FreakOut acquires Spice Lab, to enable brands to target women TG in SE Asia

Global marketing technology company FreakOut, part of FreakOut Holdings, has announced its acquisition of Spice Lab Pte. Ltd, one of the largest female-focused media companies operating in Thailand and Vietnam. 

Headquartered in Singapore, Spice Lab specialises in consumer marketing for the cosmetics and fashion industries and targets trend-conscious, millennial generation girls and women in the Southeast Asian region. Spice Lab was previously owned by Drecom Co Ltd. 

Spice Lab’s online magazine, ‘Spice’, is a popular digital channel that successfully targets female readers in Thailand and Vietnam. Brand advertisers now have access to FreakOut’s mobile-first publishing platform that hosts 87 per cent of Next Gen women readers, with a reach of 20 million page views per month and a social media presence of over 2.5 million followers. Through the Spice platform, FreakOut can provide content marketing solutions by running clients’ video campaigns and employing influencers with a focus on major cosmetics and fashion brands in both, domestic and overseas markets. The platform already works with more than 200 brands and advertising agencies. 

Through this acquisition, FreakOut will expand its proprietary media solutions in addition to its native AdTech and trading desk programmatic businesses. FreakOut will also strengthen its consumer marketing offering for brands targeting Next Gen female consumers in Southeast Asia. Through a mutually beneficial collaboration FreakOut and Spice Lab will gain a competitive advantage through the growth and harnessing of subject matter expertise, resources and technology on both sides in this joint operation setup. 

Furthermore, FreakOut will be able to provide content solutions to brand advertisers who target both, female (that is, Spice) and male (that is, Pepper) audiences, with a single objective in mind - targeting the right audience, with the right message, on the right platform at the right time. FreakOut will continue to evolve based on Spice Lab’s technology, thereby developing new websites in other categories such as parenting, travel, and others. As a global AdTech company, FreakOut aims to onboard new technology from its partners to enhance brand advertisers’ marketing campaigns and help them meet their business goals and objectives. 

Commenting on the acquisition, Narayan Murthy Ivaturi, COO & Board Director, FreakOut AdTech Business, said, “Having worked many years in the native space, we at FreakOut had a lot of exposure to clients having a tough task in sourcing right, good quality content to communicate their brand message that resonates with their target group. We started this journey a few years ago when we first invested in Spice Lab and started supporting them with monetisation opportunities. This acquisition brings that effort to the next level when we take the next big step into “Content Business”. We are very excited to have Spice team join our family and look forward to solve some pertinent creative, content challenges that our clients face in these markets.” 

This acquisition is scheduled to be completed by February 28, 2019.