• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, December 31, 2015

In separate deals, WPP’s GroupM and Dentsu’s Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN) have forged agreements with Chinese tech giant Tencent.

The agreements will provide the ad holding companies with access to Tencent’s large trove of data to better help target Chinese audiences for their clients. The firm’s collection of data is massive — there are some 860 million active monthly users, according to Tencent’s third-quarter financial report.

The companies said the deals will help GroupM and DAN improve data management and programmatic buying capabilities and better analyze consumer brand experiences and attitudes. The deal will also enhance the ad companies’ cross-device audience identification capabilities and generally improve media planning and buying optimization, the parties said.

"Dentsu Aegis' global expertise and ability to connect brands and people -- together with Tencent's smart data solution -- will help brands make more accurate and powerful advertising decisions to improve the effectiveness of brand and performance marketing," Nobuaki Kyushima, Dentsu Aegis Network China COO, said.

Patrick Xu, CEO of GroupM China, said: "Smarter data insights make media planning more effective. This partnership will enhance the two parties' capabilities of data synchronization and application, as well as consumer and industry insights to further drive innovation. This in turn will benefit all of our clients and encourage a more open data ecosystem in the industry."

"Tencent smart data strictly follows industry standards and opens only professional data models without compromising user privacy," said Steven Chang, corporate vice president, Tencent.