Veritonic, the industry’s comprehensive audio analytics and research platform, unveiled a groundbreaking enhancement today within its audio attribution solution. Now, agencies and brands can precisely measure the impact of traffic originating from YouTube, as well as podcast and streaming audio channels. This expansion solidifies Veritonic's position as the most comprehensive platform for audio analytics, offering unparalleled insights into the effectiveness of marketing campaigns across various digital audio platforms.

"An impressive 78 percent of podcast listeners who are aware of YouTube have actively utilized its free version to consume podcasts," stated Scott Simonelli, CEO and Founder of Veritonic. “At Veritonic, our unwavering dedication lies in delivering our clients expansive and harmonized data across all distribution channels. By equipping them with comprehensive insights, we empower brands to make well-informed and optimized decisions regarding their audio marketing strategies, maximizing their impact in an ever-evolving digital landscape."

Veritonic’s Audio Attribution solution goes beyond surface-level metrics, allowing users to glean actionable insights at every stage of the marketing funnel, from top-of-the-funnel branding initiatives through bottom-of-the-funnel conversions & transactions. With an intuitive and interactive dashboard, users gain the power to identify the publishers and specific audio ads that drive the greatest impact. Armed with this invaluable data, brands can strategically optimize their ad performance, making every marketing dollar count and unleashing the full potential of their audio campaigns.

Wondershare Mockitt, a prototyping tool, has just released a new version featuring AI integration. Powered by OpenAI's ChatGPT, Wondershare Mockitt offers intelligent solutions for a wide range of prototyping needs – all while increasing the speed and efficiency of the prototyping experience.

The latest evolution of Mockitt  excitingly introduces AI Prototype, which completely transforms the design and prototyping process. With AI Prototype, users can enter the content of their prototype into an AI conversation box and, using Mockitt's access to AI technology, the prototype will automatically generate a prototype based on text parsing.

The latest version of Mockitt includes the following new AI-driven features:

• AI Prototyping: Generate interactive prototypes with simple prompt-based AI.
• AI Chat: Have interactive conversations with the AI Assistant for ideas and inspiration.
• AI Mind Mapping: Create intelligent mind maps with AI assistance.
• AI Flowcharting: Easily map user processes and interactions with one-click flowcharting.
• Magical Fill: Automatically fill in text in the prototype for easy additions.

"Mockitt's access to AI technology is a groundbreaking release that meets the simple need for designers to complete complex designs." Coco, Product Manager at Mockitt, said, "We are committed to introducing more frontline professional design tools and to continuously improving on innovative design features."

As the economy rebounds, novel consumption trends and consumer behaviors are beginning to take shape, prompting major brands to increase their investment to tackle challenges and seize opportunities for future growth.

These circumstances set the stage for the 70th Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Established in 1954, the Festival has become a global stage where marketing and advertising professionals converge to celebrate creative excellence and inspire business collaborations. This year, Tencent Marketing Solution (hereafter referred to as TMS) is making waves by unveiling its Joint Business Partnership (JBP) with dentsu.

Embracing Evolution and Innovation for Future Growth

On June 20th, Ethen Zhang, Deputy General Manager of Channel Sales at TMS, and Rob Gilby, APAC CEO of dentsu, jointly stamped a scroll inscribed with the Chinese characters "Lian Meng," symbolizing "Union". The exchange of "Dunhuang" artwork ornaments - symbols of "heritage, innovation, technique, and responsibility" - marked the commencement of this strategic partnership.

Ethen Zhang announced at the ceremony, "We aspire to harness dentsu's comprehensive strengths and global network resources, while fully capitalizing on the synergies of both our ecosystems. Together, we aspire to offer our clients more enduring and higher return on investment solutions."

At the ceremony, Rob Gilby shared "In today's hyper-competitive and customer-centric world, we need to know the most about customers and harness innovation and resources to continue to manage and meet expectations while also driving growth for business. Today, we are honoured and delighted to be strategically aligned with Tencent, a leader in China to shape the customer experience of the future and cultivate long-standing brand loyalty and trust."

Innovation and Collaboration: Adding Value to the Marketplace

Building on a strong track record of collaboration, the enhanced JBP will concentrate on four core areas: integrated marketing solution development, copyrighted content cooperation, marketing technology and measurement, and charity and social responsibility.

• Integrated Marketing Solutions Development: Over the past three years, marketing has transitioned from a focus on immediate conversion and effectiveness to a greater emphasis on long-term value, acknowledging the crucial role of brand building in business growth. Dentsu will leverage its resources and expertise in creative, media, and customer experience and capitalize on the Tencent (00700.HK) ecosystem to create a platform for sustainable growth for its clients.
• Copyrighted Content Cooperation: Tencent's ecosystem incorporates a variety of platforms such as Tencent Video, Tencent Sports, Tencent Games, among others, supported by a robust distribution network. Concurrently, dentsu boasts a rich content portfolio and copyright configuration, including animation, cartoons and eSports. The partners will explore potential collaborations in areas such as copyright cooperation, content introduction and expansion into global markets, as well as joint marketing and operations.
• Marketing Technology & Measurement: The influence of branding marketing on businesses and content marketing on brand building remains a pressing issue. By amalgamating Tencent's measurement and data product, RACE, with dentsu's profound insights across a multitude of markets and industries, the alliance will facilitate collaboration in marketing measurement, offering a more comprehensive and scientifically grounded perspective to their clients.
• Charity & Social Responsibility: In 2022, dentsu launched their "2030 Sustainable Development" plan, which strongly aligns with Tencent's vision of "Tech for Good". The two companies agreed to employ their respective resources and strengths to foster sustainable development alongside their partners.

CEO of dentsu China, Deric Wong, stated, "Consumers demand quality choices in today's digitally-savvy market and dentsu's strategic partnership with Tencent teams us together - leveraging innovations, resources and our leading business positions to help brands predict, plan and move forward for what's next. At dentsu, we think global and act local, to understand each market better. Collaboratively with Tencent's unparalleled Internet value added services in China, we look to create tomorrow's experience, today!" .

Tommy Li, President of Amplifi, dentsu China, also expressed, "Dentsu's history of innovation have enabled us as Business Producers to help global brands expand their footprints into Mainland China. Together with Tencent, as a leading investor and innovator for IP in China for its video, gaming platforms and robust network… we look to creating great opportunities through our international network and strategic alliances, to bring our capabilities to China and beyond."

Xiaoke Li, Senior Director of the Channel Sales Department at TMS, stating, "Dentsu is a marketing partner with a century-old heritage. We have carried out fruitful cooperation in fields such as creativity and marketing science exploration. And look forward to the upgrade of this partnership to bring more inspiration to the market."

Maxxie Qi, dentsu Cooperation Lead of the Channel Sales Department at TMS, remarked, "We eagerly anticipate fully leveraging dentsu's robust capabilities in content, creativity, media, and consumer experience within Tencent's ecosystem. Our aim is to deliver more sustainable and integrated solutions to our global clientele."

As we navigate these VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) times, embracing change and daring to innovate requires unyielding belief and tenacity. TMS is committed to ongoing collaboration with the dentsu, welcoming further possibilities for innovation with an open and win-win mindset, and jointly propelling the continuous evolution of the marketing ecosystem.

Dstny, the leading European provider of cloud-based business communications, is making significant strides in the customer engagement market with the introduction of Dstny Engage. This ground-breaking customer engagement solution is designed to empower small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) and demonstrates Dstny's commitment to delivering enhanced value across various segments within the SME market.

Dstny Engage, the latest addition to Dstny's expanding customer engagement portfolio, complements the existing ConnectMe Omnichannel product, further solidifying Dstny's position as a key player in this field. This strategic expansion follows Dstny's successful acquisition of Tactful AI in May 2022, which has enabled the integration of advanced capabilities and expertise into the development of Dstny Engage.

"With Dstny Engage, SMEs can unlock the true potential of customer engagement and take their business to the next level," stated Daan De Wever, CEO of Dstny. "By providing a unified inbox and a rich set of productivity features, Dstny Engage empowers SMEs to supercharge engagement, boost customer satisfaction and loyalty, and create immediate value for their users."

Mohamed Elmasry, Managing Director of Dstny Engage, expressed excitement about the transformative impact Dstny Engage will have on SMEs and their customers, stating, "We are thrilled about the possibilities Dstny Engage brings, empowering SMEs to forge stronger connections with their customers, drive meaningful interactions, and propel them towards success."

Dstny Engage revolutionizes customer engagement for SMEs by leveraging cutting-edge technology and advanced functionalities. With seamless integration of business applications, intelligent routing, intent detection, smart workflows, advanced insights, and a user-friendly no-code AI and automation studio, SMEs can deliver exceptional experiences, drive personalized, timely, and impactful interactions across all channels.

Dstny's commitment to the customer engagement market is evident in their expansion efforts, aiming to provide SMEs with a comprehensive suite of solutions tailored to their unique needs. By automating processes, optimizing customer interactions, and delivering exceptional experiences, Dstny Engage positions SMEs at the forefront of customer engagement innovation, equipping them with the competitive edge needed to thrive in today's fast-paced business landscape.

PebblePost, the leading marketing technology platform for the Programmatic Direct Mail channel, is excited to announce a number of significant enhancements to its industry-leading platform that will streamline and expand the ways in which brands identify and market to addressable audiences at home.

The deprecation of third-party cookies and dynamic shifts in consumer behavior have made it increasingly difficult for leading brands to consistently drive and measure incremental reach and performance. As a result, brands have come to rely on channels like Programmatic Direct Mail to drive performance throughout the customer lifecycle.

These enhancements build on the company's existing end-to-end solution, combining the speed, flexibility, and relevance of digital with the high-impact creative and measurable performance of direct mail. Now, marketers can take full advantage of integrated workflow automation, at-a-glance performance reporting, and seamless integrations that allow them to focus on the insights and strategies that drive profitable growth, instead of logistics like campaign management.

"For many brands, Programmatic Direct Mail is their highest performing channel, and yet they've barely scratched the surface of what is possible," said Rahul Lahiri, Chief Product Officer at PebblePost. "With this enhancement to the platform, marketers gain the time and insights they need to unlock acquisition, retargeting, and retention solutions that drive full-funnel growth, integrating PDM even more deeply into their always-on marketing mix."

Key enhancements of the PebblePost Platform now include:

1. Integrated Creative Proofing Workflows: Marketers can further streamline creative processes with fully-integrated proofing tools available directly within the platform. With intuitive interfaces and real-time approval capabilities, creative teams can seamlessly iterate and optimize their Programmatic Direct Mail designs, ensuring high-quality, impactful programs.
   
   
2. Performance Dashboard: Marketers now have access to at-a-glance insights and out-of-the-box conversion-rate lift in a completely automated interface that's powered by PebblePost's comprehensive transaction match methodology, a unique measurement capability that connects both online and offline transactions back to a single household with 1:1 accuracy.
   
   
3. Custom Report Builder: PebblePost's custom report builder empowers brands to create tailored reports aligned with their unique goals and KPIs. The platform provides a wide range of options and data filters, enabling marketers to extract actionable insights and present campaign success to stakeholders with precision and clarity.
   
   
4. Expanded Partner Network: The expanded partner network enables rapid integrations required to connect with a marketer's ever-evolving tech stack so that they can securely onboard commerce data and view PDM performance data alongside other channels in their preferred measurement platform.

Customers using Marketing GPT will be able to leverage Typeface's generative AI content platform to create contextual visual assets for multi-channel campaigns.

Typeface, a generative AI platform for enterprise content creation, announced a new partnership with Salesforce to integrate their brand-personalized generative AI capabilities with Salesforce Marketing GPT, the first GPT-enabled marketing platform built on the world's most trusted CRM. Through this partnership, Salesforce and Typeface customers will be able to deliver contextual, customized content powered by generative AI across the entire customer journey.

In today's fast-paced digital landscape, teams grapple with increasing pressure to deliver personalized content quickly on customers' preferred platforms and channels. According to a recent Salesforce report, 60% of marketers say generative AI will transform their role. With this integration, businesses can look forward to unlocking tailored content across all their audience segments, campaigns, and channels.

Typeface provides dedicated AI models for each customer, which enables them to tailor AI-generated multimodal content for different personas and segments without concerns about data leakage. By integrating Salesforce's Marketing GPT with Typeface's brand-specific generative AI, businesses will be able to achieve scalable content personalization, boosting customer engagement and conversion rates.

"Personalized content at scale can significantly improve customer experience at every stage of their journey," stated Abhay Parasnis, Founder and CEO of Typeface. "Our partnership with Salesforce brings the power of Typeface brand-affinitized AI within Salesforce's widely used marketing services. Together, Typeface and Salesforce will provide comprehensive, high-quality customer and brand intelligence to create significantly more customized content for marketers in a fraction of the time and costs."

With this integration, marketers will be able to leverage their own style guides, messaging, and brand assets to create highly relevant, customized content using trusted data from Salesforce's Marketing GPT. Together, Typeface and Salesforce plan to bring new levels of creativity and productivity with generative AI to enterprises worldwide.

"With an ever-growing number of organizations relying on Salesforce, this integration will help deliver tailored, on-brand content seamlessly within the workflow of our customers. By partnering with Typeface to integrate personalized content directly into Marketing GPT, we are transforming the way businesses engage with their customers, enabling them to foster deeper, trusted connections and drive unparalleled productivity," said Stephen Hammond, EVP and GM of Marketing Cloud at Salesforce.

Leading Layer 1 Celebrates Four-year Mainnet Anniversary and 30 Millionth Block

Algorand, the pure proof-of-stake Layer-1 blockchain network, continues to deliver the advanced technology required to power real world applications with its latest protocol upgrade that unleashes faster block times, as well as other industry-leading improvements.

Today's protocol upgrade, now live on Mainnet, reduces block time to roughly 3.3 seconds - a more than 10 percent increase in speed - while maintaining instant transaction finality. Algorand's unique ability to instantly finalize transactions, along with other performance enhancements, empowers Algorand-based applications to deliver a user experience comparable to that of traditional Web2 applications while leveraging the security and decentralization inherent in blockchain technology.

This week, the industry-leading protocol also celebrates the four-year anniversary of Algorand Mainnet, and is on track to record its 30 millionth block. Underpinning these achievements is the recognition that Algorand has experienced zero down time since it went live in 2019.

Algorand's latest technical release incorporates valuable feedback from the developer community to ensure application development is faster, more accessible and more cost-efficient. Some of the latest products and enhancements available to builders on Algorand include:

• Simulate: a powerful simulator for smart contracts. Simulate allows developers to rigorously test, identify and rectify any issues ahead of deploying to Mainnet. Simulate also enables highly versatile reading of blockchain data, offering developers a clear and customizable view into the blockchain. For more information on Simulate, please see an overview here.
  
  
• New Developer Capabilities: New features include group resource sharing for application calls, devmode timestamp control for testing dApps and new Algod endpoints for transaction group state updates. More information on these capabilities can be found here.
  
  
• Conduit: a new tool for flexible and lightweight data access. This technology enables developers to run their own data solutions, accessing their specific data needs in a simple, flexible, affordable manner. For more information on Conduit, please see an overview here.

"We are hyper focused on Algorand providing the best tech for developers to engage with and end users to experience," said Paul Riegle, Chief Product Officer at Algorand. "Through these new capabilities, builders can get higher quality dApps to market faster through customized data sets and faster and more efficient testing."

Algorand continues to distinguish itself as a leading blockchain protocol, hitting speeds of 10,000 TPS and supporting quantum-secure interoperability through State Proofs. Today's protocol update also comes on the heels of the Algorand Foundation's launch of AlgoKit, a comprehensive, easy-to-use developer tool suite for building Web3 applications on Algorand.