Big Mobile expands ad business with Made Media acquisition
Mobile ad tech company Big Mobile has acquired New Zealand mobile advertising business Made Media, as part of the Australian firm's plan to expand in Asia-Pacific markets. The move follows Big Mobile's partnership with Widespace in November 2016. Big Mobile will offer the NZ market the largest Adwizz-powered programmatic audio exchange for the first time. 
Independent mobile ad tech company Big Mobile has fuelled its growth across the Asia-Pacific region by acquiring New Zealand mobile advertising business Made Media.

Made Media was founded by Michael Buhagiar in 2013, who said he was thrilled that the company was joining Big Mobile.

“By tapping into Big Mobile’s scale of 75 mobile professionals and their ad tech partnerships, we will be able to help advertisers and publishers better understand their audiences and how they engage with ads on mobile,” he said.

“For me, it was a case of going back to a great team to make sure I was still moving forward in this constantly evolving market.”

Big Mobile CEO David Green said: “After thoroughly testing our mobile ad tech with NZ premium publishers and the biggest brands in NZ, the results are indicating that the time is now right to expand our NZ operations with the acquisition of Made Media.

“Michael and Made Media clearly have a good reputation in the market, winning several awards and accolades in NZ. Michael is a known quantity in our business, as he helped to found Big Mobile NZ in 2011. He has the proven ability to build and grow mobile advertising businesses in NZ.

“We are looking forward to bolstering Michael’s mobile product set to offer NZ brands the best mobile ad tech from across the global, so its a perfect fit for both businesses.”

The Big Mobile product set in NZ will be centered around building brands and engaging audiences on mobile in brand-safe environments.

The acquisition comes after Big Mobile announced a partnership with Widespace in November 2016, and last month Big Mobile signed up a tier-one NZ publisher to integrate its ad tech directly into its sites and apps to offer the market a new mobile display and video proposition based on high viewability, no fraud, brand safety and transparency.

Big Mobile will continue to offer location-based platform Allspark from Near. It will also offer to the NZ market for the first time the largest programmatic audio exchange that its powered by audio ad tech company Adwizz.

“Big Mobile will aggressively grow in APAC via organic growth and possible acquisitions where it makes sense” Green said.

“We are seeing some great results from the new ad tech partnerships that have been localised in each market. We are focused on being market leader by driving the best outcomes for our clients across APAC, including Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines and Malaysia.”