Unruly takes emotion targeting tool to SE Asia advertisers

Unruly Custom Audiences (UCA) uses data from its content evaluation tool, Unruly EQ, to target people most likely to engage emotionally with specific videos.

UCA can also help marketers target light buyers of a brand, consumers who have a preference for competitors’ brands and hard-to-reach, customised audiences such as business decision-makers and movie-goers.

Unruly said campaigns using UCA have seen significant uplifts in performance, up to +74% in brand favorability and +80% in purchase intent.

Unruly’s chief commercial officer APAC, Phil Townend, said: “For the first time, advertisers across the region can apply psychographic, emotional and bespoke targeting to their digital video buys. Emotion matters in marketing – it creates values and sets preferences. Inspires action. Drives sales.”

Ten clients of GroupM agencies across the region have adopted this new targeting technology to date, including leading multinational FMCG, QSR, automotive and financial service brands, across Singapore, The Philippines and Indonesia.

Matt Wigham, GroupM deputy head of investment, APAC, said: “Our clients are extremely excited to be able to trial and evaluate this new methodology for identifying and targeting key audiences. Data insights and targeting capabilities are core components of our agencies offerings enabled by [m]Platform, and this partnership signals our intent to remain at the cutting edge.”

With UCA audiences are first defined and identified among a survey panel of 500 nationally representative respondents. Unruly profiles each audience, identifying the top characteristics for targeting – such as gender, age, income, personality type and contextual interests. When the campaign runs, it is targeted according to the profile of each audience, through a mixture of 1st and 3rd party data segments.