Big Mobile opens Singapore office headed by Dave Nicholls + adds Australian + NZ publishers

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Graham Christie.jpgIncreasing advertiser demand for premium mobile advertising solutions across the Asia-Pacific region has led Big Mobile to open in Singapore as it continues to build its publisher network with new partners in Australia and New Zealand.

The Australian owned company has also made a number of senior group-wide hires to capitalise on burgeoning mobile advertising spend. The most recent figures from the IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers show that spending on mobile advertising in Australia hit $36.6 million in the March 2013 quarter, a rise of 182% year-on-year.

Big Mobile’s Singapore office – the third international market it has launched in after New Zealand, and Indonesia – is headed by Dave Nicholls who becomes regional sales manager. Nicholls was previously regional sales manager at Ad2one and will be key in growing Big Mobile’s business across South-East Asian markets and working with clients including Singtel, HP, and Estee Lauder.

Says Graham Christie (pictured), group commercial director and partner at Big Mobile: “We have been looking at establishing a Singapore office for sometime, and we feel digital marketers based in Singapore are now better able to appreciate our superior audience and solutions approach to mobile – the time is right.”

In addition to the Singapore office, Big Mobile has signed three exclusive advertising agreements to extend its Big Audience+ premium publisher network.

APN’s Australian Regional Media, which has 33 mobile sites across regional New South Wales and Queensland, has been added to Big Mobile’s network as has New Zealand’s leading provider of weather information, MetService, which gets three million impressions monthly. Urban Geek Media who manage a number of high profile male-skewed and tech sites have also engaged the company.

Says Sarah Husbands, APN ARM head of digital products: “APN ARM are committed to offering integrated campaigns across our platforms and we now entrust Big Mobile to represent our premium mobile brands in market. We look forward to working with Big Mobile to offer our clients market leading mobile campaigns.”

Big Mobile is also building the capacity of its business with a number of key hires. Andrew O’Shea joins as head of audience and partnerships from Vodafone where he was head of mobile advertising, data services and product management.

In other senior appointments Dr. John Hawkins is establishing Big Mobile’s data science team as ‘head alchemist’ after a period of consulting with the company. Both Hawkins and O’Shea will be based in Australia but work across Big Mobile’s regional network.

Additions to the local operation include Joanne Georges and Helen Buchan who have been appointed as business development managers. Georges comes from Australian Independent Business Media, and Buchan from News Australia Sales.  

Says Christie: “We have growth in every facet of our business. This progress and ourdifferentiated model, means we’re best placed to take advantage of maturing mobile markets across the APAC region.”