Media owner spotlight: Stellar Ace

For this month’s Media Owner Spotlight, Vistar spoke to Tony Heng, President of Stellar Lifestyle, and Managing Director of Stellar Ace. This interview spotlights the unique value proposition their digital network brings to the out-of-home (OOH) industry and how Stellar Ace’s partnership with Vistar Media is enhancing digital advertising experiences in Singapore.

Please describe your network in 2 sentences.

Stellar Ace’s network is designed to follow the commuter’s daily journey from doorstep to destination - on foot, in-transit and in-taxi. With over a thousand programmatic-enabled screens reaching audiences at high-attention, high-dwell moments from home to transit to destination, we offer a full-journey storytelling that’s data-driven, contextually relevant and built for action.

What regions do you operate in?

Stellar Ace operates island-wide with exclusive media rights to Singapore’s public bus shelters as well as the North-South, East-West and Circle MRT lines. Our unified network covers both commercial hubs like Orchard and Raffles Place and residential heartlands from Ang Mo Kio to Bukit Merah, from Woodlands to Bukit Panjang, reaching millions of commuters as part of their daily routines. The depth and scale of our offering allows brands to run nationwide campaigns or hyperlocal strategies by neighbourhood, footfall or time of day, all through one platform.

What audiences do you reach?

We reach everyday Singaporeans where life happens. On their way to work, school, errands or leisure. Our network connects with urban professionals, families, students, and commuters on the go.

With over 6.5 million daily journeys, we capture attention throughout the day across stations, bus shelters and commercial spaces. Programmatic buying allows precise targeting by time, location and behaviour, ensuring brands to reach the right people at the right moments.

What is your network's main value proposition to a brand?

We help brands create real-world visibility with digital precision, reaching audiences in high-dwell, high-intent moments where decisions are made, not just seen. 

Our strength lies in: 

• Ubiquity: A nationwide footprint across transport, street, residential and in vehicle environments
• Relevance: Programmatic tools that let you deliver by location, audience or time of day
• Actionability: Proximity to retail, F&B, healthcare and lifestyle venues where outcomes happen 

Whether you're driving store visits, building brand recall, or reinforcing cross-channel media, our network delivers scale with intent. And with flexible buying options — from managed service to open exchange and campaign planning support — we make it easy for brands to scale fast and stay contextually relevant.

In short: we connect the offline journey to online expectations — measurable, targetable and optimisable.

What do you wish more digital buyers knew about OOH?

OOH today is dynamic, data-driven and outcome-focused. 

We wish more digital buyers knew: 

• You don’t need massive budgets — there’s no minimum spend.
• It’s not “set and forget” — programmatic DOOH lets you react, adjust, and iterate mid-flight.
• OOH is bold, simple, memorable. 

Done right, programmatic DOOH doesn’t just complement your digital plan, it amplifies it. It boosts brand credibility, reinforces recall, primes audiences for search and social and reaches people in moments that matter. 

How do you see DOOH evolving over the next year?

The future of DOOH is smart, dynamic and results-driven.

In the year ahead, we anticipate:

• Contextual creative that adapts to time, weather or traffic conditions and other triggers to automate DOOH more closely with online media behaviour.
• Adoption of PMPs, audience-based buys and always-on deals is also set to grow, giving brands more control.
• A renewed demand for managed service as buyers seek expert support across strategy and placements while enjoying the speed and flexibility that programmatic delivery provides.
• A strong move towards a DOOH-first creative beyond TVC cutdowns and static formats.

Why did you choose Vistar as a partner?

Vistar Media offered the right combination of scale, technical expertise and global connectivity to help us accelerate our programmatic journey. As DOOH becomes more data-driven, we needed a partner who could provide not just infrastructure but industry insight. Vistar Media’s ability to integrate seamlessly with our network, support customised needs and connect us to a growing pool of DSPs made Vistar Media a natural choice.

What has been Vistar's most valuable contribution to your business?

Vistar has helped us unlock new demand, especially digital-first and regional buyers, by making our inventory more accessible and discoverable to buyers across multiple DSPs. Their support has streamlined the programmatic onboarding process, reduced operational friction and allowed us to move faster with confidence.  

Just as importantly, the Singapore team has been responsive and solution-oriented, bringing forward strong points of view and bold ideas. This kind of energy helps keep us competitive, curious and connected to what’s next in the programmatic  DOOH space.

What Vistar software capabilities do you find most useful?

One of the most useful features for Stellar Ace has been creative tagging. It allows us to organise, categorise and map creative assets with the right metadata, providing safeguards that ensure content runs exactly where and when it should, and making campaign setup more efficient. This becomes even more critical as we scale programmatic activity and manage more deals with nuanced targeting. 

What benefits have you been able to leverage by working with Vistar?

Vistar has helped us unlock curated deals, power Open Exchange transactions and attract more regional and global brand spending, expanding our buyer base and increasing our exposure to new demand sources.

A perfect example is how Century Pacific Food from the Philippines ran a Singapore campaign entirely remotely via Open Exchange, coordinated by their agency in Manila — a clear sign of how programmatic DOOH lowers barriers for regional brands to activate beyond their home markets. 

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

At Stellar Ace, we’re building a future-ready, outcomes-driven DOOH network that combines scale and physical presence with digital agility. And we’re doing it with partners like Vistar, who understand that success in this space isn’t just about tech, it’s about trust, transparency and a shared ambition. 

We are excited to keep scaling and evolving and helping marketers unlock the full potential of DOOH. The results so far have shown us there’s a real appetite, real value and real impact in doing programmatic DOOH right. 

We’re just getting started.