Seismic Acquires SAVO Group to Leap Ahead in Sales Enablement Market

May 8, 2018

With SAVO Group’s Acquisition, Seismic Customers Will Enjoy Accelerated Pace of Product Innovation and Additional Sales Enablement Expertise from New Combined Company

Seismic, a global leader in sales and marketing enablement, has announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire SAVO Group. The new agreement is combining two of the major global sales enablement brands. The acquisition extends Seismic’s position as the leading platform aligning sales and marketing teams to effectively engage buyers with the right information and content.

Read More: Fireside Chat with Shawn Schwegman

Seismic Listed in Gartner's Market Guide for Digital Content Management for Sales for Second Consecutive Year — *Doug Winter, CEO, Seismic*

At the time of this announcement, Doug Winter, co-founder and CEO of Seismic, said, “Sales enablement programs are having a huge impact on revenue for enterprises because they take everything off the plate of the seller, allowing them to focus on building the best relationships with buyers.”

Large enterprises use Seismic to increase sales productivity through the automatic distribution of relevant information and personalized content to reps for any buyer interaction.

Seismic equips sellers with buyer-specific and dynamically personalized content and marketers with the most powerful set of content management tools available. The company has achieved at least 95 percent revenue growth and triple-digit net customer retention rates six years in a row to become the largest sales enablement provider. Through this transaction, Seismic will further accelerate product innovation by adding to its engineering and development teams that currently make up more than one-third of the company’s workforce.

Powerful content controls and visibility into usage ensures brand integrity and reduces risk.

Founded in 1999 as the first sales enablement solution, SAVO Group has since grown into one of the few other providers to have a global footprint, serving enterprise customers across a wide array of industries, including technology, life sciences, and financial services firms. The company also acquired competing sales enablement solution KnowledgeTree in 2017. SAVO Group brings extensive sales enablement expertise and additional technological functionality to the new combined customer base.

Doug added, “However, they require an equally powerful sales enablement solution to really see it through. In that regard, today’s announcement puts even further space between Seismic and the rest of the sales enablement market.”

The new combined entity will serve more than 500 enterprise customers worldwide. SAVO Group adds customers such as Stryker, BMC Software, Miller Heiman and Canon Europe, joining Seismic’s complimentary customer roster of large organizations which includes Getty Images, NCR, Capital One, Illumina, and T. Rowe Price. Additionally, the acquisition of SAVO Group gives Seismic an increased foothold in European markets, adding to the company’s international efforts which included a successful launch in Australia in 2017. Total headcount for Seismic will increase to more than 450 across eight offices in the United States, Europe, and Australia.

The acquisition follows a successful 2017 for Seismic which saw the company achieve 97 percent revenue growth and 118 percent net customer retention. The company also grew the total number of customers in key industries such as technology and life sciences by more than 100 percent and now boasts 15 of the 25 top asset management firms as customers.

CEO of Seismic Doug further added, “We are excited to be joined by SAVO Group’s customers and team as we embark on this next exciting phase of Seismic’s growth. Regardless of industry or geographic location, the need to ensure that sellers are interacting with buyers in the most beneficial and productive way possible has become recognized as a boon to accelerating sales cycles.”

Currently, Seismic’s machine learning and analytics capabilities continuously improve the entire enablement process for large enterprises, increasing the ROI of sales content and tying it directly to revenue.

How to Get the Attention Economy to Really Notice You

Shachar Orren

May 8, 2018

How to Get the Attention Economy to Really Notice You

When you ponder what moves the digital landscape and all its players, typically the following comes to mind: who’s spending what and where, how to invest in different buckets – from TV to digital, where your money is actually going, and budgets (namely, who is willing to spend the most).

But what lies behind the dollar signs? The answer: an entirely different currency that the industry is truly busy chasing, and one that in today’s economy is even more scarce than cash – the human attention span.

Scientific Seduction

In the words of TechCrunch, “the attention economy is bankrupting us.” And it’s definitely not helping an industry already reeling over widespread content fatigue and platform giants like Facebook deprioritizing posts. Thus, it’s time we rely on new approaches, as all efforts and spend become null and void if the target audience is not successfully engaged or converted.

Neuromarketing research points to a solution, asserting that engagement-based content awakens the brain while enhancing content memorability. In fact, our data here at Playbuzz supports this hypothesis, showing that stories with interactive elements garner an average dwell time 21X higher than the average time spent on piece of digital content.

And commercial content is no exception – Nielsen recently studied Playbuzz-powered branded content and found that it garnered an average brand lift of 91%, compared to the global 8% norm.

Also Read: Engaging Millennials Beyond Financial Milestones

Win Back Attention

Grab hold of diminishing attention spans and win back readers and consumers alike with these three tips.

Redefine How You Measure Success

Clicks and views standalone are no longer suitable measurements of success, and frankly haven’t been for some time. However, the media industry’s tight grip on these KPIs has blinded it from what’s important: that the assessment of contents’ performance should be based on current content consumption habits. In an age where users want to click, swipe, tap, flip, vote and comment, we must reimagine our KPIs to revolve around active consumption rather than baseless (perhaps accidental?) views. This is the catalyst to finally closing the door on dull, static ad formats and pop-ups that worsen the consumption experience versus heightening it.

Understand the Anatomy of Great Content, & How to Create It

Many publishers don’t have the time or resources to develop solutions that enable them to create engagement-based content. Such content can help you poll readers on their opinions about a recent election, ask them their predictions on who will win a sports game, or package a serious topic that can raise awareness on a current event, in an approachable manner that will garner attention. Newsrooms can no longer rely on text and a few images or expect audiences to simply scroll. They must begin to look outside their walls to third-party tools that can elevate their content to bring audiences on a journey. Readers crave visual-first, interactive, data-driven content that is involving. Just ask them.

Also Read: How App Science Will Lead to Better Predictive AI

Invest in CPE Campaigns

Campaigns that are labeled paid, sponsored or promoted can potentially turn readers off initially. Considering years of audiences being bombarded by dull, unrelated ad units, it’s no wonder. But this makes it that much harder for branded content to harness diminishing attention spans.

So how do we deliver branded content consumers actually want to engage with? The solution lies in the simple fact that editorial content isn’t the only content that should be interactive.

The likes of Netflix, Brita, and Sky Mobile are all investing in Cost-Per-Engagement (CPE) campaigns to forge deeper relationships with their audiences. Unsurprising considering these interactive forms of commercial content reduce media wastage, providing more viewability into the action a consumer takes after seeing the ad content. In fact, interactive content is proven to convert buyers 70% of the time, compared to passive content’s 36%.

How the World Goes Round

Attention, in many ways, is what’s propelling the world forward. And tactics like click-bait are not coming with. As a publisher or brand, the time to disrupt is now. You can no longer solely rely on platforms to drive eyeballs and must instead push yourself to reimagine how content is packaged to ensure it’s immersive enough to break past the barrier of FOMO. Engagement is the future – even science thinks so.

Also Read: The New Marketing: Don’t Be Afraid to Catch Feels

Qualtrics Introduces Mobile In-App Software Development Kit for Leading Customer Experience Platform

PRNewswire

May 8, 2018

Qualtrics Introduces Mobile In-App Software Development Kit for Leading Customer Experience Platform

Qualtrics Continues to Innovate on Technology That Connects Brands with Customers at Every Meaningful Touch Point

Qualtrics, the leader in experience management, announced today the availability of a mobile in-app software development kit (SDK) available for its comprehensive Qualtrics Customer Experience (CX) Platform.

The Qualtrics mobile in-app SDK, available for iOS and Android platforms, and accompanying designer portal, enables brands to quickly and easily build branded customer feedback experiences that originate directly from the brand’s own mobile app.

The Qualtrics CX Platform is built for a mobile-first world. For today’s constantly connected consumer, an engaged and meaningful experience is not only coveted, it is expected. Qualtrics enables brands to stay constantly connected to the voice of the customer through investments such as the mobile in-app SDK.

“Digital is becoming the backbone of customer relationships,” said Bruce Temkin, managing partner of the Temkin Group. “If companies can’t make an emotional connection online, then they’ll struggle to attract and retain customers.”

Also Read: Qualtrics Named One of Fast Company’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Enterprise for 2018

This new designer portal allows digital managers to easily design the feedback experience, including look and feel and provides dynamic control of numerous targeting triggers without the need to update the app again.

The designer portal is part of the newly enhanced website and app feedback experience that is deeply integrated with the Qualtrics Experience Management (XM) PlatformTM. Now, CX teams can work in the same platform (under a single login) and have a consistent end-to-end experience across survey editing, dashboards, analysis and digital intercepts.

“It was fantastic to be able to integrate the same survey that we use across our other channels into our app as well,” said Jayson Bell, lead experience designer at Vector Limited, the largest distributor of electricity and gas in New Zealand. “This has given Vector the ability to gather an experience score from any of our users, regardless of their chosen channel.”

The Qualtrics CX Platform is the most advanced end-to-end platform for measuring, managing and improving the customer experience. With industry-specific expertise and comprehensive implementation support and services, Qualtrics helps businesses build the competencies and capabilities they need to improve customer acquisition, retention and loyalty. With an emphasis on increasing customer share of wallet and reducing cost-to-serve, the Qualtrics CX platform can drastically benefit the bottom line as well as help increase brand awareness and equity.

Webinar World Techbytes With Sabeh Hassan, Product Marketing Manager, Cloud, Microsoft

Sudipto Ghosh

May 8, 2018

Webinar World Techbytes With Sabeh Hassan, Product Marketing Manager, Cloud, Microsoft

Sabeh Hassan
Marketing Manager, Cloud + Enterprise, Microsoft

The Sydney chapter of the ON24 Webinar World 2018 will feature info-packed sessions from marketing leaders, top brands, and ON24’s own digital marketing experts. Sabeh Hassan, Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft is attending the event. We sat down with Sabeh to understand his expectations from ON24 Webinar World 2018, and the evolution of Marketing Clouds and Data Science in martech.

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Tell us about your role and how you got here?

Over the last few years, Microsoft has gone through modern marketing transformation. We have been implementing marketing automation through an engine we internally call the Global Demand Centre.

Currently, I am responsible for Azure Direct business in Australia and Global Demand Centre for Cloud and Enterprise. The easiest way to think about my role is if you were to land on the Azure website and started your subscription online by using your credit card we call that Azure Direct. The way we drive and nurture customers to Azure subscriptions is through the Global Demand Center.

What is the most exciting part about attending the Sydney ON24 Webinar World 2018?

Having a conference dedicated to webinar marketing is exciting as we can apply learnings directly to our GTM plans. It’s not often we connect with experts in marketing focusing on a specific channel.

What are your expectations and likely key takeaways from the ON24 Webinar World 2018? Who are you huddling with at the event?

I will be trying to engage with as many presenters in the networking sessions. I am particularly keen to learn from Mark Bornstein on how to make more personalized content. Especially, as we have a scaled webinar program and making the content more engaging is especially important.

How do you see Marketing Clouds further evolving with the maturity of AI/ML and Data Science?

We are already seeing significant role of AI/ML in driving business value. According to Gartner AI-derived business value (Customer Experience, New Revenue & Cost Reduction) is forecast to reach $3.9 trillion in 2022 and Marketing is playing a fundamental role in driving these outcomes.

At Microsoft, we have seen 60% increase in sales qualified leads that have been scored through Machine Learning and we are continuing to see improvements in AI technology like Bots.

What are your thoughts on the growing opportunities in the Australian market for Marketing and Sales Automation tech companies?

I think this is one of the most exciting areas to be operating in today as we see exponential growth in Marketing and Sales Automation solutions in the market. According to Harvard Business Review by 2020 customers will manage 85% of their relationship with companies without human interaction. For these interactions to be great customer experiences, most organizations will need to have a strong CRM and marketing/sales automation strategy.

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

Linda Boff, GE CMO

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

Brand Embassy Opens Representations in Mexico and Argentina

PRNewswire

May 8, 2018

Brand Embassy Opens Representations in Mexico and Argentina

Brand Embassy Enters a Rapidly Growing Market for Digital Customer Service

Brand Embassy, following a year of record growth that included acquiring important new clients such as Alibaba Lazada and America Movil, announced new partnerships in Mexico and Argentina.

Mexico and Argentina have shown rapid growth and traction in social media and messaging use over the past several years. Brand Embassy is now bringing their cloud-based digital customer service platform to this important market, continuing the company’s international expansion.

Today’s companies face pressure to provide better customer experience while decreasing costs and growing revenues. Phone volumes are declining while the use of digital channels for customer service increases. Companies need an agile partner to integrate and scale digital customer service at scale.

Also Read: Brazil and Mexico Stand as Front-runners in the Latin American Big Data Market, says Frost & Sullivan

Brand Embassy is a top-rated customer service platform providing integrated social media, messaging, live chat and AI-powered chatbot service at scale. The platform delivers 69% improved agent productivity. This stems from higher operational efficiency and real-time presence and leads to increased personalization and customer satisfaction.

“I’m thrilled to announce Brand Embassy’s new partnerships in Mexico City and Buenos Aires, two markets with huge potential,” says Vit Horky, Co-founder and CEO of Brand Embassy.

“Brand Embassy is the perfect fit for companies looking to transform their systems and operations to better serve customers and increase efficiency,” says Eduardo Mendoza.

“Brand Embassy has the potential to revolutionize the way that Mexican companies communicate with their customers,” says Adrian Salazar.

Also Read: Acxiom Expands International Footprint with Launch of AbiliTec Identity Resolution and InfoBase Consumer Insights in Mexico

Brand Embassy is a cloud-based customer service platform providing integrated social media, messaging, live chat and AI-powered chatbot service. A scalable and modular solution that’s easily integrated into existing infrastructure, our software achieves 95% customer satisfaction and has been top rated by customers every year since 2015, according to TrustRadius.

Brand Embassy clients have reported:

61% sale conversion rate
70% reduced resolution time
300% scaled operations with no additional headcount

Brand Embassy clients include Lazada (Alibaba) Group, T-Mobile, Vodafone, O2, America Movil, Puma, Samsung, GE and others across 30+ countries.

Branded Content Powered by Playbuzz Performs in Top 10% of All Nielsen Global Digital Brand Effect Campaigns

Sudipto Ghosh

May 8, 2018

Branded Content Powered by Playbuzz Performs in Top 10% of All Nielsen Global Digital Brand Effect Campaigns

The Latest Nielsen Study Asserts That the Platform Is “More Successful at Providing Increased Engagement, Shifting Brand Perceptions and Ultimately Driving Preference Than Other Global Digital Content”

A study conducted by global information & measurement company, Nielsen, on behalf of Disney-backed storytelling platform, Playbuzz, showcases the power of interactive content and its positive impact on branded content campaigns compared to more traditional digital content. The results support previous studies which link engagement-based content to the awakening of the brain and enhancing content memorability.

Historical Brand Lift Data from 16 Playbuzz-Powered UK Branded Content Campaigns

To conduct the study, Nielsen ran a meta-analysis using historical brand lift data from 16 Playbuzz-powered UK branded content campaigns across the following categories: Entertainment, Government, Telecommunications, Automotive, Travel, Insurance, Energy & Utilities, Website. Those campaigns were produced for partners including Sky Q, Tesco, eBay, The National Counter Terrorism Police, Shell, Sky Mobile, and more.

The results of these studies were then aggregated and benchmarked against global Nielsen Digital Brand Effect (DBE) studies in terms of category and objective norms, for greater sampling and stability versus simply measuring UK studies. The objective norms were as follows: Awareness, Message Association, Intent, Perceptions, Preference.

Campaigns Garnered an Average Brand Lift of 91%

Nielsen found that Playbuzz-powered branded content performs in the top 10% of all Nielsen global DBE campaigns, at a Category and Objective level, sitting at the highest categorization for the performance of these studies. The study showed that these campaigns garnered an average brand lift of 91%, and that Playbuzz-powered branded content drove brand uplifts 12X greater than average digital brand lifts measured globally by Nielsen.

via Playbuzz

Nielsen concluded campaigns focusing on driving brand perceptions benefited most from Playbuzz-powered branded content, and that Playbuzz-powered branded content is more successful at providing increased engagement, shifting brand perceptions and ultimately driving preference than other global digital content.

At the time of this announcement, Daniel Fisher, Managing Director of Europe, Playbuzz, said, “In a world where the average time spent on a digital piece of content stands at a sobering 8 seconds, brands must utilize engagement and interactivity to capture the ultimate – and most scarce – commodity: the human attention span.”

Daniel added, “For brands who tell stories online, packaging campaigns into more engaging and interactive mediums enables much deeper relationships with the consumer. For example, Playbuzz worked with Mediacom and the UK National Counter Terrorism Police to raise awareness of what to do when faced with suspicious activity. Due to the immersive nature of the campaign, it garnered the highest brand lift in the National Education category that Nielsen has ever seen. This showcases the power of engaging storytelling tools – interactive articles, polls, ranked lists, video and more – to approach topics sensitively in order to drive awareness, educate and shift perceptions.”

Playbuzz-Powered Content

In January of 2017, Playbuzz ranked #7 in comScore’s Lifestyles Category and #27 in the company’s list of Top 100 Video Properties, positioning it as a leader in providing high-quality, broad distribution of its innovative forms of native advertising.

Branded content campaigns powered by Playbuzz garner metrics high above industry standards, such as two minutes and 15 second average session times, a 4.6% average CTR and an average 85% scroll depth. These campaigns also earn an average of 97%+ in-item viewability confirmed by MOAT and attract 99% human, non-fraudulent traffic as confirmed by White Ops.

Account Based Go-to-Market Gets a New Friend Through FIEE: Fit + Intent + Engage + Execute

PRNewswire

May 8, 2018

Account Based Go-to-Market Gets a New Friend Through FIEE: Fit + Intent + Engage + Execute

TTEC, Bombora, EverString and Terminus to Introduce Innovative B2B Sales Approach at SiriusDecisions Summit

TTEC, a leading global technology and services provider focused exclusively on the design, implementation and delivery of transformative customer experience for many of the world’s most iconic and disruptive brands, today introduced a groundbreaking B2B sales approach for driving account-based go-to-market with partners Bombora, EverString and Terminus. The companies will share details around their integrated offering during the SiriusDecisions Summit, May 8-10, in Las Vegas, NV.

Target account selection is the foundation of any account-based go-to-market approach. The FIEE Methodology, which brings together industry leaders in B2B sales and marketing, is focused around a core structure of Fit, Intent, Engage and Execute. Through the strategic integration of analytics, insights and actions, these companies are optimizing target account selection and driving sales results with:

Fit
- EverString finds the most relevant prospects through automated machine learning
Intent
- Bombora aggregates third-party behavioral data to provide insights about when prospects are actively in-market and most likely to engage
Engage
- Terminus’s software enables account-based marketing at scale to drive demand, accelerate pipeline, and improve customer marketing
Execute
- TTEC operationalizes and executes omnichannel sales programs to acquire, retain and grow customers

Customer Experience Pioneer TeleTech Announces Name Change to TTEC — Kyle Priest

“While many companies invest in individual tools for account-based sales and marketing, most businesses fall short in executing programs across channels,” according to Kyle Priest, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, TTEC. “Through this integration of strategy and technology, we’re identifying the right customers, capturing their attention at the right time and through the right channel, and creating an immediate dialogue with them. This integrated approach rapidly acquires new customers, grows wallet share and maximizes results for our clients.”

Also Read: CX Leader TTEC Wins Nine Stevie Awards for Customer Experience Excellence

TTEC will share insights alongside their client around how the world’s leading logistics company is growing sales with its business customers using the latest AI-enabled technology, the most reliable data, and precision analytics. During the presentation, How to successfully bring Fit, Intent, Engagement and Execution together to hit new heights, on Tuesday, May 8, the client will describe how it is building customer engagement and growing its business by understanding customer needs, value and behavior, during and after every interaction.

Throughout the conference, TTEC (Booth 251), Bombora (Booth 229), EverString (Booth 118) and Terminus (Booth 252) will demonstrate:

How the Fit, Intent, Engage and Execute methodology is used to drive sales results
Best practices for using machine learning and reliable data to improve relevance at the point of interaction
Tactics for mining and implementing actionable data to refine messaging
Ways to increase the salesforce effectiveness through the right combination of tools, technology and training
Upcoming trends in advanced sales analytics and recommendations for companies to stay ahead
Strategies to turn AI enablement from aspiration to reality

Amplience Dynamic Content Unveiled to Further Refine CMS for Retail

Sudipto Ghosh

May 8, 2018

Amplience Dynamic Content Unveiled to Further Refine CMS for Retail

Amplience Dynamic Content Is a Content Production, Management and Delivery Tool That Allows Retailers to Deliver Deeply Engaging and Targeted Shopping Experiences

Amplience, the platform for retail engagement, announces the release of Dynamic Content, the next iteration of the company’s CMS for retail. Launched at this year’s Retail Engagement Summits in London and New York, Amplience Dynamic Content is a content production, management and delivery tool that allows retailers to deliver deeply engaging and targeted shopping experiences, across all channels and at any scale.

Amplience Dynamic Content Offers Instant Quick Preview on Every Content for Better Context and Personalization

Uniquely, content marketers, planners, and creatives can also now visualize how content will appear on any channel, without leaving their delivery platform. Amplience Dynamic Content features the ability to instantly preview how content will appear on the desktop, mobile or app.

Uniquely, Amplience Dynamic Content facilitates the planning, scheduling, and delivery of content across the web, app, and store channels from inside one platform, handing control to creative teams while simultaneously optimizing the content production process.

James Brooke, CEO of Amplience, said, “The Amplience team is 100% focussed on the future of retail, and Dynamic Content is born of an unrivaled understanding of the challenges facing retailers around shopper engagement, content production, and omnichannel delivery. Every feature of Amplience Dynamic Content has been developed as a result of listening to our customers, carrying out detailed diagnostics, and working out how best to empower content teams.”

Savvy Features for Content Management Teams to Better Handle and Plan Content Creatives

Dynamic Content features a calendar interface which allows teams to plan and schedule campaign content directly from inside the software, effectively bringing together the work of content planners and creatives. The calendar allows users to scrub through time, drill into dates and events and preview content at any moment, past, future, and present.

Unlike existing Web CMS solutions, Amplience Dynamic Content is built API first and is ‘headless’ in the sense that content is managed separately from content presentation. This separation enables content teams to work directly on building core content sets without having to simultaneously solve for all of the presentational contexts.

As a result, content produced using Amplience Dynamic Content is rendered on-demand in whatever format is required, at request time, enabling a Create Once, Publish Everywhere (COPE) workflow that delivers a consistent shopping experience at every customer touchpoint.

James continues “Content now needs to be at the very core of retail strategy, and no other software vendor is able to provide the content and asset management capabilities, in the cloud, that branded manufacturers and retailers now need to successfully engage with their customers.”

Amplience Dynamic Content Facilitates the Creation of Rich Content with Highly Effective Optimization

James added, “Retailers are waking up to a new era, one in which the customer is entirely in control. This demands new content strategies designed to deepen shopper engagement using rich storytelling and contextual messaging. Shoppers are now mobile, they spend less time on the high street and more hours online. They engage with brands on social media, and apps via their phones, and increasingly using voice. Brands now need to fight to be part of their customers experiences. This requires revisiting content strategy, and adopting tools which facilitate the creation of rich, timely, and contextual shopping experiences.”

The speedy adoption of Dynamic Content also signals fundamental changes in content production processes, as retailers elect for more agile tools and processes.

Retailers are finally beginning to acknowledge that their current content production processes, featuring outdated tools, siloed content, and disjointed teams, are inefficient and no longer fit for purpose.

Because Dynamic Content allows for the creation, optimization and scheduling of content from inside one single platform, wasteful tasks and complicated hand-offs are significantly reduced. The result is a more optimized and efficient process, further enabling teams to deliver the volume and variety of content now required to meet today’s retail engagement challenge. This means the delivery of more time-sensitive promotions into key channels and driving engagement and conversion through persuasive content and rich storytelling.

James summarizes, “Retailers must now place their customers at the very heart of their content strategy, optimize their processes and leverage the latest technologies designed to engage shoppers in this mobile-first world. Dynamic Content allows retailers to do what they do best – it gives them the freedom to create, and the power to persuade, across all platforms, and at any scale.”

Currently, Amplience is dedicated to integrating content with commerce to help retailers deliver rich shopping experiences and boost customer engagement.

Interview with Caspar Thykier, Co-Founder and CEO, Zappar

Sudipto Ghosh

May 8, 2018

Interview with Caspar Thykier, Co-Founder & CEO at Zappar

[vc_wp_text]“We’re on the cusp of an era when augmented reality can take its place among the communications channels businesses and people regularly use.”

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[easy-profiles profile_twitter=”https://twitter.com/casparthykier” profile_linkedin=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/caspar-thykier-a160a115/”]

Tell us about your role and how you got here? What galvanized you to start Zappar?

I am the CEO and co-founder of Zappar. My co-founders and I were inspired to start Zappar to democratize augmented reality (AR) technology. We wanted to enable companies of all sizes – whether small businesses or big multinationals – to leverage AR within their commercial and marketing strategies and realize the benefits these highly immersive experiences offer for consumer engagement to both surprise and delight and increasingly inform and instruct as a day-to-day utility.

How are the AR/VR technologies for marketing different from when you first started?

The biggest difference, and greatest opportunity, we’re seeing now is an increased demand for great content to support the plethora of smartphones and headsets of the future. That’s why we’ve built ZapWorks as the best toolkit to deliver dynamic, expressive short-form experiences made for Augmented Reality – catering to the new breed of digital creatives around the world.

Who is your ‘Ideal Customer’?

One of Zappar’s advantages is that we don’t have an ideal customer! Our toolkit, which is made up of our zapcode solution, ZapWorks (our award-winning content authoring and publishing platform); app embed component and APIs; and ‘Zap-Alytics’ (data dashboard), is scalable, affordable and flexible – allowing anyone, from the world’s biggest brand to small mom and pop shops and bedroom coder, to create and launch their own experiences. So really our ideal customer is one that is looking to embrace what AR as a facilitating technology has to offer to connect the physical world with digital devices and capture value for their end users in their daily lives. That could be a brand marketer, creative or designer at an agency, coder or chief innovation officer.

What marketing platforms are best suited to leverage AR as a primary engagement tool?

One of the marketing technologies best suited to leverage AR is connected packaging. Brands are beginning to realize that their own owned media may just be their most powerful and untapped communication channel yet – both in terms of engagement with their users through their smartphones and measurement through better analytics. Gartner’s latest report predicts that there will be 50 billion connected products on shelves by 2020. The good news is that this will allow for more contextually relevant messaging, greater marketing attribution and retargeting opportunities. It’s a complete reimagining of an entire sector which is hugely exciting.

What is the current state of AR engagement in 2018? How much of that state is influenced by the maturity of data science and customer experience platforms?

We’re on the cusp of an era when augmented reality can take its place among the communications channels businesses and people regularly use. Not only are more powerful and cheaper mobile devices and headsets hitting the market, content creation tools are now so simple businesses can create AR content without specialist skills. So while there has already been significant progress, we need to continue raising awareness and understanding of the benefits and best practice in AR to fuel wider mainstream awareness and uptake.

How do you see the AR adoption strategies evolving around omnichannel marketing campaigns?

Brands have been integrating AR within their omnichannel strategy for some years now, leveraging the technology to drive consumer engagement, promote in-store events, encourage app downloads and, of course, drive purchases. We’ve worked with brands such as Hasbro, PEZ, DreamWorks, and Rovio to do just that. Looking ahead, in an increasingly mobile-first world, where US consumers spend five hours on average each day on their smartphones, and as AR continues to prove itself as a viable marketing channel, we can only expect to see greater uptake of this technology in brand campaigns.

What factors should marketers consider to launch a full-fledged AR-based digital website?

Right now to take full advantage of what AR has to offer you really need to be thinking about a native app rather than mobile web. If you’re new to AR, look at adopting simple, easy-to-use tools which will guide you to create your own AR experiences. Once you’re set up, next comes the element of thinking about what you’re trying to achieve with AR, how you’re going to tell your story and describe what you’re going to do in AR. There are three Cs to making a good AR experience: Understanding the Context, having a clear Call to Action, and then thinking about the Content with the first two in mind. Companies shouldn’t feel pressured to launch large-scale, complicated AR campaigns from the off – often the things that are simple, small and beautiful are the most compelling. There is one last ‘C’ which is Commitment. To really take advantage of AR you need to think long-term rather than one-off: how can augmented reality provide a benefit to end users as an always-on channel and lens.

What are your predictions for the AR/VR technologies becoming the ubiquitous technologies for marketing and sales in 2018-2022?

First off, I think it’s critical that in this next period we make a separation between AR and VR. Granted they both share an ‘R’ but the ‘A’ and ‘V’ portions apply to very different use cases. Both have fascinating real-world applications but it’s time that we separate them in articles, conferences and events I believe. Our centre of gravity as a business is AR. As this captivating technology becomes more ingrained in the everyday culture as a lens through which to layer content and is increasingly used for mass market deployment, we can expect it to be more ubiquitously used within native apps as an essential part of any businesses engagement strategy, everyday utility and general camera function.

Which startups in martech and adtech industries are you keenly following?

I’m a big fan of Evrythng and their work and thinking around connected products and packaging that are ‘born digital’. Codes on product packaging can now be connected to Active Digital Identities in the cloud to deliver rich short-form content, while also driving digital product life-cycle management capabilities and capturing real-time data throughout the life of the product. Brands can then use these insights, which are accessible via Evrythng’s cloud-based data management platform, to optimize their supply chain operations and strengthen customer relationships.

55, part of the You & Mr Jones brandtech group are very interesting. They are a new breed of data company that helps brands leverage data and technology, to engage people better, faster and cheaper, with a focus on transparency, empowerment and innovation.

Then there’s Madefire who are reinventing storytelling in comics for the digital age and providing a new platform for creative IP through technology. Democratizing the comic industry if you like which seems very complementary to our own endeavors in AR.

What marketing and sales automation tools do you use?

We’re currently making the switch to Intercom. We’ve been big fans of their blog and podcast for some time now and are just about to make the switch to highly personalized, event-based conversations with our customers. At Zappar, we truly value our customers and their feedback of, not only our products and services but how we drive the AR/VR/MR conversation forward – Intercom it turns out, is the perfect solution to meet these goals.

What has your best digital transformation campaign at Zappar?

I don’t think there is just one to select when you consider the range of work that we’re doing across sectors and for brands including Tilly’s, Hasbro, Pez, Shazam, Kimberly-Clark, Nestle, and the San Francisco 49ers. I think the more important observation when it comes to digital transformation is the great awakening that’s occurring at the highest level of most enlightened corporations around the globe. They’re beginning to understand the potential impact of AR as a new spatial interface. Unlocking value across their organization and creating new cost saving and revenue opportunities as well as greater accountability and data through a direct and permissive dialogue with their end users.

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

AI is not something we’re currently focusing on at Zappar. As with AR, there are clearly many and varied applications of AI but we don’t profess to be experts in this field. I suspect as with AR it’s a process of thinking big but starting small to test and learn and start the journey to see where it can positively impact your business to solve specific problems and open up new opportunities.

How do you inspire your people to work with technology at Zappar?

We’re lucky enough to have employed some pretty inspiring people to begin with so we’re starting from a good place! Frankly, AR is one of those technologies that naturally inspires. It’s like magic on your phone that immediately attracts attention, which is why it’s such a powerful tool for active engagement, learning and development. Our role is to make the tools as intuitive as possible to let anyone create the best short form AR experiences possible and inspire the world. So really it’s about our platform and suite of tools being the building blocks for the democratization of this technology to inspire others.

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

My iPhone is definitely the tech item I couldn’t live without. Whoever first likened it to an evolutionary appendage was spot on. In terms of apps, Shazam is one of my favorites. I’m biased as we work with them, but frankly, I still feel that same “How do they do that?” excitement every time I use the app and it recognizes a track. Netflix, Nest, Pinterest, Sonos, Spotify, Uber, Google Maps, FaceTime, WhatsApp, First Direct and Amazon also sit front and center on my home screen…with Zappar of course!

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

Exercise. There’s nothing like a good swim or run to crack a problem. Staring at a screen won’t get it done.
Face-to-face meetings and the art of conversation. Beats a video conference or a million emails every time.
Block out your diary in advance each week for some alone time and turn off wifi. Space, peace and quiet are a beautiful thing.
Sleep. Tiredness kills in the office as well as on the roads it appears.

What are you currently reading? (What do you read, and how do you consume information?)

Recently, I Pilgrim, The Glass Castle, Fire & Fury. Mostly on planes. And anything by Dr. Zeuss. We’re clearly in a time of information overload which has its pros and cons. Personally, my feeling is that it encourages short-term thinking and an age of disposability. So I don’t really get caught up in social media. I’d rather pause for breath. I still delight in a Sunday newspaper and a coffee.

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

The best piece of advice I’ve ever received is simply, “do your best.” If you can go home feeling like you gave it your best shot you can’t ask for more. Also, have fun doing it. You need to wake up each morning wanting to go to work. The day you don’t is the day you need to find another job.

Tag the one person in the industry whose answers to these questions you would love to read.

@charliefink – a man who can see the AR and VR woods from the trees!

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

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Caspar has a background in advertising and marketing as an account man, who was lucky enough to work at some of the most successful companies with the biggest blue chip brands, surrounded by the best people.

Having helped set up three companies there’s certainly no substitute for experience and learning from your failures as much as your successes.

There are no easy wins. In my experience it comes down to hard work; knowing what you’re good at (and not so good at); solid thinking; creative ambition; setting the right quality threshold; spotting opportunities and talent; taking intelligent risks; making the difficult decisions; seizing the moment and good old lady luck. (oh, and a great FD always helps!).

Businesses are all about people. In a digital world where new business models are being created daily and all bets are off, getting things off the ground is all about strong relationships. Right now couldn’t be a more exciting time professionally.

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At Zappar our mission is to democratize Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality (AR & VR): building the most powerful, easy to use and affordable platform, tools and analytics on the market to meet the demands of everyone from big business to SMEs. Our specialism is in creating bite-size entertainment experiences: snackable morsels that can be consumed quickly and easily, connecting the physical world of things with our digital lives through handheld devices (be that mobile, tablet or headset) driving interaction, and engagement. It’s why we’re called Zappar: the clue’s in the name – an APP using AR that lets you ZAP stuff. With Zappar on your phone it’s your new remote control to augment the world around you. Over the past 4 years we’ve been able to do just that through thousands of experiences and millions of zaps for hundreds of companies across the globe including: Coca-Cola; Hasbro (Transformers); Sony Music (One Direction, Little Mix); Warner Brothers (Scooby-Doo, Batman, Superman); Universal Studios (Minions); Manchester City Football Club; PlayStation; Rovio (Angry Birds); Cadbury’s; Asda and Carrefour to name a few. Our approach has been to work across different verticals to understand how our platform and tools can best add value to businesses and end users alike: from real estate to education, publishing to packaging and consumer products.

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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.

Unveiling the AI-Powered Crowd Service Platform from Limitless

Sudipto Ghosh

May 8, 2018

Unveiling the AI-Powered Crowd Service Platform from Limitless

Limitless Is Disrupting the Customer Service Industry by Enabling Organizations to Crowdsource Customer Support

A host of major brands have begun working with Limitless, a UK-based technology inventor and a provider of crowdsourced customer service platform. In Europe, Limitless is now working with Unilever, Vodafone, National Express, New Day, Wargaming and Daily Mail Group; whilst in the US and Canada, they are working with Unilever North America and Sun Basket. New clients and partners include 21^st Century Fox and Facebook.

Read More: Fireside Chat with Andrea Moe

The deals follow Limitless completing a $2.97 million seed funding round in November last year, which was led by Downing Ventures and Unilever Ventures. Investment since the company’s launch in 2016 now totals $4.05 million.

What is Limitless Crowd Service Platform?

Limitless is disrupting the customer service industry by enabling organizations to crowdsource customer support. Limitless helps brands find, manage and reward ‘crowd service ambassadors’. These people – often the brand’s own existing loyal customers and employees – use a simple app to answer questions posed by other customers and receive a reward for resolving them. They can dip into the app at a time and place which suits them. They can answer as many, or as few, questions as they like. Limitless calls this Crowd Service®.

There is a Real Need for Innovation in the Customer Service Industry

At the time of this announcement, Roger Beadle, CEO and co-founder of Limitless, said, “The investment we’ve secured and the caliber of customer we’ve attracted in the past six months are supercharging the development and deployment of the Limitless platform globally. There is a real need for innovation in the customer service industry and embracing the gig-economy is a perfect way to do this.”

Roger added, “Our vision is to help every company deliver outstanding personalized service, at a lower cost – and by taking a Crowd Service® approach – give people who provide great service better rewards and freedom.”

Limitless customers have already seen significant improvement, with customer satisfaction reported at over 90% and queries being resolved in less than 5 minutes. The brands are experiencing savings between 50%-75% on their support costs.

Megan Neale, COO and co-founder of Limitless said, “All over the world companies are seeing customer service costs spiral and the traditional customer service model is struggling to cope. Customers today value authenticity and expect fast, helpful and empathetic service. When we launched Limitless, we wanted to provide a fresh approach, to make customer service consistently better for everybody. Our clients have already seen dramatic improvements in response times, customer satisfaction levels and a reduction in costs.”

The Crowd Service® platforms, which are uniquely built for each client are assisted by AI. This creates a seamless process for Ambassadors, thereby offering a human touch to interactions while allowing the personality of the brands to shine through.

Stan Sthanunathan, Executive Vice President – Consumer & Market Insights at Unilever, said, “We know consumers want more insightful and faster responses from communications with our brands, Limitless offers us a way to provide this whilst helping other consumers at the same time.”

Recommended Read: Interview with Samuel Gerace, CEO, Convey

Stan added, “We are excited to work with Limitless to help us scale customer services much more cost effectively across all digital channels on a 24/7 basis and deepen our understanding of consumer needs. We also get to reward our most loyal and passionate customers at the same time.”

Brands benefit from using Limitless alongside their existing customer service teams. The platform trains its AI algorithms to handle increasing numbers of lower value, simple inquiries autonomously so Ambassadors can focus on handling higher value and more complex inquiries leaving a brand’s customer service teams to focus on queries that would be impacted by data privacy.

Currently, Limitless provides a fresh approach to customer service. Intelligent routing, AI, reward and reputation mechanisms allow brands to route inquiries to a pool of their own loyal customers and employees. The Limitless Crowd Service® platform trains their AI algorithms to handle increasing numbers of lower value, simple inquiries autonomously.

LookBookHQ Rebrands to PathFactory; Unveils New Content Insight and Activation Engine

Sudipto Ghosh

May 8, 2018

LookBookHQ Rebrands to Path Factory; Unveils New Content Insight and Activation Engine

LookBookHQ PathFactory Engine Helps B2B Marketers Understand the Role Content Plays in the Buyer’s Journey and Connects Visitors with the Most Relevant Information When They Need It

LookBookHQ is now renamed to PathFactory. LookBookHQ has announced the launch of PathFactory, the first Content Insight, and Activation Engine today. The most transformative new marketing technology since marketing automation, Path Factory Engine helps B2B marketers connect audiences at all lifecycle stages with the information they need, wherever they engage. To reflect the company’s vision to power data-driven content delivery and provide marketers with a path to greater relevance, insight, and revenue, LookBookHQ has also changed its name to PathFactory.

The launch of PathFactory builds on a legacy of innovation for the company that pioneered content bingeing in 2013, engaged intent – the leading indicator of sales readiness – in 2015, and the first B2B content recommendations powered by artificial intelligence in 2016.

PathFactory Would Deliver Best Content Insight and Activation to Marketers as a Winning Recipe

At the time of this announcement, Mark Attila Opauszky, Chief Executive Officer of PathFactory, said, “Today’s audiences are used to smart, active content experiences like they’ve come to expect from Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon. B2B marketing is all about content consumption, so it’s time to be just as smart with our buyer’s attention. The marketer with the best Content Insight and Activation wins. That is what we are here to help our customers do.”

“To make Content Insight and Activation truly real, we needed to dramatically expand the breadth and quality of the dataset that’s powering it,” said Nick Edouard, President and Chief Product Officer at PathFactory.

Content Marketing in 2018 Is Now a Science of Delivering the Right Recommendation

Nick added, “Anyone can serve a content recommendation – the science is delivering the right recommendation. Until now, no one has connected content engagement with a deep understanding of the actual content, the visitor, and the impact it has on pipeline and revenue. Without this, you can’t deliver personalized content experiences at scale – at least, not ones that turn visitors into buyers.”

With this launch, PathFactory makes a tremendous leap forward in helping marketers use content strategically to achieve critical marketing outcomes. It provides the decision support required to analyze what is and isn’t working to generate pipeline and revenue and automates content delivery to help buyers buy. These platform enhancements and the new PathFactory brand are on display for the first time at SiriusDecisions 2018 Summit in Las Vegas this week.

“Using PathFactory, we can accelerate buyer education on every channel and understand the impact of content on the buying process,” said Mervyn Alamgir, Senior Director, Digital Marketing at TIBCO Software. Mervyn will be presenting his Content Insight and Activation case study session at SiriusDecisions 2018 Summit in Las Vegas this week.

Powering Always-On Customer Experiences at Scale

The PathFactory Engine gathers external visitor and account data analyzes content using artificial intelligence and combines that information with the engagement data it collects to build a complete understanding of the role of content in the buyer’s journey as well as the impact it has on pipeline and revenue. The Engine uses this data and insight to activate content and connect buyers with the most relevant information when they need it.

PathFactory’s Content Insight and Activation Platform helps B2B marketers understand the role of content in the buyer’s journey and discover a new class of data to optimize the path to purchase. PathFactory uses this data and insight to optimize content delivery across every channel, connecting buyers with the most relevant information whenever and wherever they click.

Squelch Emerges from Stealth to Solve $17 Billion Customer Experience Problem

PRNewswire

May 8, 2018

Squelch Emerges from Stealth with $8 Million Series A to Capture Signal from Noise and Solve $17 Billion Customer Experience Problem

Raises $ 8 Million in Series A Funding

Squelch, Inc., provider of real-time customer experience optimization for customer support and customer success teams, launched from stealth with $8 million in Series A funding from Shasta Ventures and Correlation Ventures, which it will use to further product development and expand sales and marketing. The company concurrently announced general availability of its flagship SaaS product, which is designed to take customer satisfaction, retention and loyalty to the next level for Fortune 5000 businesses. In three clicks or less, Squelch queries traditionally disjointed data sets in the cloud and instantly serves up current, relevant intelligence to customer-facing agents at the precise moment of customer interaction, maximizing productivity and their ability to enhance and personalize every customer experience. Squelch seamlessly integrates with most SaaS-based applications, including Salesforce, Slack, Box, Confluence, Jira, OneDrive, and Google Drive.

“Customer satisfaction is the foundation for profitable and successful subscription and SaaS companies. Retaining existing customer subscriptions is as important as closing new customers,” said Ravi Mohan, Managing Director, Shasta Ventures. “We’re excited to partner with Squelch and invest in a smart application that will disrupt the customer success and support industry.”

Today’s customers have unprecedented access to purchasing options and information, and also expect a flawless experience every time they engage with companies – and they are willing to pay for it. In fact, a recent Walker study reveals that 86 percent of buyers will pay more for a product if they also receive a better customer experience. It’s no wonder that the customer experience management market is expected to reach USD 16.91 Billion by 2022.

Squelch co-founder and CEO, Jayaram Bhat, a 35-year software industry veteran, along with Giorgina Gottlieb, Squelch co-founder and Vice President of Marketing, and Ilan Raab, Squelch co-founder and VP of Engineering, developed Squelch to help enterprises meet customer expectations for a perfect experience.

Also Read: AI-Powered Personalization Drives Great CustomerExperience

Squelch equips customer support and customer success agents—who are on the front lines of resolving stressful customer issues on a daily basis—with insights on the customer’s journey and the best path to resolution of the customer’s ask. Since Squelch is designed from the ground up for customer support and success teams, it lives within familiar workflows agents utilize regularly. The cloud-based application also gets smarter with each use and goes above and beyond enterprise search and knowledge management tools by taking into account the way support and success agents interact with information, customers, and each other.

“Customer support and success agents spend way too much time looking for the information they need to deliver customer value. We founded Squelch to solve that problem and help these customer heroes provide a quality experience, starting with customer onboarding on day one through a trouble ticket on day one-thousand-and-one. Our solution also gives managers and stakeholders access to trends, analytics, and reports so they can gain deeper insights into how customer experience operations are influencing the bottom line. We all know that happy customers are profitable, repeat customers, and happy agents get you there,” said Jayaram Bhat, CEO of Squelch.

Also Read: Build, Train And Deploy: How AI Chatbots Can Transform the Customer Experience

“Business success is going to be increasingly determined by the quality of the customer experience delivered. That’s what’s made CRM and associated applications a multi-billion dollar industry. But Squelch has identified a big gap in the customer experience architecture and the company is uniquely bridging that gap. And because Squelch can do this while seamlessly integrating into an organization’s existing environment, it adds value while increasing the ROI of the current IT infrastructure. Every business leader will find this compelling.,” said Patrick Saeger, a tenured customer success executive and industry advisor.

Customer Service That Meets the Demands of Today’s Educated, Always-on Customer
Squelch makes it fast and easy for customer support and customer success agents to access the information, best practices, reports and resources they need to win renewals, upsells and most of all trust and loyalty. The following Squelch innovations empower agents with in-the-moment information to positively impact a customer’s experience:

Up-To-Date Data On-Demand: Squelch continually monitors and gathers data from all the sources agents use to serve customers including email, customer management and support solutions as well as team communication and collaboration tools, while creating a combined index to quickly and easily search issues and resolutions on-demand.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning: Squelch goes beyond most text-based search by applying a deep classification schema paired with auto-topic identification rules and machine learning algorithms that immediately recognize enterprise-specific objects and learn as users input queries. AI and machine learning allow Squelch to learn what information really matters within a company as well as how it all fits together. By providing this insight into how customers respond to products, Squelch helps showcase additional value within customer-facing teams.
Ease of Use: Squelch’s low-friction install and out-of-the-box functionality with minimal training requirements result in delivery of ROI within minutes. When a customer reaches out to a company, Squelch helps to quickly address the issue by swiftly populating the right intelligence automatically into the dashboard the agent is already using. Customer agents can also easily expand any item within the dashboard, read the recommended digest, as well as give feedback.
Also Read: Need for Data Orchestration for Contextualizing Customer Experience

Brave and Townsquare Partner to Re-engage Ad-Blocking Users

MTS Staff Writer

May 8, 2018

Brave and Townsquare Partner to Re-engage Ad-Blocking Users

Partnering Will Also Include Monetizing Ad-blocking Traffic and Testing Blockchain-based Digital Advertising

Brave, combines an innovative privacy browser with a Blockchain-based digital advertising platform. Whereas, Townsquare Media Inc., owns and operates a plethora of digital brands which are focused on media and entertainment. The companies announced the partnership to empower Townsquare to re-engage ad-blocking users. The companies have also vouched to test Blockchain-based digital advertising solutions with the BAT platform (Basic Attention Token).

Also Read: Townsquare Announces Acquisition Of Trenton, NJ Radio Stations

The Partnership

As per the partnership, the visitors to Townsquare websites who use Ad-blockers will be given an offer to switch to the Brave browser. The Brave Browser shall equip interested users with ad-free experiences as well as new revenue streams to publishers. Moreover, the users downloading Brave through this offer will be gifted BAT in the coming weeks. Recently, Brave allocated $1million worth of BAT in promotional kind to over 50,000 YouTube creators and website publishers from similar contributions. This campaign shall be live for nearly a month on four of Townsquare’s leading websites.

The following websites below are now verified publishers on the BAT platform.

XXL Magazine (xxlmag.com)
Taste of Country (tasteofcountry.com)
Ultimate Classic Rock (ultimateclassicrock.com)
PopCrush (popcrush.com)

This grants any Brave desktop user to conveniently contribute to these properties with BAT through the Integrated Brave Payments system in the browser. This could be applied either through user grants or with BAT that they purchase from their integrated wallets.

The Approach

“The partnership with Townsquare is an exciting milestone for Brave, as we connect users with publishers while testing advertising solutions that only blockchain-based technology can deliver. Brave and Townsquare share an innovative approach to digital advertising and we look forward to this collaboration,” said Brendan Eich, CEO and co-founder of Brave.

In the next few months, Townsquare and Brave will work together to test all the elements of the Blockchain-based digital advertising and BAT platform. The tests will also include ad pilots. Ad pilots are when users agree to view ads while maintaining their privacy, in exchange for a share of revenue along with the publishers. This move will also help Brave fulfill their promise of agreeing to let users earn while they browse. Premium use of the BAT platform shall also be tested by Brave and Townsquare. Here, the tokens are similar to loyalty points, since the concepts allow the use of tokens to be counted for playing games or receiving gift cards.

According to PageFair, over 600 million devices are currently using ad-blocking software, thus posing a threat to publishers. With their approach to ad-blocking, both the companies help reconnect ad-blocking users to publishers- thus rewarding them both.

Also Read: Ad Blockers: Take a Page from Video Game Advertisers

Research Now SSI Launches Industry’s First Cross-Media Advertising Dashboard

MTS Staff Writer

May 7, 2018

Research Now SSI Launches Industry’s First Cross-Media Advertising Dashboard

Includes Agile Campaign Measurement, Optimization, and On-the-fly Adjustments

Research Now revealed its first advertising measurement dashboard for gathering configurable insights about campaign effectiveness across all channels. These include digital, mobile, emerging and traditional channels. Marketing managers receive all campaign effectiveness insights especially when the campaign is live—thus helping in decisions to realize the maximum impact and calculate ROI.

Also Read: The Rise of Video: LinkedIn B2B Video NowAvailable for Native Ad Campaigns

How does it work?

The latest feature of Research Now SSI’s ADimension Ad effectiveness Platform Solution is the Cross Media Dashboard. It includes exposure in channels such as linear TV, addressable TV, OTT content distribution, Out-Of-Home (OHH) ads such as stadium screens, print and radio. When a campaign is live, the tool will allow for immediate optimization insights. Advertisers will also be able to evaluate the performance of all, some or several channels so as to determine the changes that should be made in expenditure and overall channel selection.

ADimension links impression data to individuals and not simply just to algorithms or models. ADimension chose Research Now SSO’s global since it was the largest panel available.

The ADimension measured KPI’s – such as awareness, familiarity, purchase and purchase.

The ADimension solution encompasses:

cross-channel data collection – collection of digital ad exposure plus offline exposure identified via opportunity-to-see (OTS) survey
in-market insights – variety of data filter options

Also Read: Adform Partners with Research Now to Deliver Enhanced Audience Targeting and Digital Advertising Performance Through First-Party Data

Advertisers need reliable, quick data and insights on ad effectiveness to best allocate investment across new and traditional channels. In today’s channel-rich, fast-paced environment, they also need to be nimble and approach advertising strategy iteratively. Our newly enhanced Cross-Media Dashboard combined with first-party research data is an unparalleled way for advertisers to realize significant improvements in campaign results and ROI,” says Bob Fawson, EVP, Product Development, Research Now SSI.

The company provides world-class results for more than 4000 clients in the fields of research, media, and culture; and is also recognized by quality and customer satisfaction within the marketing technology industry.

Also Read: Research Now Enhances Samplify Platform

AdRealm and UPLTV Appoint Mei Li-Berlit as GM of European Business

MTS Staff Writer

May 7, 2018

AdRealm and UPLTV Appoint Mei Li-Berlit as GM of European Business

AdRealm and UPLTV have Appointed Mei Li-Berlit as General Manager, based in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Since the aim to build a Blockchain-driven digital advertising ecosystem was initiated, AdRealm partnered with UPLTV. UPLTV is an AI-driven global advertisement mediation center with over ten million daily impressions served, and this has helped thousands of mobile game titles improve on their performance through optimizing lifetime value. Mei Li-Berlit shall be leading AdRealm and UPLTV’s Europe’s business expansion as well as regional operations.

AdRealm was founded with the motive of reshaping the global advertising ecosystem through Blockchain advertising. It was aimed at banishing problems which have long affected the industry such as data mobility, data leakage, data fraud, etc.

“We are pleased that Mei Li-Berlit has assumed the position of Europe GM for both businesses, she will be key to both UPLTV and AdRealm as we are seeing both innovation and blockchain rising in Europe,” said Brian Xie, Chairman of AdRealm Foundation.

Also Read: Viant’s Data Lake Sets the Standard for Digital Advertising Transparency

“Along with leaders in our other key markets, Mei will further strengthen our efforts in reshaping the digital advertising supply chain. Her extensive experience in business management, strategy as well as media solutions will be a vital piece in our global vision. We’re very excited for her to join us,” said Xie.

Prior to joining, Li-Berlit has held leading roles at NTT Docomo as well as the Managing Director of Gold Kiwi Media– where she led sales, partnership and channel strategy for the company. She also owns 778mobile, a mobile innovation and solutions provider focused on online marketing, advertising and content for both B2B and B2C products. Li-Berlit has Chinese roots; she holds an Engineer’s degree from RwtH Aachen and an MBA.

Appointing Li-Berlit is a part of the larger global business expansion plans especially since local offices have been built in local markets like South Korea, Vietnam, and Singapore. AdRealm is currently focusing on the first demo project which is to release in the second half of 2018.

Also Read: ConnXus Introduces Diverse Marketplace and E-Commerce Beta

ConnXus Introduces Diverse Marketplace and E-Commerce Beta

PRNewswire

May 7, 2018

ConnXus Introduces Diverse Marketplace and E-Commerce Beta

Exceeding Market Demands for an Intuitive Way to Increase Supply Chain Diversity, ConnXus Developed Diverse Marketplace and E-commerce Site in Partnership With Their Procure-To-Pay Partner, BuyerQuest

The global leader in supplier management software, ConnXus, announced the launch of a first-of-its-kind Diverse Marketplace and e-commerce site beta. The beta program will run through Fall of 2018, bringing a fresh purchasing approach to corporate procurement teams looking for an edge in supplier diversity technology.

It’s no secret that online shopping is mainstream culture, and it’s no different in the world of procurement and B2B buying. Look to the e-commerce giant Amazon which “has moved aggressively into the B2B sector, attracting more than one million business customers,” since 2015, according to a Forbes report. That same report deems the growing number of millennials in procurement expect and demand “purchasing ease-of-use they are accustomed to on consumer websites.”

Also Read: Nailing the B2B Campaign Optimization Strategies in 2018

Exceeding market demands for an intuitive way to increase supply chain diversity, ConnXus developed Diverse Marketplace and e-commerce site in partnership with their procure-to-pay partner, BuyerQuest.

ConnXus is actively seeking procurement and B2B buyer participants for the e-commerce beta. Diverse Marketplace was designed with ease-of-use at the forefront, allowing buyers to effortlessly source, compare and purchase commodities from diverse suppliers. Post-beta, the Diverse Marketplace can seamlessly integrate with the procurement organization’s existing ERP or SRM system.

“We are excited to be partnering with ConnXus to deliver the “Next Generation” Diverse Marketplace,” said Jack Mulloy, chief executive officer of BuyerQuest. “The ConnXus Diverse Marketplace offers its clients a powerful B2C shopping experience more similar to how consumers shop on Amazon or eBay than what is generally available in the market today.”

Also Read: Synthio Brings on Global B2B Marketing Leader Colin Day as Advisor

Today, the Diverse Marketplace storefront includes B2B suppliers in packaging, printing, medical supplies, office supplies and marketing categories. ConnXus is seeking more supplies in various industries to participate in the beta. Suppliers are encouraged to have up-to-date woman, minority, LGBT, veteran, or disability business certifications.

“ConnXus’ commitment to the Diverse Marketplace is driving economic inclusion for supplier communities at-large,” says Icy Williams, president and chief executive officer of Atmos360, and a Diverse Marketplace supplier.

Recommended Read: Decoding the B2B Purchasing Puzzle in 2018

Outreach CEO Manny Medina Is Entrepreneur Of The Year 2018 Award Finalist

PRNewswire

May 7, 2018

Outreach CEO Manny Medina Is Entrepreneur Of The Year 2018 Award Finalist

EY Announces That Manny Medina, CEO of Outreach, is an Entrepreneur Of The Year 2018 Award Finalist In The Pacific Northwest Region

EY announced that Manny Medina, CEO of Outreach, is a finalist for the Entrepreneur Of The Year 2018 Award in the Pacific Northwest. The awards program recognizes entrepreneurs who are excelling in areas such as innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their businesses and communities. Manny was selected as a finalist by a panel of independent judges. Award winners will be announced at a special gala event on June 15 at the Westin Seattle.

2018 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for Outreach, with two new product announcements – Outreach Meetings and Outreach Amplify – leadership additions to its rapidly growing team, and its first-ever customer awards program, Nucleo. On top of this, the leading sales engagement company is heading into its second annual customer conference, Unleash, boasting over 700 registered sales leaders and a lineup of world-class speakers. At the helm of one of the fastest growing SaaS companies in history, Medina and his team of top tech talent show no signs of slowing down.

Also Read: Outreach Expands Management Team With New COO Anna Baird And SVP Of Customer Success Mike Zinne

Outreach Expands Management Team With New COO And SVP Of Customer Success — Manny Medina

“Since launching four years ago, Outreach has experienced rapid growth from all corners – from our headcount of over 250 employees to fundraising, to onboarding new customers. With this growth comes a new set of obstacles, but we’ve overcome these challenges through embracing the grit and tenacity engrained in Outreach’s DNA, which has made us stronger, more adaptable, and ultimately transformed us into the company we are today,” said Medina. “I’m extremely proud to be selected as a finalist for EY’s Entrepreneur Of The Year Award because it’s a direct reflection of our hardworking team that continues to pioneer the customer engagement space.”

Now in its 32nd year, the program has expanded to recognize business leaders in more than 145 cities and more than 60 countries throughout the world.

Also Read: Outreach Joins LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator Application Platform (SNAP)

Regional award winners are eligible for consideration for the Entrepreneur Of The Year National competition. Award winners in several national categories, as well as the Entrepreneur Of The Year National Overall Award winner, will be announced at the Entrepreneur Of The Year National Awards gala in Palm Springs, California, on November 17, 2018. The awards are the culminating event of the Strategic Growth Forum®, the nation’s most prestigious gathering of high-growth, market-leading companies.

Founded and produced by EY, the Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards are nationally sponsored in the US by SAP America, the Kauffman Foundation and Merrill Corporation. In the Pacific Northwest, sponsors also include Woodruff Sawyer.

Viant’s Data Lake Sets the Standard for Digital Advertising Transparency

MTS Staff Writer

May 7, 2018

Unique Combination of Proprietary Tools and Deterministic Data with Cloud-Based Scale Ushers in the Next Generation of Marketing Analytics

Viant, a Meredith Corporation people-based advertising technology company, announced its cloud-based Data Lake which provides advertisers a fully transparent view of what they are getting from their cross-channel advertising investment, has launched out of beta, a major milestone for the platform. For the first time, brands, agencies and technology platforms will be able to drive true insights out of the massive volume of advertiser server logs to generate an unmatched view of advertising effectiveness.

“Our goal is to empower our clients to unlock their imagination. With the tools and data we provide they can finally turn big data from cost center to profit center, ” said Fabrizio Blanco, Chief Technology Officer, Viant.

Also Read: Viant’s ‘Power of the People’ Unleashes Dominance of People-Based Marketing in the US

The digital universe is seeing enormous growth in the amount of data companies generate, with 44 zettabytes expected to be created by 2020. Yet marketers are unable to analyze as much as 95 percent of this data due to challenges in measuring across multiple channels and partners, reaching people across all of their devices and bridging the gap between the world of offline and online. But the demand to maximize insights from this data is growing as pressure mounts on marketers to show bottom-line impact from advertising investments.

“As the auto industry continues its transition into digital, and multichannel campaigns take a greater share of ad budgets, auto marketers need more sophisticated data-driven strategies that accurately measure campaign effectiveness. With Viant’s Data Lake, we have access to highly granular reporting on attribution, path-to-purchase, and ROAS as well as more advanced data mining tools that enable deeper data analysis on the behavior of automotive shoppers, uncovering what truly drives consideration and conversion,” said Aaron Gwin, Director of Digital Strategy & Insight Marketing at Zimmerman Advertising.

Also Read: Viant And Factual Extend Partnership To Deliver People-Based Foot Traffic Attribution

Viant’s Data Lake platform is driven by a data exploration engine that processes very complex queries accompanied by a robust workflow automation tool designed to schedule, process and deliver regular reports once consistent use cases surface. Unlike any other solution on the market, Viant’s Data Lake supplies an added identity later to all data attributes within the repository by leveraging the power of the Viant Advertising Cloud’s base of registered users, deterministic device graph, and household mapping.

“The Viant Data Lake is a powerful tool, enabling my team to derive true insights and guidance from a massive pool of data. The combination of our ad serving logs and the Viant identity and device graph, supplemented by their extensive roster of deterministically matched partner data creates a unique asset enabling clients to measure their ad effectiveness,” says Jason Raguso, Principal at analytics firm Quadratic.

“With the industry’s move toward transparency and self-service, we’re proud to partner with data sources that give us the capability to exercise more control in ad campaigns. Achieving verifiable return on ad spend for clients sits at the core of what we do. Viant’s Data Lake platform helps to solve for the challenges present in today’s omnichannel world by unlocking the power of raw data. The insights we’re able to arrive at by combining 1st, 2nd and 3rd party data sources empower our brands to create more meaningful interactions with customers,” said Dan Carroll, CEO and Founder at AdPredictive.

Viant launched the Data Lake in beta with its first set of measurement-focused clients in 2017. The Viant Data Lake was recently Google Cloud Platform Certified, providing Google BigQuery customers unparalleled capability to turn huge volumes of data into valuable information.

Also Read: Viant’s Adelphic Partners with DoubleVerify, Adding Pre-bid Viewability and Brand Safety

Wavefront Partners With App-Scoop to Deliver Mobile App Solutions

MTS Staff Writer

May 7, 2018

Wavefront Partners With App-Scoop to Deliver Mobile App Solutions

Wavefront and App-Scoop Partner to Jointly Deliver Innovative Mobile App Solutions to Enterprises Looking to Digitally Transform

Wavefront Innovation Society, a Centre of Excellence headquartered in Vancouver, BC, recently announced a new partnership with App-Scoop, a consulting firm providing mobile app and web app solutions. App-Scoop is the latest addition to Wavefront’s trusted partner network, a group of companies dedicated to driving mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) innovation in Canada.

Wavefront and App-Scoop will collaborate to deliver mobile and IoT solutions into large enterprises. With complementary expertise and resources, the companies will provide full-service design, development and deployment of web and mobile apps.

Also Read: Agency Spotter Ranks the Best Mobile Marketing Agencies in New Report

Wavefront works with mobile and IoT companies at all stages of their lifecycle and across multiple industry sectors to launch new business models, change organizational processes and enhance enterprise customers’ experiences. As an innovation intermediary, Wavefront helps large enterprises digitally transform their business by connecting them to innovative Canadian startups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

App-Scoop is headquartered in Vancouver, BC with offices in Toronto and India. They provide full-service development and consulting around mobile solutions for iOS/iPad, Android and Windows Platforms. This partnership demonstrates Wavefront’s commitment to working with SMEs across Canada to foster an ecosystem of innovation.

Also Read: J.D. Power Mobile App Certification to Help Consumers Identify Best Mobile Customer Experience

“Wavefront is thrilled to welcome App-Scoop into our trusted partner network,” says Christian Magsisi, Vice President of Enterprise Solutions with Wavefront. “We look forward to engaging App-Scoop to help deliver transformative mobile solutions to enterprises.”

“App-Scoop is excited to be a part of Wavefront’s partner network,” says Pulkit Sahni, Founder of App-Scoop. “Our team is looking forward to engaging with Wavefront to provide next-generation solutions for enterprise clients.”

Wavefront is actively looking to onboard additional SMEs into the trusted partner network to jointly deliver mobile solutions into a large enterprise, as well as collaborate on marketing and thought leadership initiatives around IoT.

Recommended Read: How App Science Will Lead to Better Predictive AI

Adeptmind Integrates Machine Learning Technology in Decathlon’s Online Shopping Experience

MTS Staff Writer

May 7, 2018

Adeptmind Integrates Machine Learning Technology in Decathlon's Online Shopping Experience

Sports Retailer Wins Over Its Online Customers by Connecting Shoppers to Products Faster

Adeptmind Inc, an AI company injecting intelligence into retailers’ online sites, recently announced that it has partnered with Decathlon, the world’s biggest sports retailer and online sports store, to improve its online customer engagement, create a better shopping experience, and improve sales. Adeptmind’s machine learning technology powers Decathlon’s online search efforts to ensure customers find exactly what they’re looking for in less time than ever before.

With more than 1,350 stores across more than 40 countries, Decathlon offers a wide range of products from shoes to camping gear and everything in between. Because of its international customer base, Decathlon found that its customers had different search habits and techniques. Coupled with their wide product inventory, Decathlon found that tagging products with the right search terms took time, plus it wasn’t accurate and it didn’t always generate the proper search results.

Also Read: Battle for Machine Learning Dominance Intensifies. Is it Worth the Cost?

Decathlon started working with Adeptmind to integrate AI and machine learning technology into its online search capabilities. While other vendors offered similar solutions, no one was as flexible and adaptable to Decathlon’s needs. Adeptmind was able to use some of the most advanced targeted crawling and deep learning knowledge graph techniques to the Decathlon site bridging the gap between offline and online conversations. In addition, it was easy to integrate into Decathlon’s existing systems. Adeptmind’s self-learning engine combined with its modular deployment approach makes it easy to plug and play, with little effort from the retailer.

“We’ve found that customers don’t want to spend time searching endless entries to find a product because they can easily go to Google or Amazon and get info on what they need,” said G Wu, CEO and co-founder of Adeptmind. “Our technology adds state of the art AI technology to the online shopping experience letting retailers effectively sell inventory online and avoiding bad customer experiences.”

Also Read: Are Small and Local Businesses Ready for Voice Search?

Since working with Adeptmind, Decathlon has experienced the following:

More than 175 percent improvement in search conversion rate month-over-month
Increased search activity by more than 123 percent
A 63 percent month-over-month decrease in exits resulting immediately after a search query
A decrease in search depth (having to go to page two, three or more to find a product) by 57 percent month-over-month
A reduction in the time from start of session to sale by 48 percent

“We can better understand customers’ wants to connect shoppers to the right product faster,” said Tony Leon, CTO at Decathlon. “Adeptmind is easy to integrate, improves our ecommerce search and browsing experience, and lets us make our products easier to find. Ultimately, we’re evolving the way we think about the online experience to prepare for the future of shopping.”

Recommended Read: Is Amazon Ads The Right Move for Your Business?

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