Vistar Media, a cutting-edge global provider of programmatic technology for digital out-of-home (DOOH), announced today the release of a new creative advertising white paper: “Mind the Gap: Bridging the Gap Between Technology & Creative in DOOH.” The new resource addresses the knowledge gap between creative and media planning teams, and how this disconnect – or “gap” represents a significant source of untapped potential for the DOOH channel. Mind the Gap outlines the importance of optimizing creative for out-of-home (OOH) and delivers campaign planning strategies and operational best practices, including:

• Why creative is so critical to the success of an OOH campaign
• How creative teams can optimize assets for DOOH screens
• How to use data-driven creative to increase relevancy and engagement
• How media planners and creative teams can break down organizational silos to close the gap and drive more impactful campaigns

“The capabilities in digital out-of-home have evolved rapidly over the past few years, inherently creating a gap in knowledge of the channel’s impressive offerings that many media planners and creative teams possess,” said Leslie Lee, SVP of Marketing at Vistar Media. “Combining programmatic technology with digital signage has created a new world of possibilities for advertising in the physical world. The channel today is dynamic, responsive and powered with so many ways to reach audiences through unique and privacy-safe targeting methodologies. Our goal behind this white paper is to provide an overview of these transformations and outline how to activate campaigns with data-driven creative at the forefront – inspiring media and creative teams to better align their strategies at the beginning of the campaign planning process to drive stronger results.”

“OOH is a phenomenal canvas for creative storytelling, and is situated in some of the most contextually relevant locations within a consumer’s daily journey,” added Lee. “There’s a reason Vistar is seeing adoption of programmatic DOOH grow year after year, and it’s crucial for teams to understand all the channel has to offer in order to effectively plan for OOH in their omnichannel marketing strategies.”

Magnite, the world’s largest independent sell-side advertising company, announced a technical integration with FreeWheel, a global technology platform for the television advertising industry, to enhance the ability of FreeWheel technology users to see multiple sources of demand in one platform, across both programmatic and direct transactions.

“We are committed to enhancing interoperability across the premium TV ecosystem and welcome Magnite as one of our new integration partners,” said Soo Jin Oh, Chief Strategy Officer at FreeWheel. “By better integrating Magnite’s programmatic technology, we continue to execute on our goal of maximizing competition and demand for our clients’ inventory via unified ad decisioning within FreeWheel’s TV Platform. Ultimately, this will not only benefit inventory owners and buyers, but also will improve the viewing experience for consumers.”

FreeWheel will integrate programmatic requests from Magnite into its TV platform to provide FreeWheel’s publisher clients with enhanced unified decisioning capabilities, now inclusive of Magnite’s programmatic technology. This means that mutual publisher clients will have better insight into ad creative, frequency capping and holistic management across systems and sales execution types. This will enable those inventory owners on the FreeWheel platform to better maximize yield, while also improving the overall experience for advertisers, including better alignment to media goals and adherence to business rules.

“The growth of programmatic advertising in streaming video has been transformative, enabling advertisers to reach their audiences with greater accuracy and efficiency than ever before,” said Sean Buckley, Chief Revenue Officer at Magnite. “By enabling media owners to manage their revenue streams holistically across programmatic and traditional direct sales, this integration with FreeWheel will enable programmatic to remain an integrated part of publishers’ sales strategies and will help accelerate growth even further.”

“Efforts to drive interoperability and unify decisioning across demand sources are key to helping media companies manage inventory and optimize advertising solutions in an increasingly complex TV ecosystem,” said Jill Steinhauser, Senior Vice President, Ad Sales Planning and Operations at Warner Bros. Discovery. “FreeWheel and Magnite are paving the way for greater interoperability and helping to solve for one of the industry’s most pressing challenges.”

Experienced Corporate Finance and Revenue Optimization Executive to Join authID

authID.ai, a leading provider of secure identity verification and authentication solutions, today announced that Ed Sellitto will be appointed as Chief Financial Officer effective August 15, 2023. Mr. Sellitto will succeed Annie Pham, who will step down from her position to pursue other opportunities. Ms. Pham will remain with the Company through the announcement and filing of the Company’s Q2 2023 results and thereafter to help ensure a smooth transition.

Mr. Sellitto is a seasoned financial executive, with over fifteen years of experience in revenue optimization and financial operations roles supporting high-growth B2B, SaaS organizations to build and optimize their go-to-market operations. Most recently, he served as Vice President, Revenue Operations at Zero Hash, a Digital Asset-as-a-Service infrastructure provider.   

“I am excited to welcome Ed to the authID leadership team as our next CFO,” said Rhon Daguro, authID CEO. “Having previously worked with Ed in a business that we grew to over $100M in ARR in 3 years, I respect his exceptional intellect and agility and proven success in helping drive revenue optimization for high growth SaaS organizations. Ed will be integral to our efforts to grow our business and improve operational efficiency, in order to help authID advance to the next level of market leadership.”

“I look forward to joining the authID leadership team and collaborating closely with Rhon to help the Company drive revenue growth and achieve its business goals,” said Ed Sellitto. “I very much thrive in a growth-oriented company, and I am eager to leverage my domain experience in identity, strategic thinking, financial discipline, and tactical execution skills to help accomplish authID’s growth targets and drive value for our customers and shareholders.”

“I would like to thank Annie for her efforts and support, as I got to work with her over the last few months, in particular in helping close our recent fund raise and note conversion and regain compliance with Nasdaq listing standards” said Rhon Daguro, CEO of authID. “She has been an integral part of helping to lead the company and we wish her all the best in her next endeavors.”

Mr. Sellitto’s compensation package includes basic salary, bonus opportunity based on achievement of future Company milestones, and a grant of options to purchase 50,000 shares of new Common Stock following the commencement of his employment, pursuant to Nasdaq Rule 5635(c)(4).

The campaign combined a full lead generation service with a ‘for good’ reward

Cleo, the innovative ‘for good’ platform, is delighted to announce the successful conclusion of its first campaign, launched in collaboration with Lenovo's Servers and Storage division in Europe. The campaign, which combined a full lead generation service through Cleo’s lead engine with a ‘for good’ reward, exemplifies Cleo’s groundbreaking approach to sustainable marketing.

Designed around a highly targeted Account Based Marketing (ABM) plan targeting specific enterprise accounts, Cleo’s Q2 goal was to generate 95 engagements. The campaign offered the audience detailed brochure content showcasing Lenovo as the ideal partner. And, as a ‘thank you’ for their engagement, each respondent could claim a Cleo reward - to offset up to 275 kg of carbon in return for a brochure download. This included an additional incentive where Cleo offered a bonus 10% to users who completed a short sales survey upon claiming their NFTs to generate even more value in the lead passing process.

In this win-win model, Lenovo rewards their respondents for their time and attention, generating a climate contribution while receiving valuable information. On the other hand, the user's engagement is recognised in the form of a beautifully designed Cleo Non-Fungible Token (NFT) generated on the blockchain and stored in their Cleo wallet, a visual representation of the company’s contribution to the planet.

For each engagement generated, $CLEO tokens were awarded. These tokens funded the carbon offsetting process, carried out in partnership with The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve in Borneo. This project holds the distinction of being the first forest-carbon project in the world to receive triple-gold validation under the Climate Community and Biodiversity Alliance Standard (CCBA) and aligns with all 17 of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The campaign thus supported the protection of forests and indigenous wildlife, and improved the livelihoods of local communities.

Jason Sibley, CEO of Cleo, expressed his excitement about the news, stating: “We have been thrilled to welcome Lenovo as a pioneering client to help drive social and environmental impact at scale, while going about their everyday business of delivering sales and marketing programmes that sustain and grow their own business. By leveraging our unique blockchain-enabled program, we can help Lenovo build pipelines efficiently, reduce its digital carbon footprint and create a more sustainable future for all.”

Haley Last, Lenovo Campaign Director, shared her thoughts on the announcement by saying: “We were delighted to work with Cleo’s Marketing For Good platform and to add this to our overall demand generation strategy. This helps drive quality leads while meeting Lenovo's sustainability standards at the same time.”

The results of this pioneering campaign are impressive:

• The generation of 95 high-quality leads for Lenovo, achieved at a lower cost per lead.
• A total carbon offset of 26,125 KG (26.125 tonnes).
• 5% gross Cleo revenue allocated for burning $CLEO tokens a further 5% invested in Cleo’s community fund for impact investing.

Cleo’s debut campaign illustrates the tremendous potential of its platform. By integrating environmental responsibility into marketing practices, Cleo offers a novel approach where businesses, individuals, and the planet all benefit. The success of this campaign marks an exciting milestone in Cleo’s journey, as it continues to work towards its vision of a sustainable, digitally interconnected world. You can view the digital certificate of completion awarded to all participants here.

Accelerating efficiencies, reducing costs, and maximizing revenue for cable & broadcast networks

WideOrbit, a market leader in broadcast and network TV and radio inventory and revenue workflow management, today announced the latest release of WO Network, the company’s flagship network ad sales and commercial operations platform. Already the solid foundation from which US cable and broadcast TV networks manage, execute, and scale ad traffic, WO Network 2023 introduces key benefits to help networks generate new revenue, reduce costs, and improve efficiency, with enhanced Direct Response automation, improved precision when calculating CPMs and accounting for delivered impressions, improvements to the Electronic Material Instructions module, and more.

WideOrbit remains committed to working closely with customers to help them improve their existing processes through continuous improvement in our core products. That commitment is evident in the newest release of WO Network, which introduces new features and enhancements to help cable and broadcast networks save time and money through significant improvements to the user experience, streamlining workflows to improve efficiency and productivity.

Highlights of WO Network 2023 benefits include:

• Precision: Properties can now define raw impression values from 1(000) thousand to the unit level 1(001) which allows users more accuracy when calculating CPMs and accounting for delivered impressions
• Direct Response (DR) Automation (Revisions): Import DR deal changes into existing WO Network Deals, improving the efficiency of importing DR Deals from an external partner
• Constraint Instruction Bundle Audit: Adds a new tab within Constraint Instruction Bundles to track changes to bundles
• Deal Reweight Analysis Report: Extends daypart functionality to support user-defined Client Dayparts instead of Selling Name dayparts
• Deal Search/Master Deals: Allows users to create Master Deals from an existing group of deals from Deal Search
• Electronic Material Instructions improvements:
  • The ability to check for pending Electronic Material Instructions records at Log Finalization
  • Users can modify dates, times, day(s) of week, and spot type in instructions prior to import
  • Warnings to users regarding materials that may have exclusions or rejected statuses upon import

“WO Network 2023 simplifies network ad sales and commercial operations with new features and enhancements that deliver revenue growth, cost savings, and improved efficiency to our cable and broadcast network customers,” says Susie Hedrick, WideOrbit President and Managing Director, Traffic Systems. “We are excited to introduce these latest improvements to WO Network, furthering our commitment to continuous innovation and investment in our core products.”

Clients can realize further benefits from the following additional enhancements to WO Network 2023: Improvements to Advanced Log Rules that allow Placer to move units that are in violation of user-defined Log Rules; Spot Distribution enhancements allowing users to easily redistribute units to a different day of week (displace only) using the Spot Distribution tab; a new Ad-ID filter added to Material Instructions to help users easily identify correct Ad-IDs.

Gupshup, the world's leading conversational engagement platform today unveiled its latest product, Click-To-WhatsApp Ads Manager, a full-funnel tool that enables brands to harness the power of CTWA. The core focus of this launch is to empower brands to gather actionable performance insights through precise attribution while managing every aspect of the process through a single, comprehensive, easy-to-use tool. This announcement is the first of its kind and marks a giant leap forward in state-of-the-art conversational advertising.

The tool enables precise attribution at various levels of granularity including campaign, ad group, and individual ad. It provides an exhaustive analysis of campaign performance and return on ad spend (ROAS). Pulling data from both Meta Ads Manager and Gupshup's conversational platform, it aggregates them to provide deep and actionable insights.

The optimization module uses these insights to enhance performance through A/B testing of ad allocations, ad content, bot journeys, remarketing campaign rules, and more. It leverages Generative AI to recommend or even make changes to ad creatives. The last-click data can also be sent back to Meta via its conversions API to improve ad targeting.

With in-built end-to-end automation of conversational advertising, brands can quickly and easily set up conversational journeys and link them to campaigns, ad groups, or individual ads. Qualified leads automatically flow into a customer data platform along with its conversation history and related meta-data - thus enabling brands to gather first-party data.

Advertisers can set up remarketing campaigns, triggered by time, event, or manually, and link them to specific campaigns. Qualified leads can be presented with the option to transact and pay immediately or be optionally redirected to either a chatbot or human agent to drive conversion, immediately or in the future. All data is available through real-time reports that provide a holistic view of the ad journey such as ad spend, ad impressions, clicks, conversions, chat analysis, and campaign performance.

The benefits to brands of this tool are immense. It increases the overall conversion rate through future remarketing to users that don't convert immediately. That's because the data of every user that clicks on a Click to Whatsapp ad is captured and added to its first-party database with zero drop-offs. The new tool, along with the rest of Gupshup's engagement platform, provides brands with a single, unified, comprehensive platform to drive every aspect of conversational engagement.

"Click-to-Whatsapp is the next big frontier in digital advertising. Gupshup is excited to lead the way in helping brands to harness the awesome power of Ads that Click to WhatsApp to drive substantially higher Return On Ad Spend while also building a first-party database. We've received exceptional feedback from our beta customers and partners, and are now making it available to all brands, agencies, and partners worldwide" said Beerud Sheth, co-founder and CEO of Gupshup.

Gupshup is making this tool available to not just the brands themselves, but also ad agencies, ISVs, resellers, and other distribution partners. Gupshup works with thousands of partners within the Whatsapp ecosystem and plans to now empower them with this latest tool.

Learn how brands can make the most of their national advertising fund with an on-brand, on-demand, high-performing social advertising program.

Tiger Pistol, the most advanced collaborative advertising platform, recently announced the launch of their groundbreaking resource, "The Definitive Guide to Paid Social Management for Franchise Marketers." This comprehensive guide is designed to empower franchise marketers to regain control over their brand, eliminate advertising competency gaps among franchisees, and satisfy the needs of their franchisees through effective social advertising strategies.

"Franchisees are truly the lifeblood of a franchise brand. They have invested in the brand with the intention of leveraging its immense power to attract customers in a highly competitive marketplace," said Sarah Cucchiara, Vice President of Business Development, Tiger Pistol. "Our guide demonstrates how franchise marketers can channel their franchisees' energy and passion by empowering them with effective tools and strategies for successful, on-brand social advertising."

Packed with proactive solutions for franchise marketers to regain control over their brand and streamline the social advertising process, "The Definitive Guide to Paid Social Management for Franchise Marketers" offers actionable advice on how to structure an on-brand, on-demand personalized approach that aligns with their franchisees' unique business needs.

Sakon, the leading platform and services provider for understanding, managing, and transforming enterprise communications, has been named a Visionary in the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Mobility Management Services, Global. Sakon is one of seventeen MMS providers acknowledged by Gartner and positioned based on its Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision.

“We believe this recognition of Sakon as a Visionary in its 2023 Magic Quadrant validates our approach as today’s device and telecom service demands continue to shift,” said Amine Doukkali, Chief Operating Officer at Sakon. “Device life today is vastly more complex for IT to manage than in the past, with more devices and device programs, more integrations and ownership models to support, and the increased requirements for end-user enablement and security. Such complexity requires a single platform to handle all challenges – unifying data, automating and orchestrating processes, enabling services and service providers, and simplifying end-user experiences.”

“Sakon’s seamless integration and orchestration of lifecycle services means we can handle any service requirement for enterprises globally, and those customers appreciate how we assimilate data across the entire mobility ecosystem,” added Andy Goorno, Sakon’s Chief Executive Officer. “We’re on a journey toward hyper-growth, fostering super-users, partnering with carriers and VARs, and coordinating with leading IT service providers. Meantime, our engineering innovations have brought us more engagements with digital workplace leaders, enabling centralized self-service solutions for end-users, simplifying the work of IT.”

Today, Sakon offers an MMS solution globally and manages almost 3 million mobile devices across all five regions on its device platform, both for its direct customers and through its systems integrator partners. It delivers capabilities via its “Device Platform” framework. Sakon provides a purpose-built cloud-based platform to manage all data and experiences to support Enterprise Communication Services and the Modern Device Lifecycle. Sakon integrates with mobility service providers, VARs, ISVs, and OEM platforms to facilitate a seamless end-to-end customer experience with real-time updates about estates, orders, tickets, and SLAs. Many Fortune 500 customers rely on Sakon to enable their corporate liable, BYOD, Mobile Device as a Service (MDaaS), and hybrid mobility environments.

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Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Managed Mobility Services, Global, Katja Ruud, Leif-Olof Wallin, Bill Menezes, 31 July 2023