Yunus and Manikandamurthy seal the deal with a handshake after they sign the MoA, witnessed by Asno (middle).

KOTA KINABALU (May 26): Small businesses in Sabah will be able to jump on the digital advertisement bandwagon with the Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) signed between Sky Blue Media Sdn Bhd and Yunus Property Consultant Sdn Bhd.

Yunus Property Consultant CEO Mohd Yunus Apil said the MoA signed was a follow-up to its collaboration with Yayasan Bumiputra Sabah Tenaga (YBS-Tenaga) Sdn Bhd in a LED Advertising Screen project which will see 4,000 of the digital advertising screens installed in major towns throughout the state that was launched on April 12 this year.

The LED Advertising Screen project is a pilot project of Yayasan Bumiputera Sabah (YBS) through its subsidiary YBS-Tenaga Sdn Bhd which will see a total of 4,000 digital advertising screens and 24 giant digital billboards installed at main towns in Sabah.

YBS Tenaga signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with five local authorities to implement the LED Advertising Screen project in the districts they are representing. The local authorities were Tuaran District Council, Keningau District Council, Putatan District Council, Tawau Municipal Council and Penampang District Council.

Speaking to the media after the signing ceremony which was witnessed by YBS CEO Asno Amat Muda here on Thursday, Yunus said that they are in the process of identifying the areas where the giant billboards that will be provided by Sky Blue Media will be installed.

“We plan to install the giant billboards within two to three months,” he said.

Meanwhile Sky Blue Media managing director Datuk Manikandamurthy Velayoudam said that the company which has been in business for more than 12 years in Peninsular Malaysia is happy to partner with YBS and Yunus Consultant to execute the project.

“We want to bring our expertise to Sabah. We want to bring the screen to every town in the state in line with the vision of Sabah Maju Jaya (SMJ). We are bringing in a programmatic technology that will allow small businesses to advertise their products and services at a lower cost,” he said.

According to him, programmatic advertising on digital billboard is a digital advertising that utilizes the sophistication of “Artificial Intelligence (AI)” to target a more specific target market.

It is, he pointed out, an automated process to buy or sell advertising inventory through an exchange (ad exchange) that can connect between advertisers and publishers.

“Basically, this process of buying and selling ads with real-time bidding is using a machine and algorithm. Therefore, through this “Programmatic Advertising on Digital Billboard” platform, it can be easier for advertisers to reach a wider range of consumers by buying advertising space at various publishers automatically.

For advertisers and publishers, programmatic ads can provide high efficiency without using conventional methods, he said.

He stressed that the state government is a visionary one that wants to help small businesses in Sabah.

“So in line with their vision we are going to execute this project which will help all the small business operators to advertise. All this while the digital media is seen for the larger brands like telcos and multinational companies, but this will provide the avenue for small businesses to advertise.

“Since it is programmatic and online connected, we will be able to flash the news of the state government’s programs on the digital billboards. This will be a game changer and we are going to work together with YBS and Yunus Property Consultant to ensure we are part of the SMJ vision and digitalization of the state,” he said.

Manikandamurthy added that Sky Blue knows the advertising budget of small businesses and will be designing packages that are affordable for them.

“We managed to do this in Peninsular Malaysia and will be bringing this expertise to Sabah,” he said. Under phase one of the project, 2,400 units of the screens will be installed along the main routes of the towns by the end of this year and 130 units earmarked for phase one have been installed.

“We expect the remainder to be installed by the end of this year while phase two is scheduled to commence by February next year,” Yunus told the media during the launching ceremony in April.