Anzu, which claims to offer the world’s most advanced in-game advertising platform, announced that former Glispa China GM Chen Zeng has been appointed as a strategic partner for China, the world’s largest gaming market. As Anzu looks to capitalise on the Chinese market, Zeng will be influential, helping Anzu establish a stronger presence in the country and building long-lasting and profitable relationships with local game developers, advertisers, and brands.
After closing a USD $9m (£6.5m) funding round led by WPP and Sony, Anzu’s venture into China comes as no surprise. Statista projects that overall revenue from the Video Games segment in China will reach USD $49,313m (£38,284m) in 2021. With an annual growth rate of 9.63%, the projected market volume is set to hit USD $71,239m (£53,300m) by 2025. The number of gamers in the country is off the charts. It is home to over 720 million gamers, according to a 2020 Nico Partners report, which is larger than the combined populations of the US, Japan, Germany, France, and the UK.
Zeng is a seasoned professional with more than 15 years of experience in the IT industry and an impressive track record of building technology-focused advertising brands in China. Before joining Anzu, Zeng spent five years as the General Manager of Glispa China, generating more than USD $3m (£2.2m) in gross profits for the mobile ad tech company. Prior to that, he was head of sales for MobPartner China, where he successfully built the country’s team and drove strong revenue growth. Zeng also has a wealth of experience on the publisher side, which he gained while leading InMobi China’s business development team, which built the country’s largest iOS network from the ground up. All of Zeng’s experience and successes make him the ideal person to help Anzu enter into the Chinese market.
Anzu’s in-game advertising platform enables brands to serve fully blended in-game ads in recognised IAB formats, including videos and banners to gamers during gameplay, livestream sessions, eSports tournaments. Brands such as Vodafone, Samsung, Pepsi, McDonald’s, and American Eagle have flocked to Anzu to deliver scalable, brand awareness campaigns to hard-to-reach audiences in a brand-safe environment.
By working with third-party partners, including Moat by Oracle, Nielsen, Kantar, Comscore, and Digiseg, Anzu offers advertisers a suite of one-of-a-kind AdTech integrations to measure viewability and brand lift as well as tools for audience verification, data enrichment, and fraud detection. Anzu has also established itself as a platform of choice for top-tier game developers and studios, including Ubisoft, Lion Castle, and Next Wave Multimedia. Anzu is the only in-game ad platform that has earned an ISO certification and the only licensed in-game advertising platform for Xbox Middleware Program.
When speaking about the partnership, Zeng said,
“I am beyond excited to assist Anzu with its expansion into the region. Anzu’s unique and creative platform is a game-changer and Chinese advertisers and game developers will be eager to tap into the power of this disruptive technology. I am committed to seeing Anzu’s operations in China succeed and have no doubt that success is only moments away.”
“Anzu has been operating in the APAC region for some time, but expanding to China specifically brings us one step closer to becoming a company with global operations. As the number one gaming market globally, China is overflowing with opportunities, and this partnership helps circumvent the Great Firewall. I’ve known Chen since the days of Glispa and am thrilled to be working with him again on this joint venture which promises exciting synergies for the local gaming industry,”
Itamar Benedy, co-founder and CEO of Anzu.