Melissa Sim, CEO of AdEasy, believes that startup need to leverage on both the online and offline ad spaces to market their brands effectively
When Malaysian adtech startup AdEasy was selected as one of the 13 finalists — picked out from 200 — to participate in the Alliance Bank SME Innovation Challenge in 2013, it didn’t have a working business model, prototype or even a name for its product; all the founders had was a concept on paper.
Since then, AdEasy’s CEO and Co-founder Melissa Sim and her team have been hard at work turning the business-validated idea into a functioning real-world product.
That product is an advertising marketplace that focusses on selling offline advertising spaces to businesses.
Its marketplace concept allows advertisers to buy these ad spaces easily, the same way a consumer buys a product from a B2C e-commerce site.
AdEasy charges media owners a fee of 15 per cent for every ad campaign booked. It also charges advertisers a minimal ad delivery fee to ensure the material submission process is smooth, which includes guaranteeing delivery dates and checking that the right ad formats have been submitted.
The journey from paper to code
When Sim pitched her idea in 2013, she was already a 12-year veteran in the advertising and media industry.
She started her career in UPD Malaysia selling out-of-home ad spaces such as billboards and branded trains. Then, she went out to join Media Prima Berhad, selling radio airtime for Fly FM and Hot FM.
Afterwards, she climbed her way further up the corporate ladder and began pitching to big fishes, such as Petronas and Tourism Malaysia. at Trapper Media Group. She also handled important portfolios like Peugeot.
But soon, life in a corporate outfit began to lose its lustre.
“After many years of working for these corporations, I decided to embark out on my own before I got too comfortable and eventually turn into a corporate zombie. That’s when I made a decision to leave Trapper to start my own boutique digital creative agency called Bloc 48,” Sim tells e27.
And that was when she first laying the seeds for AdEasy — an idea that came up during a brainstorming session with her best friend.
“Price and information on offline media are not easily accessible and there is no easy solution to book offline ad space directly from media owners,” says Sim, expounding on the pain points AdEasy aims to address.
“It takes from days to weeks to find the right ad space…local business owners find it complicated,” she says.
Sim adds that “most SMEs have small budgets and are under the impression that offline advertising is too expensive for them. They don’t feel the media sales reps will be interested in their business.”
The solution to these problems is an online platform that consolidates all offline ad spaces and displays the media information and rates transparently.
It took three years for Sim to pitch that idea to her now COO and Co-founder, Therine Goh. Together, they took their skeleton concept to the Alliance Bank SME Innovation Challenge later that year.
Then, it took another four years before the concept turned into a working platform. Sim explains that the AdEasy team needed time to figure out how to simplify and automate the entire offline ad booking process.
AdEasy was also Sim’s and Goh’s first attempt at building a tech platform, so there was a lot of trial and error in the beginning.
“We conducted a lot of tests and surveys, went back to the drawing board and made fixes and improvements based on the insights. During this time, we also seeded the idea to media owners and started signing them up to list on the platform when it is ready,” says Sim.
“The AdEasy that you see today is actually the fourth version of the website. It is the result of four years of hard work built on industry feedback. We only launched it this year because we feel it is finally ready.”
Business model
Sim is aware that there are other online advertising platforms that offer offline ad spaces as well, but she stresses that AdEasy’s business model is different.
“Most of them only sell one type of offline ad space combined with digital ads, and they do not provide an end-to-end service like we do,” says Sim.
“AdEasy makes this process simpler by making media buying as easy as booking a flight or accommodation online. As users are already used to purchasing items online, we modelled AdEasy based on these websites to lower the barrier to entry,” she adds.
For now, Sim is keeping the features of AdEasy’s platform simple, so as not to confused businesses who have not bought offline advertising spaces before.
But more sophisticated add-ons are in the pipeline, she says, and will be integrated once users are more familiar with the platform. These include multiple purchase bookings and a chat function. It also has premium subscription and loyalty programmes in the works.
“For now, users just have to key in their budget, target audience, location and types of media they are interested in, and immediately the website will recommend the most relevant ad spaces for them based on the filters selected,” says Sim.
“Also, we have simplified the way information is being presented on each and every media profile by doing away with media or marketing jargons.”
Even prior to its official launch in April 2017, Sim says AdEasy managed to achieve over RM 40,000 (US$9,350) in revenue. It is on track to hit RM 180,000 (US$42,000) by this week and aims to hit RM 500,000 (US$117,000) by the end of the month.
AdEasy has also raised RM 242,250 (US$56,600) via equity crowdfunding platform pitchIN.
Sim says the focus now is to strength AdEasy’s presence in Malaysia. Once a strong market position has been established, AdEasy will be rolled out in regional markets such as Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand.
The advertising sector may be shifting towards the digital space as consumers spend more time online, but offline advertising still brings in the lion’s share of sales. Last year, offline media sales hit US$315 billion, according to market intelligence company Magna Global.
If AdEasy can successfully convince more advertisers to treat offline ad buying like e-commerce shopping, it may be looking at achieving healthy profit margins for the long term.
—-
Image Credit: AdEasy
The post AdEasy is a Malaysian startup that makes offline ad buying as easy as booking a flight appeared first on e27.