intersection of entertainment and gaming as it would allow advertisers to tap into the entire ecosystem in a holistic manner,” said Vaibhav Odhekar, co-founder of POKKT.

The creation of the exchange is the latest move by Hooq to build out its ad-supported model. Last month the video-on-demand platform partnered with SpotX to grow its programmatic revenues and deliver a more personalised advertising experience for users.