Cavai launches in Asia Pacific and appoints Chairman

Cristina Blanaru Business

Cavai the leading conversational advertising platform today announces the launch into Asia Pacific with a new office opening in Singapore. The launch also includes the appointment of Lars Bjorge as APAC Chairman. Cavai has seen significant growth over the last two years and has built the world’s first platform designed for building, serving and managing “conversational advertising” across all platforms and formats. Cavai is already established in Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Amsterdam and London, before now launching in APAC with Singapore as their hub.

Most European ad-tech companies establish themselves in the US as first priority. We think about this a bit differently. First of all, the Asian markets are mobile and chat first – there is a cultural richness around messaging in society we want to tap into and learn from. Secondly, we believe in the resilience and growth opportunities still inherent here (…) Our philosophy is simple. We believe the only area to provide significant new value in the advertising space is in the front-end where consumers actually encounter the advertising. By providing engaging conversations in the advertising, we give consumers value and brands’ ROI.

Steffen Svartberg,

CEO Cavai

Cavai currently works with Exxon, HP, Coca Cola, Nordea, Daimler, Nissan and Unilever. To spearhead its expansion in Asia, it has hired industry agency veteran Lars Bjørge. Bjørge is a seasoned agency leader with over 20 years digital marketing experience across Norway, Singapore and Greater China, including senior positions at Omnicom Group’s TBWA Asia, PHD Greater China, Proximity BBDO, Tribal DDB in Norway, and OgilvyOne Shanghai. He was listed in China’s Digital A-List in 2015 and 2017, which recognises those who are leading the industry in one of the world’s fastest evolving digital markets. He is currently serving as Managing Partner in The Scale Factory, a commercialisation consultancy founded to help tech companies scale in Asia.

“I am thrilled to start building the Cavai organisation in Asia. It is rare to find a company with a distinctive point of view in the crowded ad-tech space – but Cavai is such a rare occurrence,” he says. “Watch this space – in 12 months time ‘conversational advertising’ will be a separate line-item on all media plans in the region.“

Cavai is the leading global conversational advertising cloud working closely with brands, publishers & agencies to enable conversational experiences through Cavai´s proprietary ad cloud technology.

Founded in 2018 by Steffen Svartberg and Tommy Torjesen,  Cavai helps marketers deliver chatbots in programmatic buys in the same way as they would normally deliver banners and video ads. Across Europe , Cavai clients are already experiencing 10 – 20X ROI through their conversational advertising campaigns. With offices across Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, London and Singapore, Cavai supports leading global brands and publishers in conversational advertising.