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Outside TV Features Boosts Distribution Gains by Adding Top Cable, Satellite and vMVPD Providers

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Outside TV Features Boosts Distribution Gains by Adding Top Cable, Satellite and vMVPD Providers

Comcast’s Xfinity TV, DISH and Sling TV Now Offer Rapidly Growing SVOD service

Outside TV’s online subscription video on demand (SVOD) offering has expanded significantly and is now available over the internet on Comcast’s Xfinity X1 platform, DISH Network and Sling TV this summer. Known as Outside TV Features, the SVOD service is the premier collection of adventure sports films and series from around the world offered commercial free and on-demand on several leading platforms for $4.99 per month.

Outside TV Features’ video catalogue showcases the stories of the world’s most accomplished action sports athletes, filmmakers and adventure-seekers throughout a variety of genres including: surfing, skiing and snowboarding, mountain biking, skateboarding, adventure travel and more. Featured athletes include surf legend Kelly Slater, current surf World Champion John John Florence, Olympic athletes Lindsay Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin, skateboard icon Paul Rodriguez, motocross legend Travis Pastrana, SUP sensations Laird Hamilton and Kai Lenny and many more.

“Bringing high quality, long-form adventure sports stories to mass audiences has always been the highest priority here at Outside TV. Clearly, these leading distributors recognize the high-value this category has among a very passionate audience of adventurers. Outside TV Features has had great success from its debut on Amazon Channels in early 2017 and on iOS, Android, Apple TV, Roku and Amazon Fire TV platforms later that year. And now we’re absolutely thrilled to be adding top distribution partners in DISH, Sling TV and Xfinity in 2018.” said Rob Faris, GM, Outside TV Features.

Also Read: HubSpot Launches Marketing Hub Starter to Give Growing Businesses the Tools They Need

Outside TV Features’ top performing content includes:

  • A Life in Proximity (Original Series) – The world’s best surfers are uniquely paired up to travel the globe looking for pinnacle surfing experiences. Each pair experiencing their commonality and creating connections to the places they explore as the search for world’s best breaks.
  • Over the Horizon (Original Series) – The voyage of a lifetime! Join adventurer, Ellis Emmett, as he sets his sights on one of the greatest challenges on Earth: to sail around the world.
  • The Fourth Phase (Exclusive Film) – Iconic snowboarder, Travis Rice, plots a 16,000-mile course to follow the hydrological cycle around the north Pacific, where snow and ice create dreamlike landscapes on the towering mountains above.

Viewers can expect the following films and series in the coming months:

  • Descending (Exclusive Series) – pushes the boundaries of digital camera technology to capture the most incredible underwater footage ever created!
  • XPT: The Experience (Original Series) – Celebrity athlete couple: Laird Hamilton & Gabby Reece’s XPT training regimen based on building strength through pool excercises, beach workouts, overall fitness & good nutrition.
  • GoPro Mountain Games (Original Film) – Professional and Amateur outdoor adventure athletes compete in 9 different sports and 25 disciplines at the annual GoPro Mountain Games in Vail, CO.

Outside TV Features will continue to add new, original and exclusive series, along with premier full-length films supporting its business model of a continuously growing library of adventure sports content. For the most up to date information, please visit outsidetv.com.

Recommended Read: Joveo Inc. Announces a Revolutionary Host of New Features Aimed at Saving Job Advertisers Time and Money

M Science’s TickerTags Dashboard and API Access Gives the Power of Digital Ecosystem Data Analytics to Clients

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M Science’s TickerTags Dashboard and API Access Gives the Power of Digital Ecosystem Data Analytics to Clients

TickerTags Puts Data-Driven Research Analytics in the Hands of Clients and Provides Unparalleled Flexibility to Derive Investment Insights

M Science, the leader in data-driven research and analytics, announced the launch of the TickerTags web-based analytics platform. The platform, which consists of a dashboard and two API services, allows clients to perform proprietary research and analysis, providing unprecedented access to analytics that will greatly inform their ability to make investment decisions.

“The insights and ideas generated by the TickerTags web-based platform will enable clients to make more intelligent and opportune investment decisions. The direct accessibility of the platform is the next step in the continued expansion and enhancement of M Science products and services offered to our clients.”

The new TickerTags dashboard exposes insights derived from large streams of unstructured, natural language data coupled with TickerTags proprietary ontology which includes nearly one million tags related to approximately 3,000 investible assets. With this advancement, clients now have access to the same dashboard being used by the TickerTags analysts to derive the written research product offering.

Also Read: Matrix Solutions Expands Customer Footprint to Latin America

In addition to the dashboard, TickerTags is offering two different API services. The first provides direct programmatic access to mention frequency data for each of the hand-curated tags. Clients seeking to utilize the entire contextualized dataset now have real-time programmatic access for their own proprietary research and analysis. The second is a RESTful API that provides the TickerTags ontology as a service. Clients can easily apply the TickerTags ontology to their own library of text documents, mapping each document to specific companies, products and brands, and applying much needed structure and context.

“The launch of the TickerTags product is a groundbreaking event for M Science as it allows the power of our data mapping to be used in ways that are more specific to our clients own goals and investment strategies,” said Michael V. Marrale, CEO of M Science. “The insights and ideas generated by the TickerTags web-based platform will enable clients to make more intelligent and opportune investment decisions. The direct accessibility of the platform is the next step in the continued expansion and enhancement of M Science products and services offered to our clients.”

These new capabilities demonstrate M Science’s unique and innovative product offerings and further distinguish the data-driven platform from other providers. This unique approach of applying the ontology to contextualize data sources is paramount to deriving mention frequency. Mention frequency, or the level of conversations on any given topic can be a leading indicator versus transaction data.

Mark Bachman, head of TickerTags by M Science, added, “We are thrilled to offer this new capability and believe that the ability to access the underlying insights powered by TickerTags will yield fresh and actionable ideas. As part of the greater M Science family, TickerTags is also leveraging the expansive M Science technology infrastructure and 40-person research team to provide clients with unique mention frequency insights for investment decisions.”

Recommended Read: Machine Learning-Enabled Sales Research Assistant, Zymewire, Among Latest Cohort to Graduate Toronto’s Creative Destruction Lab

Gladson Launches Product Data Transparency Solution

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Gladson Launches Product Data Transparency Solution

Gladson’s SmartLabel Solution Helps Brands and Retailers Address Consumer Demand for Product Transparency

Gladson, the leading creator and syndicator of product content, digital assets, and rich content for brands, retailers, and distributors, today announced the launch of their enterprise-class SmartLabel solution, allowing brands and retailers to easily provide consumers with rich product transparency.

Led by the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) and Food Marketing Institute (FMI), SmartLabel is a transparency initiative focused on providing consumers with digital access to deeper product information—beyond what is available on the package today, in an easy and standardized format.

“Today’s shoppers not only expect but need transparency about the products they use and consume for dietary restrictions, health situations, and lifestyle choices,” explained Chris Barnes, Gladson’s SVP of Product Strategy & Solutions. “The demand for product transparency, and regulatory mandates, are fueling industry initiatives like SmartLabel, and it’s a big reason why brands and retailers that have implemented SmartLabel have seen growth and increased consumer loyalty during the past year. As a thought leader in the product information space, it is Gladson’s obligation to empower our clients with solutions that address these challenges.”

Also Read: Nearly One-Fifth of US Video Consumers Choose Subscription Video Only, The NPD Group Says

Gladson’s SmartLabel solution allows brands to easily deliver on the SmartLabel promise by streamlining the process of providing more information to consumers beyond the label. Gladson already has the existing rich product and nutritional information that is required in order to publish to SmartLabel landing pages.  Gladson clients can simply access this rich content library and distribute the same content to new places, like SmartLabel, to answer the product transparency challenge.

As part of the comprehensive approach, Gladson has partnered with Scanbuy, the leading provider of SmartLabel QR codes to the industry. Scanbuy QR codes, found on thousands of food, beverage and healthy and beauty products, enable consumers to engage with brands right from the product packaging—delivering more information than can fit on a label. This strategic partnership gives Gladson clients access to a complete end-to-end SmartLabel solution. Gladson provides detailed product landing pages with images, nutritional data, ingredients, and allergen information, while Scanbuy delivers patent-protected, print-ready QR codes that activate a direct connection to the product’s SmartLabel information via any mobile device or the SmartLabel app.

“We’re proud to partner with Gladson to deliver on the SmartLabel promise,” said Maryann Moschides, Chief Marketing Officer of Scanbuy. “By working together, we can combine their product content platforms with our package activation services to seamlessly help brands and retailers that want to share the benefits of SmartLabel.”

Using Scanbuy’s QR code technology, brands can instantly expand on product information sharing, control variants, and address regulatory mandates as they arise, all without changing the product packaging. Together, Gladson’s new SmartLabel solution with the Scanbuy capabilities, allows both companies to play a greater role in the movement to expand consumer product transparency.

“This partnership with Scanbuy means we get to work with a pioneer that is driving positive change in the industry,” said Barnes. “Through the use of SmartLabel, we are now able to educate our clients even more on how they should be communicating product information to their consumers.”

Recommended Read: Lithium Offers Apple Business Chat Integration to Provide Convenient, Personal Messaging

SAS Survey: A Quarter of UK and Ireland Consumers Have Already Exercised GDPR Rights

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SAS Survey: A Quarter of UK and Ireland Consumers Have Already Exercised GDPR Rights

Social Media Companies and Retailers Will Receive the Most Requests from Customers to Access, Delete Personal Data

Only two months after the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a SAS survey showed that a significant number of UK and Irish consumers are activating their new personal data rights, and faster than expected.

The survey of almost 2,000 consumers in both countries found that more than a quarter (27 percent) of survey participants have already exercised their GDPR rights over personal data, and more than half (56 percent) plan to do so within the next year.

This is up from last year, when a SAS survey of UK consumers showed only 42 percent planned to exercise their rights within a year of GDPR coming into force.

“This swift response shows the level consumers value and are aware of their data privacy rights under the GDPR,” said Todd Wright, Global Lead for GDPR Solutions at SAS. “Organizations need to be ready for these customer data requests. It’s increasingly clear that in this age of increased data privacy concerns, organizations that treat their customers’ data with care will be the ones rewarded, and the ones that don’t will not only face fines but the loss of reputation as well.”

Also Read: Skuid Announces Skuid Portals to Optimize Business Connections and Customer Experiences

GDPR took effect May 25, making organizations accountable for personal data protection and giving consumers significant new rights over their personal data. These new rights include the rights to access, query and erase the personal data held by organizations.

Impact of the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica data misuse

At the same time, the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica data misuse story has increased awareness and interest in data privacy. Seventy-six percent of UK and Irish survey participants who were aware of the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica story have either activated their GDPR rights or at least reassessed the information they share and how organizations use it.

According to the survey, consumers view the handling of personal information as an issue of trust and have a low tolerance for data mistakes or misuse, such as having their data shared with third parties without their consent. Almost half (46 percent) of participants said they would activate their data rights after only one mistake. Nearly one-third of participants (31 percent) said that if an organization has misused their data, they will withdraw their permission to use it entirely, regardless of any assurances, offers of improved services or financial incentives.

However, the research also shows that companies can win customers back through respecting data privacy and consent. Customers are most trusting of organizations that promise they will not share data with third parties (38 percent) or misuse their data (37 percent).

Young people more willing to exchange personal data for incentives

Young people (18- to 24-year-olds) have a more open attitude toward sharing personal information. Nearly half (47 percent) say they are less likely to erase their data with a company as long as they are assured it will not be shared without consent. This compared to just 31 percent of those aged 55 and older.

Young people are also much less likely to activate their data rights if they can receive a satisfactory incentive. In a greater proportion than other age groups, young people are willing to exchange data permission for financial rewards (35 percent), free merchandise (24 percent) or more personalized services (17 percent). Adults aged 55 and older were far less willing to accept those tradeoffs: financial rewards (10 percent), free merchandise (5 percent) or more personalized services (6 percent).

Also Read: Tapad Partners with Twine Data to Bring Portable CRM Onboarding Capabilities to Its Cross Device Solution

A wake-up call for businesses

Not all industries have been equally affected by GDPR. In particular, social media companies and retailers have been most likely to be asked by customers to erase their customer data or withdraw it from marketing purposes.

  • Almost half (44 percent) of respondents said they have or will exercise their right to have their data removed from social media companies.
  • More than one third (34 percent) said they would ask the same of retailers, followed closely by banks (30 percent) and insurance companies (30 percent).

Other findings from the research include:

  • The greatest number of consumers object to social media companies (48 percent) and retailers (41 percent) using their personal data for marketing purposes – banks (38 percent), insurers (38 percent), supermarkets (37 percent) and energy providers (33 percent) follow closely behind.
  • Receiving unwanted emails from companies is the public’s most-hated data mistake, with 56 percent of respondents suggesting they would activate their data rights for the offense.
  • More than half (54 percent) of consumers also strongly object to their data being shared with third parties and reported that doing so would cause them to activate their GDPR rights.

“Businesses that fail to respect their customers or their data risk losing that data, and their competitive advantage, hurting the bottom line,” said David Smith, head of GDPR technology at SAS UK & Ireland. “Transparent data management and analytics are crucial, not only to achieve compliance but to provide personalized customer experiences that make consumers more willing to share their data.”

Recommended Read: SAS Named As A Leader in AI-based Text Analytics By Independent Research Firm

Audio Measurement Platform Veritonic Raises $3.5 Million Seed To Scale Data-Driven Approach To Audio Marketing

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Audio Measurement Platform Veritonic Raises $3.5 Million Seed Funding

Newark Venture Partners, Imagination Capital, MDC Ventures Are Among Investors Capitalizing on Market Shift Toward Audio

Veritonic, the world’s first audio effectiveness platform, announced that it has raised $3.5 million in seed capital to build on its success in bringing an evidence-based approach to audio marketing. The round was led by Newark Venture Partners with participation from Imagination Capital, Kiwi Venture Partners, MDC Ventures, and SWaN & Legend Venture Partners.

Veritonic is the first analytics platform built specifically to quantify the value of sound, making it easy for audio platforms, brands and others to always leverage the most impactful audio and cultivate deeper relationships with customers.

Founded by CEO Scott Simonelli, COO Andrew Eisner and CTO Kevin Marshall, pioneers in online testing and optimization, Veritonic was created to fill a critical gap in media and technology: the ability for marketers and others to make the same kind of data-driven decisions about audio creative – particularly pre-market – as they do about other kinds of creative, where/when to advertise, targeting and more. The need is particularly glaring now as audio continues to explode, driven by everything from voice-technology innovation, to podcasting, to the fact that modern consumers – perpetually distracted and on-the-go – are more exposed to audio’s influence than ever before.

Also Read: FeedStock Secures Funding After Launching Sell-side Interaction Analytics Product

“With consumers increasingly making voice-powered smart speakers, streaming music and podcasts part of their daily routines, there has never been a more critical time for brands to have an audio marketing strategy – and the data to back it up,” said Jessica Peltz-Zatulove, Partner at MDC Ventures. “Similar to what we’ve seen in digital and video, Veritonic promises to transform audio into performance content by creating an exciting new dimension of creative measurement.”

Veritonic is already working with the world’s leading audio platforms, including Pandora, Westwood One, Audible and National Public Media; brands like Bose, Subway and E*TRADE; and sonic branding agencies such as iV Audio Branding and  AudioUX. These businesses are leveraging the Veritonic platform in many ways, including:

  1. Pre-market creative testing: testing audio creative (voices, music, audio logos and more) before launching them — for their ability to drive a range of emotional responses, purchase intent and brand recall — maximizes consumer exposure to the most effective creative and advertiser ROI.
  2. Benchmarking/Normative analysis: the ability to compare large volumes of audio assets easily — against competitors, industry norms and more — empowers businesses to make more informed, strategic decisions faster.
  3. Thought leadership: the ability to generate new, critical research on how consumers respond to audio creative — from ads to voice commands on smart speaker platforms to audiobook narration — Veritonic enables clients to help lead the industry forward and grow their businesses.

“50% of internet searches will be voice-driven by 2020. Understanding how those voices affect decision making and emotional responses is a dream come true for marketers,” said Dan Borok, Managing Partner at Newark Venture Partners. “Veritonic is not only providing marketers with the ability to measure what their customers think of them, but they are making it possible pre-market, outlining a clear pathway to success.”

Also Read: TV Data Company Alphonso Introduces New Suite of Digital-Like TV Advertising Measurement Metrics and Tools

Veritonic is at the cutting edge of audio and data, not only for what it measures, like the right audio to drive voice commerce on smart speakers, but how it measures it. The platform uses a combination of what the company has dubbed “Machine Listening and Learning” (M-LAL) and custom panel data to provide the most accurate, comprehensive analysis of how audio moves people.

M-LAL analyzes over three years-worth of audio data to make instant predictions on how creative will perform. Then, the company’s patent-pending survey technology, which captures the real-time emotional response of any custom audience a client wishes to query, feeds new data back to M-LAL to help it continually learn.

“Innovation around audio is moving a mile a minute–new forms of content, more outlets to consume and experience audio, new applications utilizing audio to enhance functionality; this innovation is powering an industry shift that will increase demand for audio, and more importantly, the right audio for each target audience,” stated Rachel Lam, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Imagination Capital. “Veritonic, for its ability to not only determine the most impactful audio across every channel, but to do it quickly and at scale, is poised to become one of the most fundamental companies in expediting this market shift.”

“We’re thrilled that so many forward-thinking businesses and investors are clearly seeing how critical it is that the true value of audio be determined–objectively–before any decisions are made about it,” said Simonelli. “We live in world driven by data, and rightly so–it means smarter, more cost-effective, more successful business strategies. Kudos to these leaders for understanding that the same kind of intelligence needs to come to audio now.”

Recommended Read: Lynn Vojvodich Appointed to the Looker Board of Directors

Verizon Is Leading Through Diversity And Inclusion

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Adam Cohen-Aslatei
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Diversity Inclusion Verizon

Inclusion and diversity are two of the industry’s top concerns and a focus of this year’s Women Now Master Class, presented by the Advertising Club of New York for women of diverse backgrounds at various levels of their career. The conference covered a range of topics, from elevating women to the C-suite, to men in the “Me Too” era, to the misunderstood millennial. All of these topics are at the forefront of an industry going through major transition. It’s not just technology that’s a force for change – employees are demanding new policies and practices that align with their own beliefs, and leading companies are heeding the call.

Change starts at the top and telecom giant Verizon is at the forefront. This company is much more than a wireless carrier- it has transformed into a content distribution powerhouse and a substantial competitor in AdTech. And while competition is good for consumers, the need to hire and retain top talent continues to be a challenge facing large and small companies alike.

Also Read: Why Brands Will Pay Top Dollar for Your In-App Inventory

One way larger firms like Verizon are setting themselves apart is by cultivating their work culture to be more inclusive and diverse. After all, a more diverse workforce can lead to better business performance, innovation, and retention.  According to a McKinsey study, for every 10% improvement in gender diversity, companies would see a 2-4% increase in profit. And 85% of companies say that a diverse and inclusive organization encourages different perspectives and drives innovation. Additionally, the most diverse workforces are consistently voted the best places to work, which helps with talent acquisition and retention.

At the conference, Diego Scotti, CMO of Verizon, sat down to provide his perspective on branding, inclusion and diversity.

On Branding: “Each industry and brand has its own idiosyncrasies that should be considered, but consumers are consumers. The basics around what it means to create a personal connection between a brand or product and the consumer are the same regardless of brand. All of the businesses that I’ve had the opportunity to work for had a strong emotional connection between the product and the consumer.”

On Diversity: “The two approaches that have worked for us, and that have been our guiding principles, are: 1) Are we recruiting the right way? 2) Are we recruiting through a lense of diversity? I don’t mean diverse only in terms of gender or culturally, but across the board. Are we recruiting individuals that bring diversity in? Are we creating the right conditions and the right environment within our teams for people that are diverse, for them to stay, and grow, to develop, and to thrive.”

On Millennials: “Never let little things hold you back. I never thought about my accent as something that would hurt me, I always thought about it as something that would give me an advantage. And the second thing, something that I’m seeing a lot of [young] people do is jump from job to job. It’s difficult to develop a career when you’re just jumping around so much.”

Also Read: The Prince Effect: Reasons For Renaming Your Brand, And How To Do It Right

Co-Authored by  Adam Cohen Aslatei, VP Marketing at Jun Group and Gina Grillo, President & CEO at The ADVERTISING Club of New York @adclubny

Episerver Named a Leader Again in the 2018 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management

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MTS Staff Writer
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Episerver Named a Leader Again in the 2018 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management

Research Analysts Evaluated Episerver on Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision

Episerver, the company transforming digital experiences, announced its position in the Leaders quadrant of Gartner’s 2018 “Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management” for the fourth year in a row.

Gartner analysed Episerver among 18 total vendors of web content management tools and evaluated each based-on completeness of vision and ability to execute. According to Gartner, Leaders “execute well against their current vision and are well positioned for tomorrow.” Episerver believes it continues to anticipate leading-edge organisations’ requirements for cloud capabilities while consistently exceeding the requirements of leading-edge customers. The company credits its investments in experience management capabilities for its ability to distinguish itself in both digital commerce and content management solutions.

“Episerver’s super productive and efficient content management system enables our customers to deliver the type of rich and relevant digital experiences they need to effectively engage their customers,” said James Norwood, CMO and EVP, strategy at Episerver. “We believe our continued business ascent and leadership position in this year’s Magic Quadrant, demonstrate our unwavering commitment to this empowerment.

Also Read: Episerver Named a Visionary in the 2018 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Personalization Engines

“When we give our customers a highly effective resource for their needs, their growing organisations benefit from rapid time to value. As a result, we see that Episerver customers eagerly share their success stories, which validates our technology and helps us top competitive positioning.”

The Episerver Digital Experience Cloud™ combines powerful approaches to individualised content, experience-driven commerce and intelligent campaigns, all backed by powerful artificial intelligence (AI), and an impressive global partner ecosystem of more than 880 digital agencies and systems integrators who empower more than 8,800 digital leaders in 30 countries.

Episerver has continued to broaden and diversify its Digital Experience Cloud with the launch of several new application services this year. In February 2018, the company announced a new headless API layer, which offers a hybrid architecture to make it easier for organisations to deliver content and digital experiences beyond their websites. With the launch of Episerver Advance™ the following month, organisations can now automatically deliver individualised content to visitors everywhere they digitally engage through the power of AI.

Rounding out its unified content and commerce platform with the launch of Episerver Insight™, the Episerver Digital Experience Cloud now offers capabilities such as event triggering, AI-based personalisation and customer journey analytics incorporated directly into the typical WCM processes and roles, rather than requiring specialise or dedicated processes and expertise.

A Gartner Magic Quadrant is a culmination of research in a specific market, giving you a wide-angle view of the relative positions of the market’s competitors. By applying a graphical treatment and a uniform set of evaluation criteria, a Magic Quadrant helps you quickly ascertain how well technology providers are executing their stated visions and how well they are performing against Gartner’s market view.

Recommended Read: Episerver Announces Release of Episerver Commerce for Microsoft Dynamics 365

Sitecore Announces Regional Winners of the 2018 Sitecore Experience Awards

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Sitecore Announces Regional Winners of the 2018 Sitecore Experience Awards

Sitecore, the global leader in digital experience management software, announced the regional winners of the 2018 Sitecore Experience Awards. An international competition held on an annual basis, the Sitecore Experience Awards honor Sitecore customers and their partners who are delivering outstanding user experiences that feel personal to every customer and produce demonstrable business results.

“The Sitecore Experience Awards reflect some of the most innovative examples for how companies are delighting customers and powering their own digital transformation,” said Paige O’Neill, chief marketing officer, Sitecore. “We are deeply honored to work with each of these customers and partners. They prove that personalized, omnichannel customer engagement attracts and retains customers, builds brand loyalty, and drives the business outcomes that CMOs demand.”

There were a record number of more than 200 Sitecore Experience Award submissions this year, from well-known international brands to regional gems spanning widely varying industries. From the regional category award winners, four Ultimate Sitecore Experience Award winners will be honored on the mainstage during Sitecore Symposium, October 8 – 11 in Orlando, FL.

Also Read: Sitecore Hires Paige O’Neill as Chief Marketing Officer

The 2018 categories and winners include:

Best Use of Sitecore as a Digital Experience Platform (DXP)

Winning entries demonstrated best-in-class use of the Sitecore Experience Platform for web content, commerce, email, personalization, optimization, and delivery of omnichannel experiences. They also combined content management, search and navigation, personalization, integration, collaboration, workflow, analytics, and mobile/multichannel support.

  • Australia & New Zealand: Bupa
  • Greater Asia: Millennium Hotels and Resorts | Partner: Mullen Lowe
  • North America: Dignity Health
  • Central & Eastern Europe: Moje Innogy | Partner: Possible
  • Nordics: Volvo Cars | Partner: Avanade
  • Southern Europe: PeopleCert | Partner: Linakis Digital
  • UK: GE Healthcare Life Sciences | Partner: EPAM
  • Western Europe: Smurfit Kappa | Partner: Macaw

Best Commerce Experience

By creating integrated content and delivering it across channels, these regional winners developed seamless, personalized shopping experiences before, during, and after the transaction.

  • Australia & New Zealand: Southern Phone | Partner: EPAM
  • North America: Astrobrights | Partner: RDA
  • Central & Eastern Europe: Techland Sp. | Partner: Infinity Group
  • Nordics: Bog & Idé | Partner: Impact
  • Western Europe: Homefashion Group | Partner: Aviva Solutions

Best Web Content Experience

Winners designed and delivered intuitive-to-navigate content experiences that map to customer personas and journeys. Interactive and visual experiences that provided relevant information and brand value received higher scores.

  • Australia & New Zealand: The Australian Department of Health | Partners: Speedwell & Liquid Interactive
  • Greater Asia: MyStays Hotel | Partner:  SmartOSC
  • North America: Merck & Co. Inc | Partner: Avanade
  • Central & Eastern Europe: Liechtensteinische Landesbank | Partner: UNIC
  • Nordics: Nemlig.com | Partner: Impact
  • Southern Europe: Eurobank | Partner: Linakis Digital
  • UK: Vue | Partner: Think
  • Western Europe: DOM Security | Partner: Sidewalk

Also Read: NessPRO Selected as OpenText Strategic Partner in Israel

Best Use of Personalization

Whether personalizing experiences according to location, inbound channel, past visits, visitor profile, user journey, multichannel interactions, or other sources of data, these winners used information gleaned from past interactions to create customer experiences of increased value.

  • Australia & New Zealand: Contact Energy | Partner: Cucumber
  • Greater Asia: GAC Honda | Partner: Connext
  • North America:  Fulton Bank | Partner: SilverTech
  • Central & Eastern Europe: Nolte Küchen | Partner: Comspace
  • Middle East: Atlantis, The Palm
  • Nordics: Nature Energy | Partner: Cabana
  • UK: Carter Jonas | Partner: Delete
  • Western Europe: Carglass | Partner: The Reference

Most Innovative User Experience

Compelling digital experiences that incorporated beacons, headless implementation, AR/VR, mixed reality devices, progressive web apps, digital kiosks or displays, voice, or IoT stood out in this category.

  • Australia & New Zealand: Royal Automobile Cloud (RAC) WA | Partner: Ignia
  • Greater Asia: Bank Central Asia (BCA)
  • Central & Eastern Europe: innogy | Partner: Internet Projekt
  • Nordics: MobilePay | Partner: Implicit

Fastest Time to Market

These winners demonstrated rapid implementation, the ability to scale to meet demand spikes, and innovative use of acceleration tools in deploying an enterprise-wide digital experience across channels, in multi-site/global-local implementations, or both.

  • Australia & New Zealand: Dexus | Partner: SwitchIT
  • Greater Asia: Fujitsu | Partner: Fujitsu SSL
  • North America: Avanade
  • Central & Eastern Europe: ADAC SE | Partner: Namics
  • Middle East: Miral (Yas Island) | Partner: SapientRazorfish
  • Southern Europe: OutSystems | Partner: Noesis
  • UK: Colt Data Centre Services | Partner: Codehouse
  • Western Europe: Houthoff | Partner: Conclusion Digital

Best Business ROI

Award winners showcase increased sales, conversions, and market share, along with reduced costs, streamlined processes, increased efficiency, and expansion of operations.

  • Australia & New Zealand: Open Universities Australia | Partner: Avanade
  • Greater Asia: Philippine Airlines | Partner: Accenture/Avanade
  • North America: Dine Brands Global | Partner: XCentium
  • Central & Eastern Europe: Vonovia | Partner: Netzkern
  • UK: British Red Cross | Partner: Friday

Recommended Read: Apester Launches a Story Suite for Online Publishers and Businesses

TechBytes with Brian Friedman, VP, Digital Innovation, Aventri

By
Sudipto Ghosh
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Brian Friedman
TechBytes with Brian Friedman, VP of Digital Innovation at Aventri

Brian Friedman
VP, Digital Innovation, Aventri

Events are the lifeblood of marketing and the event management software sector has grown rapidly over the last few years. The advent automation has meant that advertisers can now hone on an attendee’s preferences and deliver personalization at scale. Brian Friedman, VP, Digital Innovation, Aventri (formerly etouches) spoke to us how the ideal event management software would function.

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Tell us about your role at Aventri and the team/ technology you handle.

I serve as the VP of Digital innovation for Aventri, an emerging leader in event management technology. In my role, I lead the company’s digital strategic objectives by identifying and articulating product and growth marketing visions that transform and disrupt the event market. This includes driving user experience design and research, setting product and marketing vision, guiding technical and design teams, and implementing growth marketing programs.

Prior to joining Aventri, I was the co-founder and CEO of LOOPD, a proximity marketing company that uses socially-smart wearables and analytics to help marketers understand, target, and interact with visitors in a fashion that has never been done before. With the acquisition of LOOPD by Aventri in March 2017, I assumed my current role, and Aventri complemented its pivot to a data-driven approach to enhancing clients’ event success, while boosting a complete, end-to-end solution that supports the entire event lifecycle.

What are the key differences between Event Management software and Event Automation software?

Technology that automates processes has taken hold within the events industry, and it serves important purposes. For example, platforms that help automate the attendee registration process reduce headaches for attendees. Finding an event software platform that can build a professional and automated registration website is key to a smooth registration process. Combining this with a customer relationship management (CRM) or marketing automation system can deliver several benefits including the ability to track the links or content attendees are clicking on to provide a more targeted content strategy.

That said, automating everything within the event lifecycle is neither feasible nor optimal. Instead of leveraging automation technology at every turn for the sake of doing so, event planners and marketers need to be discerning in how it’s used, and find the right technology to align. Event automation tools can integrate with event management software to link registration data, create attendee profiles, and send push notifications to attendees. In concert with automation, event management software should incorporate a balance between tasks that can be automated by back-end machines, and the keen involvement of humans to focus more on driving higher levels of engagement with their target audiences.

What are the core technology elements of an Event Automation/Management platform?

Gone are the days of manual event check-in and fishbowls full of business cards. Events have so many elements to them that need to be managed – including venue sourcing, registration and check-in, personalized content marketing, session scheduling, measurement of success, and much more.

Add-on applications in the industry can support each of these areas, but they don’t meet their potential without a platform backbone and repository of data analytics to seamlessly connect from one element to the other, keeping the attendee at the core. Brands today have advanced technology like self-service check-in and bi-directional smart tags that can exchange information and provide real-time location and engagement data. Mobile event applications and data analytics are a must for integration to event management platforms.

How do brands leverage Aventri’s event software for better sales connectivity?

Aventri offers the industry’s most comprehensive, end-to-end solution that supports the entire lifecycle of events. With a variety of offerings that are fully integrated into the company’s platform, Aventri provides clients with tools to enhance every aspect of an event, including venue sourcing, event management, real-time attendee engagement, and ROI.

In a recent survey of event professionals, Aventri found 66 percent use event management software, yet only 20 percent use a venue sourcing tool and less than half use a mobile app at their events. This inconsistent adoption makes sense given the fragmentation in the event management solution space. For event planners with limited time and strict budgets, the need to use multiple tools that don’t always work together can be overwhelming and frustrating, often causing more problems than they solve.

With the integration of LOOPD and eVS, our newly integrated venue sourcing tool, the Aventri platform now empowers event planners to use the entire solution set from planning to post-event analytics, or they can choose individual modules to meet their specific needs. Based on the insights gathered from attendee activities at events, marketing and sales professionals can keep the conversation going post-event and personalize customer engagement to generate revenue. Many companies struggle to extract or measure ROI from their events, but Aventri’ data-driven, connected solutions empower concrete results.

How do you leverage AI/ML at Aventri?

Aventri’s event management platform uses AI in several layers of the event lifecycle. For example, the AI-powered system can make relevant recommendations to attendees as they fill out an event registration form online. The system leverages its ability to sift through all of the data captured from attendees and exhibitors to say, “Here are sessions you’d likely be interested in; here are exhibitors you’d likely be interested in; here are other attendees you’d likely want to meet up with.” We’re also refining a real-time version of the event app that determines an attendee’s location while onsite so that its AI capability can make recommendations that are most relevant to that attendee and convenient at that moment.

Would AI/ML enable make it easier for the marketers to manage their events with existing Marketing Automation platforms?

AI is already making life easier for marketers and event planners within their event management and marketing automation platforms. Platforms today are using AI’s ability to sift through attendee and exhibitor data and recommend the sessions, exhibitors, or fellow attendees they might be interested in connecting with. The technology is also being leveraged in electronic concierge systems in hotel rooms, chatbots that assist attendees during registration, and real-time location intelligence in event apps that guide attendees on-site.

As the technology continues to mature, event management and marketing automation systems will incorporate even more advanced applications of AI.

What are your predictions on the “State of Marketing Event Management Software” for 2018?

Data integration and analysis is one facet of the larger event technology industry that still has room to grow. Unfortunately, at this point in the evolution of the industry, many planners and marketers use multiple, siloed platforms that don’t connect to each other to complete different tasks, such as registration and check-in, speaker management, the direction of the mobile event app, and more.

In 2018, we expect many event marketers will look for tools that enable greater integration and visibility of their data. Ultimately, a truly successful event planner and marketer needs access to data integration in order to discover trends and insights that will make their current events better, improve their strategies for future events, and bolster their strategies for marketing year-round.

Additionally, expect to see enhanced self-service check-in, attendee surveying, and more high-value AI and augmented reality applications.

While some of these ideas and initiatives may be new, others have been building in our industry for a while. Marketers should keep a close eye on what technologies are emerging that have the power to transform their events.

Thanks for chatting with us, Brian.

Stay tuned for more insights on marketing technologies. To participate in our Tech Bytes program, email us at news@martechseries-67ee47.ingress-bonde.easywp.com

Interview with Dhruv Ghulati, Founder and CEO, Factmata

By
Sudipto Ghosh
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0
Dhruv Ghulati
Interview with Dhruv Ghulati, Founder & CEO at Factmata

[vc_wp_text]“We need to clean up the ecosystem so that consumers want to engage with online content and can easily find trustworthy content.”[/vc_wp_text]
[easy-profiles profile_twitter=”https://twitter.com/dhruvghulati” profile_linkedin=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhruvghulati/”]

Tell us about your role at Factmata and how you got here. What inspired you to start the company?

I’m the Co-Founder of Factmata, an artificial intelligence startup solving the problem of factual misinformation on the internet. I like open information, transparency, the future of the web, artificial intelligence and building highly technical data products.

I started my career as an investment banker, then transitioned to a product manager role at a startup working on machine intelligence for web data. In 2015 I co-founded my first company, weave.ai and went through the Techstars business accelerator programme. After that, I was inspired to go back to university and study for a Masters degree in Computer Science. Immediately after completing my degree I was selected to join the 7th Cohort of Europe’s top accelerator, Entrepreneur First, which specializes in building deep technology companies from scratch.

Each stage of my career contributed to my belief that artificial intelligence (AI) will be the great general-purpose technological advance of our time. In November 2016, fake news was starting to become a problem and I could see the potential to use AI to solve the problems it was causing for any brand seeking to build real trust with customers and readers on the internet – Factmata was born in December that year.

What’s the most fascinating aspect of leading a tech-based media innovation company?

For me, the most fascinating parts have been what I have learned about myself. Luckily, from my investment banking years, I already knew that I was able to put in long hours and from my Masters degree I knew I could be innovative and solve problems with technology.

What leading a startup tech company has brought me is a deep understanding of how I can enable others, and pass on the joy you get from building something truly ambitious and challenging with a strong mission

The other thing that I have found wonderful is how supportive and open the investment community can be if you have a good idea. Typically, when someone invests in a startup they either know the founders or have had a “warm intro” to them. When I sought investment for Factmata I drew up a list of the people I most wanted onboard, people with varied experience who would each bring something different to the business. One of those people was Mark Cuban. I didn’t know him and I didn’t know anyone who did – so I emailed him and can now proudly say that he’s one of our founding investors.

Is machine learning the ubiquitous technology for every media company?

There’s no doubt that machine learning is spurring the media industry forward but it’s not the answer for every business. Machine learning has three main purposes: automating back-end processes, mining data, and understanding human behavior. All of these are important to media companies but whether or not machine learning can help a media company depends on their current set up and processes.

In order to evaluate whether a business is ready to embrace machine learning you need to look at whether you have the right people in place to implement and use the technology, what time and cost savings you will derive from the technology and understand what you want to get from the technology.

The reason machine learning works for many media companies is that they typically have tech-savvy staff who are used to integrating technology e.g. customer relationship management (CRM) platforms and data management platforms (DMP)s, and their business goal is to reduce the costs of running accounts. This aligns well with the benefits machine learning can bring to a business.

What is clear is that machine learning is going to be soon not just a differentiator but a must have technology for every business to be thinking about the business process optimization side of things. Where it still is a unique selling point today is in customer understanding – truly getting a sense of why your customers or users do something and what they really want from you.

Why is Fake News the biggest disruption for media companies?

Fake news is a huge problem because when a brand’s ad is displayed alongside junk content or fake news, consumers lose trust in the brand. When a brand crafts an advert with an inauthentic, biased message, consumers lose faith. If the brand produces content marketing that is not fact checked or well researched, it will suffer in the long run. Another issue with fake news is that it’s not a problem that can be solved overnight because of the volume of content that is created and shared online every day. Currently, it’s impossible to sift through all the junk that is out there at a rate that is sufficient to stop ads appearing against misinformation. As well as this, there is no right or wrong answer to Fake News, as it is sometimes subjective. The best that a machine learning algorithm can do is be built in an unbiased, effective, and explainable, interpretable manner.

Content producers largely rely on ads to generate revenue and there are some that will go to great lengths to increase the number of ads they can show a day in order to maximize revenue. On the whole content producers are good, they want to create good content that people want to read and they employ highly trained journalists to produce great, credible, accurate content. However, there are some people out there who don’t care about the accuracy or credibility of their content and these are the ones that spoil it for everyone else.

All of this has contributed to a waning of trust in the media industry which is the problem we have to solve – we need to clean up the ecosystem so that consumers want to engage with online content and can easily find trustworthy content. This will increase brands’ trust in online advertising as a way to engage their target audience in a safe, relevant environment where ultimately the most attractive customers from a viewability, purchasing power perspective actually reside

How can marketing teams leverage authentic Influencers as the ‘focus group’ for branding and social media promotions?

Any marketing campaign must start with knowing who your customers are and understanding their behavior. If you can establish that your customers use social media and are engaging with influencers you can look at building a campaign. The goal of any influencer campaign should be to develop your brand image, raise awareness of your products or services and drive sales.

One mistake brands often make is to try to work with influencers who have the greatest number of followers. The problem with this is that your target audience is likely to be a small percentage of those followers and you run the risk of seeing huge reach but low returns. In many cases, the best thing to do is to seek out niche influencers for specific use cases. The future of cult follower building is going to be about what Chris Messina calls “relationship design”, or the ability to have one on one, real talk customers with your real users across multiple platforms all at once.

Identifying influencers with a strong passion shared by their audience and whose values fit squarely with your brand is key. To do so, check their content, their network, their statistics and their audience demographics. An integrated solution like Lefty can provide you with this information

Tell us about the core tenets driving your company goals in a tech-heavy ecosystem?

Factmata is a group of entrepreneurs trying to solve a challenging problem with an amazing mission.

Our goal is to provide media buyers with a way to decide whether a particular website is the right place for them to show their ads.

We’re not in the business of trying to remove content or remove opinion from the internet. We’re here to flag potentially sensitive or biased content by providing brands and media agencies with a quality score which indicates the likelihood that a page contains misinformation. Media buyers can then use that score to decide whether they want to take the risk of advertising on that site or not.

We want to solve this problem in a scalable way and the only way to do that is via artificial intelligence and automation. Furthermore, we will remain outside the media or fact checking world so our technology can operate in a fully independent way. Another key component is the way our platform is built – using feedback and third party annotation provided by expert journalists, rather than our own potentially biased instruction. We call this community-driven explainable AI.

Given the changing dynamic of social media intelligence and audience analytics, where do you see Factmata fitting into a CMO’s tech stack?

Right now, Factmata’s core use case is going to be to help CMOs in the contextual brand safety space i.e. preventing placements of ads on low-quality content that harms reputation e.g. fake news, misinformation, sexism, controversy and hyperpartisan content. However, later down the road, we want to be more proactive with CMOs, to help them take stands proactively on subjective issues. For example, we are developing tech to allow brands to positively target pages which are pro-gun control, or against issues like nuclear warfare.

What are your thoughts on the future of ‘AR/VR/Video’ cloud marketing in 2018-2022?

Augmented reality and virtual reality are really interesting areas at the moment because we’re starting to see real-life use cases that go beyond being gimmicky. Only time will tell how widespread AR and VR become because at the end of the day it depends on user adoption. If consumers do not embrace the technology as a way to engage with brands then the advertising budgets won’t shift in that direction.

I think we will see more brands starting to experiment with AR and VR over the next few years, retail, automotive and travel brands are the likely contenders as their products are typically aspirational rather than transactional and long-term brand awareness plays a huge role in their marketing.

What startups in the technology industry are you watching keenly right now?

Fact-checking and fake news are hot topics right now, and a number of startups have emerged in these areas. Some companies appear to have similar ideas and are using AI, while others have gone down the blockchain route. Not all are our competitors, and we reach out a lot to those we think we might want to collaborate with.

We also keep an eye on startups developing technology that may help us develop and grow our own company. I am particularly interested in startups developing decentralised versions of existing successful consumer models, i.e. tokenized economies. For example, there are companies doing this in insurance, retail, travel and more. I like the idea that you raise investment from your users. They fund your development, and if it doesn’t go well, they don’t do well but they have split their risk with other users too. It seems a lot fairer because the incentives are aligned fully on product development rather than on other things like hype, reputation, ability to fundraise and have good contacts etc. I see less of the potential of chatbots than I did before and search, but am actively also looking at startups disrupting healthcare, in particular women’s health. The market for products fully focused on women is huge and very untapped.

What marketing and sales automation tools and technologies do you currently use?

We work with Streak to help us manage our sales pipeline. It’s a very quick and easy tool to customize the columns that we want to measure success against. It’s connected directly within our email system so we can see the current status and notes.  We can also output sales reports that are shared with the management team on our progress through the sales stages.

For marketing, we use a range of tools and databases, such as Meltwater,  to help us identify influencers and audiences talking about fake news and misinformation. We also use social media management tools such as Hootsuite to manage our various channels, including Twitter to Facebook.

Could you tell us about an outstanding digital campaign/ customer success story at Factmata?

We’re still in the beta testing phase with our early adopters so I can’t name any of our customers as they may be working with our competitors! Our beta phase has gone very well though, for example, we’ve successfully identified misinformation online that other technologies have failed to find. We’re confident that we’ve already helped our clients avoid brand safety scandals because we’ve seen the pages online where their ads would have appeared using their existing technology partners.

One recently quite successful digital campaign for us was on our B2C side, with our news platform briefr.cc. We have managed to grow our waiting list for the product substantially using referral techniques on a dedicated landing page, as well as subscriptions to unique news and journalist related newsletters which have had email open hit rates of 10-15% compared to the industry average of 3%.

How do you prepare for an AI-centric world as a business leader?

Factmata is an AI technology, so you could say I’ve been preparing for years! The advice I would give to others is never to lose sight of your business goals; all businesses need to embrace change but if AI steers the business away from its core purpose you run the risk of failure.

AI capabilities are expanding rapidly and have the power to revolutionize how many businesses operate. With AI you can do things faster, better and cheaper which is exciting for any business leader. However, it’s of utmost importance to fully evaluate where AI can fit into your business model. For example, if you run online advertising campaigns, it’s obvious that AI can improve the efficiency of your media buying by analyzing data in real time and optimizing where you buy ads and how much you pay for them. With other types of AI, it can be harder to understand where they will drive business improvements.

It’s also really important to talk to other people in similar situations and learn from what they have done (or not done). AI is a complicated ecosystem with many potential pitfalls if you get it wrong. Talk to specialists, research success stories and failure in AI and go to events that showcase AI technology and best practices.

If you decide that AI can improve your products or services then embrace it as long as it doesn’t harm your business values.

How do you inspire your people to work with technology?

Factmata is an advanced natural language understanding business so the people who tend to want to come and work with us are typically pretty technical, to begin with. Then there’s the fact that we’re a startup so everyone who works at Factmata is very driven to work as effectively as possible to accelerate the growth of the business.

We’re so lucky that there are so many technologies that enable people to do more with less time and the people at Factmata have been quick to adopt various collaboration tools. I actively encourage my team to always find ways of making their lives more productive and testing new tools all the time for admin they do. However, people have to do what works best for them. If someone is more comfortable writing their daily ‘to do’ list on paper I’m not going to stop them if it works for them. If I see someone struggling with something that I believe can be automated, I’ll show them how to use the technology but I won’t force them to change. You’ve got to let people be individuals.

One word that best describes how you work.

Scientifically.

What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?

Slack is brilliant for cutting down on emails and communicating with everyone in your team quickly. You can share documents and easily comment without getting lost in email chains.

I also use ToDoIst for my lists because of its amazing cross-platform functionality across all operating systems and web too, as well as even a Chrome app version. Other examples are Streak, Airtable, Revolut, momondo (for flights), Citymapper, Grip (for conferences) and Evernote.

What’s your smartest work related shortcut or productivity hack?

I wouldn’t call it a hack, but I think it’s important to set aside a block of time each day for deep work. There is so much going on and it’s easy to get distracted, but you need to be able to focus and think about your daily and longer-term goals. I prefer to do this in the mornings.

The other two tips I would recommend is using Franz, which puts your FB messages, and multiple Slack workspaces all in one desktop app, and most importantly calendly for scheduling. Calendly itself saves me at least 3 hours of thinking time a week, easily.

What are you currently reading?

I am reading Sapiens at the moment. It is incredible. I’ve used it in several talks I’ve given because what it talks about regarding human society and how we congregated as hunter gatherers vs. farmers relates a lot to Facebook and how we think about social media filter bubbles.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Don’t think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. It prevents you from being a poser, and being always objective in building a product or creating things rather than talking about it.

Something you do better than others – the secret of your success?

I don’t like to think I do anything better than anyone else, or if I do, it’s because we can’t all be good at everything. If I had to pick one thing out of all the factors that have contributed to my success I would say it’s self-belief. You’ve got to be your biggest believer because there will be times when you will feel alone as an entrepreneur and those are the times when self-belief will push you to do things you might not achieve otherwise.

Tag the one person from the industry whose answers to these questions you would love to read:

Keith Weed at Unilever

Thank you, Dhruv! That was fun and hope to see you back on MarTech Series soon.

[vc_tta_tabs][vc_tta_section title=”About Dhruv” tab_id=”1501785390157-b58e162d-0ae25a4b-c27aca64-108e51b0-80edaf37-bd3d357a-6c46d712-3b68db8f-23cb1e1d-4907″]

Dhruv is the Co-Founder of Factmata, an artificial intelligence startup solving the problem of factual misinformation on the internet. He likes open information, transparency, the future of the web, artificial intelligence and building highly technical data products.

[/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”About Factmata” tab_id=”1501785390320-2d44fa50-740c5a4b-c27aca64-108e51b0-80edaf37-bd3d357a-6c46d712-3b68db8f-23cb1e1d-4907″]

Factmata

We are a London based startup developing cutting-edge community-driven AI Brand Safety solution for advertisers. Our goal is to reduce online misinformation & abusive content from the internet.

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[mnky_heading title=”MarTech Interview Series” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fmartechseries-67ee47.ingress-bonde.easywp.com%2Fcategory%2Fmts-insights%2Finterviews%2F|||”]

The MTS Martech Interview Series is a fun Q&A style chat which we really enjoy doing with martech leaders. With inspiration from Lifehacker’s How I work interviews, the MarTech Series Interviews follows a two part format On Marketing Technology, and This Is How I Work. The format was chosen because when we decided to start an interview series with the biggest and brightest minds in martech – we wanted to get insight into two areas … one – their ideas on marketing tech and two – insights into the philosophy and methods that make these leaders tick.

Less Work, More Sales with Funnel CRM, Launched This Month

By
PRNewswire
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0
Less Work, More Sales with Funnel CRM, Launched This Month

Funnel CRM Officially Launched This Month – Funnel Is an Intelligent CRM for Smart Teams. With Features That Will Make Your Sales Workflow Better

Long-Awaited Funnel CRM launches in the US The cloud-based customer relationship management software is designed to help small-medium businesses, startups, agencies, and freelancers close more deals without using complicated solutions.

The COO of the project, Irsa Chaudhry said on this occasion, “Two years ago, we channeled our efforts into a field that is close to our hearts. We chose to help improve the lives of salespeople and business owners by providing them with a single solution that can handle their sale process as well as lead tracking needs. Since then we have come a long way and we couldn’t be more excited to share our CRM with the world after tweaking and optimising it for a long time.”

Why Another CRM When There are Already Hundreds on the Market?

Today, sales reps are wasting much of their time on manual data entry than actually selling. And it can take them up to 3-6 hours a day just to perform manual documentation. Now that’s a lot for any sales business and it won’t take them too long before they get hit by “No Sales Syndrome”.

Also Read: New Survey Identifies Major Gaps in Fast Data Use Despite Large Corporate Investments

Funnel CRM has many unique elements that can drastically improve your sales processes and productivity. One of the best features of this CRM is the way it eliminates manual data entry with automation and makes it so easy to maintain and grow your customer database. A feature missing from many complicated CRMs.

The easy-to-use CRM system can also be leveraged to build your own contact forms without any technical knowledge. Simply use the drag-and-drop options and build one to integrate into your website in just 30 seconds. See all the contact form submissions land right into your Funnel CRM dashboard rather ending up in your messy inbox. Because email is only a mode of communication and not a tool to capture immediate sales.

The smart CRM even lets you see when your messages have been viewed by the customer which helps ensure you are communicating with the intended recipient. Now, this will significantly improve your lead qualification process, conversion rate, and sales revenue. Because you will be able to keep track of your contacts, work-related inquiries, and follow-up on deals you didn’t receive a reply on that would otherwise have disappeared into the depths of your inbox.

Shedding light on the product’s advantage, the CEO of Funnel CRM, Gohar Shafique said, “Most CRM software have two things in common: bulky feature sets and complicated workflows. Funnel, on the other hand, is a simple, yet affordable and intelligent program that can help automate the tasks salespeople and business owners hate without the bloat of features popular and complicated CRMs brings. This means more sales and less data entry.”

Since sales involve sharing proposals, quotes, and estimates with your leads, it is ensured that Funnel CRM allows you to make a professional impression by sending a winning business proposal to your potential customers. This is one of the best features Funnel has to offer and it will greatly help salespeople win far too many clients.

Also Read: Chorus.ai Named One of JMP Securities’ Hot 100 Privately-Held Software Companies

Interactions with both prospective and existing clients are also tracked automatically in the CRM. As a result, your work-related emails never get mixed up with your parent’s vacation photos. Funnel CRM convert your product, service, or deal related email inquiries into ‘Deals’ and labels them for you to identify the stage of the sales process they are in; new (deals you haven’t replied to), negotiation (deals with ongoing communication), proposal (deals waiting for reply on a sent proposal or quotation) and lastly won and lost deals.

It gives you a clear view of your entire sales pipeline with a visible dashboard. Sort your won and lost deals, interaction with customers, proposals sent over any time period and much more. In brief, it’s one heck of a tool to get all your leads, deals, contacts, interactions, and prospects in one place without using scattered solutions such as email, proposal builder, quotation tool, and lead tracking software.

On top of everything, Funnel CRM is tightly integrated with Gmail. Use it to sign into the Gmail app and send or receive notifications and messages from your customers. The Gmail integration can come in real handy when you are on the move and don’t want to mess around with signing into another service just to send a quick message or reply from your smartphone.

Who Can Use Funnel CRM?

Professional business consultants, lawyers, digital marketers, real estate agents, cryptocurrency dealers, public relationship/business development officers, tax preparers, solo freelancers, small-medium businesses, etc. can hugely benefit from Funnel CRM.

Best of all, you can sign up for a free 14 days trial and test out our fully featured service without any commitments. But, if you are already convinced that the new CRM will work for you and your business, you can choose a plan that is easy on your wallet.

Recommended Read: Digital Marketing Veteran Michael Perlman Joins Jumpshot as Chief Revenue Officer

Eight Psychological Pricing Techniques to Test on Your E-Commerce Store

By
Nivedya Varma
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2
Eight Psychological Pricing Techniques to Test on Your E-Commerce Store

Psychological Pricing Is a Strategy Which Is Based on the Idea That Prices of Certain Products Create a Greater Psychological Impact in the Mind of a Consumer. Pricing Strategies Are Important Components of Growing Your E-Commerce Business and Increasing ROI

Warren Buffett had quipped, “The single most important decision in evaluating a business is pricing power. If you’ve got the power to raise prices without losing business to a competitor, you’ve got a very good business. ”

Pricing strategies are important for any business to succeed.  An unprecedented growth in online consumerism has led to proportional rise in e-commerce businesses. Pricing products or services act as major influencers in a consumer’s preference within a buying process. Pricing an item too low may increase chances of losing a significant profit. Whereas pricing an item at a higher price may cause customers to alienate themselves from the brand.

Some e-commerce websites tend to have products that are unique and have a winning streak associated with it. Yet, the efforts may be in vain if you don’t have the power to convince customers to buy the product. Why would they buy your product? Attractive prices and features bundled together may seem like a good place to start!

What is E-commerce Psychological Pricing?

Implementing strategies which can help increase profits and conversion rates can influence people to buy products and be frequent customers.

E-commerce psychological pricing is a concept which uses the power of a price tag to influence people during a decision making process. Creating prices which help in pandering a consumer’s beliefs towards making the purchase decision successful is what sums up to be an e-commerce pricing initiative.

Implementing psychological pricing for many e-commerce owners is the source of revenue and profits which can then be layered across an entire business.

Also Read: Ten Content Marketing Ideas to Grow Your E-Commerce Brand

In What Ways Can You Tackle E-commerce Pricing?

Consumers have an inclination towards responding to certain types of pricing techniques. Appreciating how to strategically price products and run successful promotions in this world of e-commerce sales is the key to success. So if you want your consumers to forgo their inhibitions and make the right choice of purchase, following are the tips that can be implemented for the same;

  • Freebies:

The word “free” brings about a lot of exciting emotions and entices people to buy products, though they may not have intended to buy any in the first place. The BOGOF (Buy One Get One Free) concept has always been around in brick-and-mortar stores, but applying the same to e-commerce stores is known to be just as successful.

Offering free delivery is another added bonus. 28% of shoppers are known to abandon their shopping carts due to unexpected delivery charges. Amazon Prime is an excellent example of offering free delivery.

  • The Effect of Number 9

Generally, consumers are known to prefer paying less for products and often associate prices with discounts and bargains. Knowing the power of 99 is also what psychologists call the “left-digit effect” wherein consumers see the price and round it down, instead of rounding it up.

This is the reason companies like Apple price their products at $129.99 instead of $1300. The $0.01 makes a positive difference in sales surprisingly. Ending a commodity’s price at 9 would be more appealing to shoppers though they may not even be looking for discounts, yet they would go ahead and finalize a purchase.

  • Odd Prices

Prices of products which end in odd numbers such as 3,5 and 7 appear to be a calculated approach by a retailer towards a consumer. Using such pricing tactics where the odd number is given credit influences a customer to think that this is the fairest it can get in terms of pricing offered. Using odd pricing on a product launch will be beneficial in experimenting with the same and then confirming the results.

  • Pricing with Comparison

Comparison pricing is a clever marketing technique which is used for two products that are the same but have different features. For example, placing an oven of $275 next to a different model priced at $415 would make a customer feel like going for the cheaper one despite them being similar. Thus sales would nearly double.

While launching a new product, considering comparison pricing may be a useful technique in increasing sales and generating profits.

  • Premium Pricing

Taking the example of premium products and premium pricing would mean going down memory lane and considering why people went for Apple products despite it being expensive? Premium pricing works for products and companies that want to be set apart from the rest. Craving to be a part of such an elite cause would mean pricing products at an extraordinary worth. In a customer’s mind expensive = worth.

  • Useless Price Points

Useless price points are psychological pricing strategies which push a customer towards certain products when it is based on a comparison theory. This works strongly for packaging prices. For example;

Pricing A Product at $50
Pricing B Product at $100
Pricing A and B Products for $100

How does this clarify as a useless price point? Well, Product B is a useless product but combined with Product A you can perhaps get value for both at the cost of one.

So this leads back to psychological pricing techniques where you can get the perceived value of a product changed.

  • Context Pricing

Is a $1000 a lot of money? To some, yes but to the rest? Not too much. Pricing matters in the context you choose to portray it. If a person is selling a designer T-shirt at $1200, it would obviously seem like a lot of money. But when you compare buying a T-shirt from a thrift store, it would make sense to spend $1200 for a T-shirt from a designer store.

Contextual prices differ and make a significant change in the eyes of a consumer. Hence, placing product prices at a comparison rate makes a shift in the buying process, thus inducing a customer to actually go forward and make the purchase.

  • Fragmented Pricing

Paying $500 as a full amount for a year may seem a lot in comparison to $40 in installments. Placing pricing in installments is a good technique for subscription-based strategies. Fragmented pricing is a good strategy for products which are higher-priced. A consumer will be tempted to buy a product which can be bought in frequent time-spaces instead of a one-time full investment. More risk = lesser chances a product would sell.

Takeaways

Psychological pricing techniques play a heavy role in influencing customers to make a purchasing decision. Taking into account a consumer’s psychological beliefs and then gratifying their desires by offering products that are sought after is an invaluable concept for the growth of an e-commerce store. Using the above pricing techniques will be potentially beneficial towards the overall performance and ROI of a firm.

Recommended Read: Integrating AI with Social Media Marketing to Persuade Profitable Markets

Nine Ways to Make Videos That Achieve Sales Closures

By
Viraj T
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1
Nine Ways to Make Videos That Achieve Sales Closures

Audiences Are Shifting to Absorbing Content Through Video. This Shift Implies That Marketing Teams Need to Expand Their Content Marketing Campaigns to Text and Video. Martech Series Lists Nine Tips to Create Videos That Help in Closing Sales Faster

Video content consumption is rising rapidly amongst consumers. This is a big opportunity for brands to showcase their products using videos. However, before getting into the creative process of creating personalized videos, publishers should have a basic understanding of the concepts that accelerate sales.

Here are nine tips on how to use video for sales-

Nine ways to make videos more effective

Knowing what information consumers look for when deciding to buy a product

At this stage, bombarding companies with product information is not the right strategy. Consumers would love to see a testimonial. Consumers want to assure themselves that the brand they are collaborating with considers client engagement to be serious business.

Knowing What Videos Are Best Suited  for Consumers When Deciding to Buy a Product

Engaging with people that are trying and loving your brand makes this audience appreciate the brand.

Enterprises can ask satisfied customers to feature in these videos. Consumers love to hear from people they relate to rather than read faceless text content.

Also Read: Fast Forward Your Video Content Strategy in 2018

Choosing the Right Channel to Broadcast the Video

Video broadcasting has to be done in conjunction with the target audience of the product. Broadcasting a business-oriented video will not gain popularity on Snapchat. Although, mediums like Facebook and YouTube, which have a very large audience reach can be engaged.

Video Quality

Modern-day demands that audiences have high standards about the quality of videos that they view. Ultimately, brands want to engage consumers in making a buying decision. Brands won’t be able to achieve this if video quality is pixelated or if the sound quality is poor.

Strategize Your Videos to Adapt to Varied Channels

Video content has to be developed according to the channel that brands intend to broadcast it on. No major Social Media platforms have similar audiences. If companies make a generic product that suits all age groups, then they would need to change content and display depending on the broadcasting medium.

Showcase People Who Operate Behind-The-Scenes

Considering the hyper-connected world of e-commerce, your customers may have never interacted with an actual human in the buying process. Video Marketing content can be created by showcasing people in the organization who have made the product possible.

Ensure That Your Audience Perceives Your Video Right

As a brand, if you sell expensive watches, video content should be created in sync with the product. If sales video content for an expensive watch appears to be a sales pitch for extreme sports, audiences will be indifferent towards the brand.

Leverage Analytics to Measure Video Success

Several third-party platforms enable marketing teams to get analytic data about branding videos. Marketers should analyze data coming in from these platforms to check video performance. Third-party video hosting platforms enable marketers with a combination of reporting options to stream through data easily.

Reflect on Derived Insights

Lastly, marketers need to reflect on campaign data from previous campaigns so that they can make better videos that provide the desired results.

Key Takeaways for Marketing Teams

Marketing teams need to mix and match their video content and take active feedback from patrons. There is no definite way to ensure that a campaign initiated via video will hit its audience’s nerve. Although, following the aforementioned capabilities increases the chances of a successful sales video campaign.

Recommended Read: Video is The Future of Content Marketing

Vonage Acquires TokBox, the Leading Programmable Video Provider

By
PRNewswire
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0
Vonage Acquires TokBox, the Leading Programmable Video Provider

Acquisition Enhances Vonage’s Strategy to Provide a Differentiated, Fully Programmable Communications Solution for Developers and Businesses of All Sizes

Vonage Holdings Corp. has acquired TokBox Inc., a subsidiary of Telefonica, S.A.  in an all-cash transaction for an enterprise value of $35 million, including assumed liabilities. San Francisco-based TokBox is the industry-leader in WebRTC programmable video.

Accelerates Vonage’s Platform Strategy

The acquisition of TokBox places Vonage in the leadership position in the programmable video sector with the strongest level of global adoption among video API providers. TokBox enables developers and enterprises to integrate live video into websites, mobile apps, and IoT devices with just a few lines of code.

The acquisition also meaningfully broadens the Vonage API Platform by adding video to its existing strength in voice, SMS and IP messaging.

“We are incredibly excited to announce the acquisition of TokBox, the global leader in programmable video APIs. With TokBox, our API portfolio expands beyond voice, SMS and IP messaging to include global leadership in programmable video. TokBox significantly expands our total addressable market, and it is a major step towards global leadership in cloud communications,” said Vonage CEO Alan Masarek.

Mr. Masarek continued, “The addition of the TokBox team also brings a workforce of skilled technologists to help accelerate our pace of innovation. We are excited to welcome TokBox’s team to our growing Vonage family.”

Also Read: Vonage and Nexmo Bring Cloud Communications at the Center of WhatsApp Business Solution

Significantly Expands Vonage’s Total Addressable Market

According to IDC, the US programmable video market will be a $7.4 billion opportunity by 2022, representing more than a 140% four-year CAGR. This growth is being driven by three key factors:

– The adoption of WebRTC, which has emerged as the worldwide standard for high quality video communications

– The reduction in cost and complexity that programmable video provides developers to integrate live video

– The near ubiquity of video-capable devices, coupled with improvements in network infrastructure which minimize video latency

Mark Winther, VP Telecom Consulting for IDC, commented, “Already a strong provider in programmable SMS, voice and IP messaging, this strategic move by Vonage builds out its portfolio of cloud communications capabilities. TokBox extends Vonage’s ability to gain share in the fast growing CPaaS market with a set of interactive video APIs and a customer base that proves the value of programmable video communications.”

High Quality, Enterprise Level Video Communications

Founded in 2007, TokBox has the highest level of global adoption among programmable video providers using WebRTC.  TokBox has more than 2,300 global customers across a range of applications including: online education, financial institutions, help desks, telemedicine, field services, interactive broadcasts and social media. Today, over 1,700 mobile apps use the TokBox software development kit across Android and iOS.

With the addition of TokBox to the Vonage platform, developers will benefit from a simple, flexible and scalable programmable video solution to create engaging, embedded communications experiences.

Scott Lomond, CEO of TokBox, commented, “TokBox established itself early on as an industry leader based on the belief that the WebRTC standard had significant potential to drive a wave of innovation and value creation. As WebRTC has gained traction, our growth has been supported by the ability of our platform to simplify the integration of live video into websites and mobile apps for developers.”

Recommended Read: Outreach Acquires Sales Hacker; Demonstrates Commitment To Fostering Global B2B Sales Community

TVB’s Steve Lanzano Says New Nielsen Report Confirms Dominance of Linear Television with Strong Growth in Time Spent

By
PRNewswire
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0
Nielsen’s Gauge Report: Holistic, But is it Relevant and Actionable for Advertisers, Brands and Marketers?

Americans’ Daily Time Spent Viewing Video Content on Traditional Television is 4x Greater Than OTT / Streaming TV and over 28x Greater Than Mobile Viewing

TVB, the not-for-profit trade association of America’s local broadcast television industry, issued the following statement from Steve Lanzano, President and CEO, on Nielsen’s Q1 2018 Total Audience Report:

The @Nielsen 1Q18 Total Audience Report reveals Americans’ daily time spent viewing video content on traditional #television is 4x greater than #OTT / streaming TV and over 28x greater than #mobile viewing.

“Nielsen’s Q1 Total Audience Report confirms Americans’ consistent preference for linear television over all other media. With so many media options both traditional and digital, adults continue to spend by far the most time with linear television, nearly five hours a day, than any other platform.”

Also Read: Conversion Labs Announces Sean Fitzpatrick as Chief Acquisition Officer

The Nielsen Total Audience Report – Q1 2018 (highlights):

  • US adults spend over 11 hours per day connected to media. At 4 hours and 10 minutes on average per day, the platform adults spend the most time with is live television. When time-shifted TV is added, that number jumps to 4 hours and 46 minutes. The next two media weren’t even close: app/web on a smartphone (2 hours and 22 minutes) and radio (1 hour and 46 minutes).
  • Among video platforms in Q1 2018, live+time-shifted TV had the highest weekly reach with adults at 88%, followed by video focused app/web on a smartphone at 58%, internet connected device (devices connected to the TV that are used to stream content such as Apple TV, Roku, etc.) at 35%, video on a computer at 28% and video focused app/web on a tablet at 26%.
  • Total multichannel homes account for 81% of television households, while broadband only homes account for 6%, and the remaining 13% are over-the-air homes. The OTA percentage is higher in ethnic households, rising to 15% in Asian households, 16% in African-American households, and 20% in Hispanic households, which means one in five Hispanic households are exclusively an over-the-air home.

Recommended Read: TV Data Company Alphonso Introduces New Suite of Digital-Like TV Advertising Measurement Metrics and Tools

Nearly One-Fifth of US Video Consumers Choose Subscription Video Only, The NPD Group Says

By
PRNewswire
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1
U.S. B2B Technology Channel Sales Up 9% in First Half 2021, Reports NPD

Most Consumers Now Supplement Renting and Buying Video with Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Other SVOD Services

While the majority of consumers in the United States view video content from a variety of sources, in both physical and digital formats, the number of people using only Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video and other subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services is on the rise. Nearly one-fifth (17 percent) of the US population relied solely on SVOD services to view video content in the 12-months ending in March 2018, which is up from just 11 percent in 2017, according to global information provider The NPD Group.

One-quarter (24 percent) of consumers rely only on transactional methods — renting and buying videos on physical discs or in digital formats. Nearly one-third (32 percent) uses a combination of transactional and subscription video.

Also Read: Video Ads on Connected TV and Premium Publisher Properties Have Best Performance, Reveals Extreme Reach Q2 Report

With an increasing number of subscription-video options, consumers continue to expand their monthly services. Among SVOD consumers in the US, in March of this year 40 percent subscribed to only one service, 37 percent subscribed to two services, and 24 percent subscribed to three or more services.

Gen X and Boomers Driving Growth in Households with Multiple SVOD Services

Millennial consumers, age 25 to 34, were the age demographic most likely to subscribe to three or more streaming video services (42 percent), but year-over-year growth for this age demographic was flat. Generation Z consumers, age 18 to 24, who subscribed to three or more services actually declined by 5 percentage points, year over year, while Generation X, age 45 to 55, grew 3 percentage points. “As the technology gets older and less novel, as smart TVs become more common, and as more streaming content becomes available, older consumers with more disposable income are coming on board with streaming video services,,” said Ricardo Solar, president of media entertainment for NPD. “Although Millennials were the first to adopt SVOD, GenX and Boomers are now driving the growth among those subscribing to multiple services.”

Recommended Read: VideoAmp Strengthens Engineering Team, Names Josh Nisenson as New SVP of Engineering

Five Ways to Create Great B2B Content

By
Nivedya Varma
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0
Five Ways to Create Great B2B Content

Web Content Today Aims to Sell and Persuade an Audience to Actively Engage in Business. It Is the Key in a Conversion Process and Induces Customer Engagement

Content marketing, if done right can make your business stand out in the competition. You may be a blogger, a marketer, an SMB owner or perhaps a tech writer—getting a firm grip on your content is the stepping stone to succeeding in marketing.

The content marketing landscape continues to evolve at a rapid pace. It is important to connect these dots and further understand the depth of business generated through content marketing and writing.

  • At least 60% of marketers say that they create one piece of content each day. Consistency is the key to a good content writing strategy.
  • B2B and B2C marketers both believe that content marketing is one of the most important strategies ever. 53 % of marketers in 2017 claimed to have content marketing as their top inbound marketing strategy.
  • B2B marketers allocate an average of 28% of their total marketing budget to content marketing.
  • 47% of interested buyers admitted to searching through 3-5 pieces of content online before finally engaging with the sales representative.

The biggest hurdles any content marketing could face are which type of content would resonate with their audience and at what rate should they be produced.

Also Read: Ten Ways to Transform Your Employees into Social Ambassadors

Below are five ways of creating great content to establish your brand or yourself as a superior writer with quality strength;

  • Content Marketing with Images;.

According to a report by HubSpot, content which includes relevance and adds some pop to your piece is frequented by readers by a 94% upscale in views than content which is only textual.  The images must be relevant and appropriate to be matched along with the content. There are plenty of free sites for professional high-quality images such as Unsplash, Getty, Pexels, Pixabay among others.

  • Verifying Facts and Stats;

A simple way to beef up your content is to post verified stats and figures published by recognized researchers and analysts. Smarter audiences prefer analytics over randomly-parked texts Facts and reports improve quality of content, especially if you are addressing B2B tech industry.

Alexa, Amazon’s subsidiary is a trustworthy tool which helps users’ access traffic and estimates ranks based on the mass-browsing behavior. Typing in your target URL and getting a rank more than 100,000 is the simplest way of rectifying and using a high-quality link within your content.

  • The Power of an Infographic

As you read this, Infographics are created, posted and shared on social media thrice as often as any other content posted online. An infographic is 30 times more likely to be read and viewed than a text-only piece presented alongside it. An infographic can be created right from scratch using software like Adobe InDesign or there are options for putting templates to use. Some tools that can assist you in creating easy Infographics in a few short steps include Canva, Google Charts, Venngage, Infogram, Piktochart among others.  Also, ascertain including an infographic that is relevant, has high-quality and is professional to be posted.

  • The Depth, Length, and Focus

Comprehending writing gets difficult if you, as a content writer do not pay attention to the details and the depth of your writing. Content which is spotty and convoluted makes reading tricky and unfocused. Keep in mind the rules of short, medium and long-form content to better hone your skills as a writer and delivering value to your audience. The idea of content writing and content marketing is to understand what your readers want and providing them the same to keep them engaged.

  • Write with the Power of a Unique Voice

Online writing is about maintaining brand values and ethos of the company without letting personal biases take over. The content should have a unique flair; not delivered at the cost of losing brand values.  . Developing tactics to portray the essence of your own style sets you apart from the clutter of content in the digital world. This technique of writing should only keep evolving in the span of your career to create brand identity, awareness, and re-sharable content. Finding your own voice as a writer is a crucial aspect of content marketing today.

All media provided online and otherwise have begun with the same link; Words. The entire point of words is to create a narrative which is concise, precise, focused and uniform. Content which is deliverable, organized and engaging is truly what matters the most; in relation to your brand, your audience and yourself.

Recommended Read: Ten Content Marketing Ideas to Grow Your E-Commerce Brand

Facebook Commits to Introducing Features that Stop Overuse

By
Viraj T
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0
Facebook Commits to Introducing Features that Stop Overuse

Critics and Medical Communities Are Strengthening Their Campaigns Against Social Media Misuse. As a Result, Facebook Has Finally Agreed to Tweak Its Services to Benefit Its Users

2018 has been a rough year for Facebook. Amidst the Cambridge Analytica situation and people’s criticism about the misuse of Facebook, the Social Media platform is seemingly slumped. However, Facebook is excelling in taking a stand. Both the issues had created a media storm. While Facebook is defending itself against the Cambridge Analytica case, it is responding to its critics by incorporating the desired changes.

Medical Community’s Argument

Mental health professionals have declared that Social Media, collectively, is a major addiction. 70% of the American population are active Facebook users. Psychiatrists say that most users are addicted to the engagement quotient of Facebook. Studies conclude that likes on a post are similar to a small amount of dopamine rush in the brain.

Other than that, Social media feed is causing depression, low self-esteem, and loneliness in a considerable amount of its users. Constant comparison with friends, peers, followers etc. on Facebook is capable of developing a strong sense of inferiority among its users.

Doctors argue that Facebook is not owning up to its own claim. This extremely popular Social Media platform’s ideology was to make the world a better place. Agreeably, there have been several positive changes that Facebook has ushered in. But they are not as significant as the negativity it has bought in ensuring weakening of the Social Fabric.

Also Read: Facebook Introduces Five New Features in Ads Manager App

Facebook has accepted the offshoot problems that are developing due to their platform. They are taking major steps to ensure applying smarter ways to reduce and filter Facebook use.

What Is Facebook Changing?

Facebook is very serious about launching a variety of features that help its users to be conscious of this Social medium’s use. Facebook wants to redevelop its application as well as the website in a way that users find healthier ways of using it.

Facebook has confirmed about the features that they will be releasing—

Dashboard

Facebook will launch a simple and special dashboard for its users. The dashboard will display the amount of time that a user has spent on Facebook.

Reminders

Facebook plans to release a pop-up feature which will act as a reminder if users are spending too much time on Facebook.

Handling Notifications

Users will now be able to mute notifications. This allows them to take a break from Facebook entirely.

Reactions to Facebook’s commitment

Organizations like the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) have welcomed Facebook’s commitment initiative. However, many believe that Social Media, in general, especially, Facebook has still a long way to go to truly control user behavior.

However, it has become important for all major social mediums to take steps to better user behavior. Instagram that is owned by Facebook will also have similar capabilities embedded in its application and website.

Industry stalwarts and people who would really like to see a change in user behavior will be watching important releases by Facebook.

But, only time will tell if user behaviors truly change in the future.

Recommended Read: Facebook Gets Moat On-board for Video Ad Metrics

Matrix Solutions Expands Customer Footprint to Latin America

By
PRNewswire
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1
Matrix Solutions Expands Customer Footprint to Latin America

Honduras-Based Grupo OPSA Deploys Matrix Solutions’ Monarch Media Ad Sales Platform

Matrix Solutions, the only global ad sales platform built for media, announced Grupo OPSA has deployed Monarch, Matrix Solution’s modern media ad sales platform. Monarch will enable Grupo OPSA to gain operational sales efficiencies and capitalize on more cross-sales opportunities throughout the enterprise. Grupo OPSA, the largest media group in Honduras, is comprised of several leading publications and digital platforms, including La Prensa, El Heraldo and Diez, as well as magazines Estilo, Buen Provecho, Motores, Casa y Hogar; including Estrategia y Negocios, leading business publication across the Central American region.

Expanding Matrix Solutions’ existing International customer footprint to Latin America, Grupo OPSA is also the first customer on the Spanish-version of the Monarch platform. The Monarch platform is fully localized, allowing for language, currency, contact and other country/region demands and customizations.

Committed to adopting and executing a new media ad sales strategy, the Grupo OPSA team had previously implemented two different CRM systems, which were an advancement from their manual processes, yet lacked the media-specific functionality they needed to sell more effectively.

Also Read: Matrix Solutions Expands Ad Sales Platform to LATAM

“We rely on multiple sales teams – national and local, within each of the markets we serve, which has made clear our need to capture and better utilize our data holistically,” shared Isabel Sabillón, Commercial Director at Grupo OPSA. “After using two non-media CRM systems, we are pleased to have adopted Matrix Solutions’ media-specific solution, which will provide us with better sales workflow processes and as a result increase our bottom line.”

In addition to the localized features of Monarch, Grupo OPSA will also inherit extensive Customer Relationship Management (CRM) capabilities, in-depth reporting and forecasting, as well as actionable insights pushed through both predictive and prescriptive analytics. Monarch, accessible 24/7 on any device, will also provide Grupo OPSA users with the necessary sales management tools to sell effectively across multiple platforms within their enterprise.

“We feel both honored and privileged to be working with Grupo OPSA,” shared Mark Gorman, CEO, Matrix Solutions. “Not only are they the largest and most credible media group in Honduras, but they are also our first customer to be based in Latin America and first to adopt a localized version of our Monarch media ad sales platform.”

Recommended Read: Kentico Positioned as Challenger in Ovum’s WEM Decision Matrix 2018-2019

Bloomberg Unveils ad.apt, a New Display Ad Format

By
Shalaka Nalawade
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0
Bloomberg Unveils ad.apt, a New Display Ad Format
Bloomberg Unveils ad.apt, a New Display Ad Format

With ad.apt Bloomberg has Simplified Advertising as it Requires very Basic Assets from Advertisers

Bloomberg Media Group recently launched ad.apt, a new display ad format that introduces innovative ad solutions in display advertising. ad.apt leverages Bloomberg’s unique data, content and design footprint, enabling the company to convert a simple set of brand elements into a host of high-impact, natively designed formats.

ad.apt allows advertisers to submit a headline, subhead, logo, brand images, video and a call to action. The brand assets are then built in-house and can be turned into a video, data, or a Bloomberg-related article. It also tailors the ad based on the viewer’s browsing history.

Also Read: Facebook Gets Moat On-board for Video Ad Metrics

The dynamic elements of ad.apt include:

  1. ad.apt data: Integrates Bloomberg’s relevant data intelligence with a brand’s story, providing real-time information to Bloomberg users as they engage with market-moving news
  2. ad.apt story: Engages Bloomberg audiences with content that inspires and informs, by aligning with select Bloomberg topics or showcasing custom brand narratives
  3. ad.apt play: Highlights brand videos that are shared cinematically at scale, across screens
  4. ad.apt brand: Designed to deliver maximum brand impact with minimum brand resources

Bloomberg Unveils ad.apt, a New Display Ad Format
Courtesy: Bloomberg

ad.apt is fully scalable across all of Bloomberg Media Group’s global properties. “In an ever-changing digital environment, the advertising industry is shifting to deliver a single cross-screen ad solution, and with ad.apt, Bloomberg Media Group has built a cross-platform ad unit that is premium yet turn-key,” said the company in its press release.

Also Read: LinkedIn Joins the Bandwagon; Offers Carousel Ads For Sponsored Content

How ad.apt works

  • It puts Bloomberg’s design resources to work for you, delivering tailored solutions for the widest range of unique brand goals and capabilities.
  • The solutions extend brand assets across multi-dimensional functionalities effortlessly. A natively designed, component-based system assembles brand elements dynamically, flowing into any screen, on any device. Aspect-ratio-based sizes adjust responsively to each environment.
  • It delivers superior user experiences across a full spectrum of brand objectives, all of which can be used together to optimize impact — without an additional lift.

Bloomberg Unveils ad.apt, a New Display Ad Format
A Cisco campaign using the ad.apt Play format. Cisco is the first ad.apt advertiser. Courtesy: Bloomberg

ad.apt joins Bloomberg Media Group’s ad product portfolio, which has grown from eight products in 2015 to 21 this year.

Recommended Read: Is Google’s Responsive Search Ads the Ultimate Advertising Hack You Need?

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