SINGAPORE – Media OutReach – 4 February 2020 – SQREEM Technologies, an award-winning Singapore-based AI company, and Rakuten Inc., a global leader in internet services that empower individuals, communities, businesses and society, announced today the launch of a jointly established company – Rakuten SQREEM, Inc.
Rakuten SQREEM will provide advertisers in Japan with marketing solutions built around AI based behavioural pattern analysis, and will cater to companies and advertisers in Japan.
Through the combination of SQREEM’s proprietary AI technology with Rakuten’s historical sales data from over 100 million members in Japan, Rakuten SQREEM will be positioned to better meet the needs of Japanese consumers by serving them content that is desirable and relevant.
The new company will utilise the data provided by Rakuten’s members and the AI behavioural pattern analysis data owned by SQREEM to provide marketing solutions enabling media buying for Internet advertising through partners. For advertisers, the system aims to create new value and improve ad performance in the Japan market by providing advertisers with a real time picture of increasingly complex consumer behaviour thereby improving ad performance and cost efficiencies.
The new addition to Japan’s advertising scene is helmed by Representative Director and President Ryugen Shimizu, who is also President of LinkShare Japan, which operates Rakuten Marketing Japan.
“I believe that the marriage of capabilities that Rakuten SQREEM represents will take the Japanese programmatic advertising market to the next level. I hope that we can help the entire digital marketing industry grow even faster,” said Shimizu.
SQREEM is a proven Singapore-based AI company, with experience servicing customers globally. The company provides a marketing solution not dependent on individual identifiable data but by utilising an AI automated behavioural pattern analysis platform that analyses massive, complex consumer behaviour data at a speed and volume unattainable by human beings. Rakuten SQREEM will provide solutions for the Japan market with a higher level of precision than is available today.
Ian Chapman-Banks, CEO of SQREEM Technologies says, “With Google announcing it would be nixing support of third-party tracking cookies for its Chrome browser, advertisers and their agencies are looking for alternative solutions that allow them to better understand and reach consumers without compromising their privacy. With SQREEM’s cookieless AI tech stack, we are able to automate and achieve precise digital media buying. This enables us to serve both brands and agencies in GDPR compliant ways that can withstand privacy scrutiny in even the strictest markets.”
He adds, “To date, SQREEM’s AI capabilities have been proven in a myriad of scenarios: assisting governments with tracking criminal activity, predicting global market events, detecting instances of fraud, and assisting multiple firms in the financial sector with their media campaigns. SQREEM also boasts 12 of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies as clients, providing them with expert insights and advanced targeting capabilities. With the formation of Rakuten SQREEM, we look forward to changing the face of digital advertising in Japan.”
Greater considerations for user data are being called for with the rise in awareness of protecting personal information in data-based marketing, such as the enactment of the GDPR in the EU in May 2018. To date, Rakuten has worked hard for the protection of personal information when utilising data accumulated by the Rakuten Group to provide marketing solutions. By developing and providing marketing solutions not dependent on personal attributes, Rakuten SQREEM hopes to provide digital marketing services that are effective for advertisers and safe for users.
Rakuten and SQREEM will continue to create new digital marketing solutions for a range of companies through Rakuten SQREEM.