The US combined with Europe’s five largest ad markets are home to roughly 8% of the world’s consumers. Together, they account for nearly half of global ad spend.
It makes sense, then, that most advertising platforms were built around where the money is. But this leaves out where most people are.
More than 7 billion people – 92% of the world – live in markets where a standard media plan runs out of reach quickly, budgets shrink before a single ad even runs and targeting in English misses what locals are actually saying.
Across the more than 2,000 agencies we work with in over 40 markets, the pattern is the same. The ideas are strong. The tools are good. But technology alone isn’t enough. Advertising in these markets needs an operating system and an ecosystem around it.
1. Locally relevant platforms
A plan built only on Meta, Google and TikTok hits an effective reach ceiling fast, because much of the audience’s time is spent somewhere else.
In Africa, for example, millions stream music on Boomplay and browse using the apps that come preinstalled on their phones. In Southeast Asia, super apps like Grab and Gojek are where daily life happens. And in Asia, where a commute can take hours, a screen by the side of the road matters as much as the one in your hand.
Each of these comes with its own contract, format and login. True activation means reaching the best of global and local supply. That way, a plan follows the audience, not the “easiest” inventory to buy.
2. Financial infrastructure
In Africa, currency is the first problem. When the Nigerian naira lost over one-third of its value in early 2024, campaigns booked in dollars lost buying power almost overnight.
Tax is the second. In some markets, a cross-border invoice triggers withholding tax, which eats up part of the budget before an ad runs.
Then there is cash flow. Agencies often pay platforms within 30 days but get paid in 90, which we frequently experience across Europe, Africa and Asia.
Technology can’t fix any of this. So, what can? Local entities, local billing and local currency payments. Every cost removed goes back into working media, and global insights become locally adapted.
3. Local intelligence
In Eastern Europe, the challenge is language. One regional campaign can span a dozen languages. Serbian uses two alphabets. Polish and Lithuanian change the ending of a word depending on how it’s used.
A whitelist built in English (or even translated from English) misses most of that. Context must be applied the way locals read it. The best intelligence combines AI with people who know the market: its languages, its culture and its sensitivities. Furthermore, data-driven creatives with a local touch are essential to ensure that real attention, not just impressions, are exceeding local standards.
In Indonesia, for example, people discover and buy in the same place, often during a creator’s livestream on platforms like Shopee. To win in this geography, brands will need to consider which creators move which categories, when audiences tune in and how buying changes during Ramadan.
A campaign drawn up in London just won’t work here.
The point
None of these problems can be solved with better technology alone. A new DSP won’t pay a publisher in naira, read a Serbian headline written in Cyrillic or book a screen beside a traffic-jammed highway. Solving them takes something that sits above the tools.
That’s the role of an operating system. It brings walled gardens and the open web into a single plan and it connects the ecosystem around them, including local publishers, screen owners, global platforms, finance partners and people on the ground who know each market.
Walled gardens alone hit a reach ceiling, and the open web alone is too fragmented to buy at scale. But, together, they can reach 7 billion people That’s what we’re building at Eskimi with the Advertising OS.
The industry calls these markets “the rest of the world.” But the rest of the world is most of the world. It deserves advertising built for it from the start, not adapted for it as an afterthought.
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