Cvent, a leading provider of meetings, events, and hospitality technology, has announced its acquisition of Splash, a prominent event marketing technology company. This strategic move aims to bolster Cvent’s event marketing offerings by integrating Splash’s user-friendly platform, which enables marketers to create impactful, measurable, and repeatable event programs.

Key Highlights of the Acquisition

• Expansion of Event Marketing Tools: The acquisition will combine Cvent's comprehensive event management solutions with Splash's intuitive platform, enhancing capabilities for creating, executing, and measuring event programs.
• Increased Market Reach: With over 500 leading organizations, including more than 60 Fortune 1000 companies, already relying on Splash, the integration will significantly broaden Cvent's customer base and market influence.
• Strengthening Event Strategy: This acquisition aligns with trends identified in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Event Technology Platforms, highlighting the growing importance of field marketing events for lead generation and business growth.

Benefits for Marketers

• Streamlined Event Execution: Marketers will benefit from advanced tools that simplify event registration, boost attendance, and support the execution of repeatable event programs.
• Enhanced Brand Awareness: The integration provides access to cutting-edge event marketing templates and a customizable asset library, ensuring a consistent and impactful brand experience.
• Improved Measurement and Strategy: Robust reporting solutions and MarTech integrations will enable marketers to measure event results, refine strategies, and drive sales velocity.

Statements from Leadership

• Matthew Curry, Interim CEO of Splash: “We admire Cvent’s long-time innovation and leadership in the meetings and events space. For over a decade, we have empowered marketers to create valuable, repeatable events through our powerful, intuitive tools. With Cvent, we look forward to accelerating event marketing success, making it more accessible, measurable, and impactful for businesses worldwide.”
• Reggie Aggarwal, CEO & Founder of Cvent: “The technology-driven convergence of marketing and events is an exciting growth opportunity. Pairing Splash’s expertise in field marketing events with our robust event and marketing platform further strengthens our ability to empower marketers to create and execute on-brand, high-impact event programs that deliver real results.”

Cvent’s acquisition of Splash marks a significant advancement in the event marketing sector, combining Cvent’s event management solutions with Splash’s innovative marketing tools. This integration promises to enhance event strategy, improve measurement, and drive greater business success for organizations globally.

Odeeo, a leading global platform specializing in in-game audio advertising, has successfully closed a strategic funding round of over USD $5 million. This funding round saw participation from both existing investors and new backers, including Atinum Investments, one of Korea’s largest early-stage investment funds. This investment will support Odeeo’s ambitious global expansion plans.

Key Highlights of the Funding Round

• Strategic Investment Partners: Atinum Investments joins Odeeo’s existing investors, Play Ventures and Anton Gauffin, to provide substantial financial backing.
• Expansion Focus: The funding will accelerate Odeeo’s growth in key markets, especially in North America and Asia, enhancing its global presence and operational capabilities.
• US Expansion: Odeeo is expanding its US team with key hires and leadership relocations, including Co-Founder and President Elad Stern, who has moved from Tel Aviv to New York.

Statements from Key Figures

• Sang-Ho Park, Managing Director of Atinum Investments: “Atinum prides itself on unearthing companies with high growth potential. Odeeo has the intrinsic value a VC seeks in its investments. Odeeo has the magic combination of technology, people, traction, and scalability and it perfectly complements our portfolio.”
• Amit Monheit, Odeeo CEO and Co-Founder: “We are delighted to welcome Atinum Investments to the Odeeo family, and we’re excited that they share our vision for how the power of audio can evolve the gaming industry. Their expertise in gaming and tech, as well as their strong presence in one of gaming’s largest markets, will be critical to helping Odeeo meet the worldwide demand for our offerings.”
• Elad Stern, Co-Founder and President of Odeeo: “In-game audio has become much more mainstream in the past two years, and nowhere is more critical to adoption than the US market. I’m very excited to be moving to New York to open Odeeo’s first full American office and work with the US team to champion in-game audio solutions to the world’s biggest advertisers and agencies, many of whom are already partners of ours.”

Strategic Goals and Market Expansion

• North American Market: Odeeo’s expansion in North America will involve growing its US team and establishing its first full office in New York. This move is aimed at enhancing its presence and operations within the US.
• Asian Market: Odeeo plans to leverage its partnership with Atinum to increase its footprint in Asian markets, including Korea and Vietnam, complementing its existing operations in Japan.
• MENA Expansion: The recent partnership with Evolution Media Group marks Odeeo’s entry into the MENA region, further broadening its market reach.

The successful $5 million funding round positions Odeeo for accelerated growth and market expansion. With strategic investments and leadership moves, Odeeo is set to enhance its global presence and continue driving innovation in the in-game audio advertising sector.

Zeotap, a leading Customer Data Platform (CDP) and data solutions provider, has announced a strategic partnership with ID5, a top identity provider in the digital advertising sector. This collaboration aims to address the growing challenge of audience targeting and monetization in a cookieless digital landscape. The integration of ID5’s identity technology with Zeotap’s data solutions offers a privacy-compliant alternative to third-party cookies.

Key Benefits of the Partnership

• Cookieless Data Activation: The integration of ID5’s identifiers into Zeotap’s ID graph allows for effective data activation and audience targeting across the programmatic ecosystem without relying on third-party cookies.
• Enhanced Reach and Targeting: Zeotap CDP clients can now extend their customer data with ID5’s identifiers, improving both first-party and third-party reach. Additionally, Zeotap’s third-party data segments will now include ID5 identifiers, ensuring effective audience targeting on the cookieless web.
• Privacy Compliance: The partnership supports privacy-compliant data activation, respecting user privacy while enabling personalized advertising experiences.

Technology Overview

• ID5’s Identity Resolution: ID5 utilizes both probabilistic and deterministic methods to provide precise and scalable identity resolution. As a widely adopted currency in the programmatic ecosystem, ID5 is supported by major demand-side platforms (DSPs) and supply-side platforms (SSPs), enhancing its value in the industry.
• Universal ID Solution: The collaboration between Zeotap and ID5 aims to offer a universal ID solution that balances transparency, control, and privacy, ensuring effective audience engagement and data activation despite the decline of third-party cookies.

Statements from Key Figures

• Matt Bennathan, Chief Commercial Officer at Zeotap: “We are delighted to partner with ID5. Providing alternative and incremental reach beyond cookies, the proven ID5 methodology will add tremendous value to activation use cases across both CDP and Audience clients. Mathieu and the team wrap everything in service excellence; very much in keeping with the Zeotap ethos. Such a good match of people and technology!”
• Mathieu Roche, CEO and Co-Founder of ID5: “ID5’s partnership with Zeotap shows our commitment to addressing complex addressability challenges. By integrating the ID5 ID into Zeotap’s ID graph, we will empower marketers and publishers to maintain effective audience targeting and data activation despite signal loss. This collaboration not only enhances ROI for advertisers but also strengthens the open internet by supporting transparent, user-friendly identity solutions that respect privacy to enable personalization at scale.”

The strategic partnership between Zeotap and ID5 represents a significant advancement in the digital advertising industry, offering a robust solution for audience targeting and data activation in a cookieless world. By integrating ID5’s privacy-compliant identifiers with Zeotap’s data solutions, the collaboration aims to enhance marketing effectiveness while respecting user privacy and supporting the open internet.

SlashNext, a leader in next-gen AI cloud email and communications security, has unveiled Project Phantom, an innovative solution designed to combat phishing and malware threats. This new offering includes zero-trust stealth mode browsers that bypass common obfuscation techniques used by threat actors, providing robust protection against sophisticated cyber threats.

Key Features of Project Phantom

• Zero-Trust Stealth Mode Browsers: These advanced browsers mimic human interactions to navigate and analyze CAPTCHAs and other obfuscation methods that often block traditional security tools. This unique approach allows SlashNext to uncover and address threats hidden behind these barriers.
• Enhanced Threat Detection: By interacting with CAPTCHA-protected malicious URLs, Project Phantom improves the detection and blocking of phishing and malware threats that are often missed by conventional methods.
• Advanced Threat Analysis: SlashNext’s Proactive AI utilizes cutting-edge techniques such as computer vision, natural language processing (NLP), document object model (DOM) inspection, and nested link analysis to preemptively detect over 800,000 new URL threats daily.

The Challenge with CAPTCHAs

• Obfuscation Techniques: CAPTCHAs, while designed to verify human interactions and improve user experience, are frequently exploited by threat actors to obscure malicious content. This can hinder security services from accessing and analyzing phishing sites.
• Malicious URL Protection: Over 60% of malicious URLs delivered via email are protected by CAPTCHA services, complicating threat detection efforts.

Benefits of SlashNext’s Project Phantom

• Comprehensive Threat Coverage: Project Phantom effectively bypasses CAPTCHA barriers from services like Cloudflare and Google, enhancing the detection of advanced threats across trusted platforms such as SharePoint, Google, Microsoft, and Adobe.
• Superior Detection Capabilities: SlashNext’s AI technology processes over 200 million URLs daily, identifying 99.99% of URL-based threats with minimal false positives. This proactive approach provides a crucial 48-hour detection advantage over traditional security methods.

Statement from Leadership

• Patrick Harr, CEO of SlashNext: “Over 60% of malicious URLs delivered via email are protected by CAPTCHA, which is why we developed this unique technology to detect these threats before they compromise users. Our patented Zero-Trust Stealth Mode Browsers behave exactly like a human user, interacting with CAPTCHAs to access phishing and other malicious content hidden behind these barriers for AI analysis. As a result, we uniquely detect and block these threats that others routinely miss.”

Invitation for Cybersecurity Professionals

Cybersecurity experts are encouraged to observe Project Phantom’s capabilities in action. The URL scanning tool offers valuable insights for security analysts and researchers, showcasing its effectiveness in securing email and browsing environments from phishing and malware threats.

ON24 has released a groundbreaking research report titled “Personalization in the AI Era”, revealing how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming B2B marketing and sales strategies. The study underscores the crucial role of AI in delivering personalized experiences at scale, with a significant majority of marketers planning to leverage AI for this purpose.

Key Findings from the Report

• AI as a Catalyst for Personalization: Nearly 9 in 10 marketers are planning to use AI to enhance their personalization efforts. This trend highlights the growing reliance on AI to meet the demand for personalized customer experiences.
• Personalization is a Standard Practice: A striking 99% of B2B marketers are engaging in some form of personalization, indicating its established role in modern marketing strategies.
• AI Enhances Personalization: 84% of marketers believe that AI is crucial for making personalization efforts more achievable and effective.
• Opportunity for Engagement-Based Personalization: Despite the widespread use of personalization, only 35% of B2B marketers currently personalize based on engagement data, presenting a significant opportunity for deeper audience segmentation.
• Impact on Pipeline and Revenue Growth: More than half (54%) of marketers see personalization as a key driver for accelerating pipeline growth and closing deals more swiftly.

Statements from ON24 Leadership

• Callan Young, CMO of ON24: “Every company knows it's mission-critical to deliver personalized experiences to achieve ongoing pipeline growth, but the truth is that few have the technology, resources, and expertise to do so – especially at scale. Our research demonstrates that AI is key for personalization to become reality. That’s why we have made personalization a key pillar of our innovation roadmap, helping sales and marketing teams engage the audiences most important to their business in a highly targeted, intelligent, and impactful way to drive pipeline and revenue growth.”

The report from ON24 highlights the pivotal role of AI in enhancing personalization strategies and underscores its importance in driving marketing effectiveness and business growth. As AI continues to evolve, its integration into personalization efforts will likely become increasingly crucial for achieving competitive advantage in the B2B landscape.

Tour operations and hospitality companies that embrace human collaborative AI have the opportunity to gain a competitive edge in a $4.7T industry

• Mobi.ai, a human collaborative AI company, has introduced Mobi Intent Driven Search (IDS), a groundbreaking search and discovery technology for the travel industry.
• Mobi IDS integrates natural language search with generative AI, a proprietary content store of over 40 million enriched points of interest, and advanced AI capabilities to offer personalized travel recommendations.
• The technology is designed to transform how travel, tourism, and hospitality companies interact with customers by delivering tailored experiences.

1. Impact of AI on the Travel Industry

   • AI is revolutionizing the travel industry, changing the way companies engage with customers.
   • A McKinsey and Skift Research report highlights that companies leveraging advanced technology could see a 15-25% improvement in earnings.

2. Features of Mobi IDS

   • Natural Language Search: Utilizes large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT to understand customer travel intents and provide relevant suggestions.
   • Multimodal Approach: Combines Mobi's proprietary content with planning and optimization AI to offer fast, accurate recommendations.
   • Real-Time Data Integration: Aggregates and structures data from various sources to deliver up-to-date information on dining, transportation, attractions, and more.

3. Benefits of Personalization

   • Mobi IDS enables personalized queries, allowing customers to express their preferences and behaviors.
   • This data helps brands enhance communication and marketing strategies.
   • Integrations with loyalty systems and booking engines drive engagement and boost revenue.

4. Enhanced Customer Experience

   • According to Harriet Brown, VP of Product, Mobi IDS listens to customer intentions to provide personalized destination and activity recommendations.
   • This approach fosters deep personalization, delighting customers and building emotional loyalty.

5. Easy Implementation and Integration

   • Mobi IDS can be implemented in as little as six weeks, with further custom enrichment completed within two months.
   • Features a flexible data pipeline that handles structured and unstructured data and adapts to any business logic or customer rules.
   • A ready-made testing environment ensures a smooth transition from implementation to value realization.

• Mobi IDS is set to redefine travel experiences by offering a highly personalized and intent-driven search solution that aligns with customer preferences.
• The product will be showcased at several upcoming events, providing an opportunity for companies to explore its capabilities and benefits firsthand.

Leading privacy technology company makes its CTV solution the most complete CMP available and announces webinar with Google

• Sourcepoint, a leading privacy software platform, has announced the addition of HbbTV (Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV) support to its Connected TV (CTV) Consent Management Platform (CMP).
• This enhancement strengthens Sourcepoint's position as a leader in privacy solutions for the growing CTV market, offering expanded consent management across various CTV platforms.

1. Expansion of CTV Consent Management

   • The integration of HbbTV support into Sourcepoint's Dialogue CMP allows broadcasters and content providers to deliver customized consent messages and facilitate user choice across more CTV platforms.
   • Sourcepoint's CMP already supports major OTT/CTV devices such as Roku TV, Android TV, Tizen, Apple TV, Fire TV, and WebOS.

2. Importance of Cross-Platform Privacy Solutions

   • As the CTV landscape evolves, publishers and advertisers face the challenge of managing privacy across multiple platforms.
   • Ben Barokas, CEO and Co-Founder of Sourcepoint, emphasizes the need for a comprehensive, cross-platform approach to privacy and consent management.

3. Upcoming Webinar with Google

   • Sourcepoint will host a webinar in collaboration with Google on September 10, 2024, focusing on consent management in the CTV ecosystem and upcoming changes to Google's CMP requirements.
   • The webinar will provide insights into navigating the evolving CTV privacy landscape, especially in light of Google's expanded CMP requirements in 2025.

4. Recognition and Certification

   • Sourcepoint has received Google's Gold certification, recognizing its high standards in privacy and consent management.
   • Frances Hudson, VP of Product at Sourcepoint, highlights the company's readiness to support CTV clients with Google's upcoming 2025 CMP certification requirements.

5. Commitment to Client Support

   • Sourcepoint's CMP not only offers advanced technology but also exceptional consultative support and guidance to clients.
   • Brian Kane, COO and Co-Founder of Sourcepoint, underscores the importance of expert support in managing the complexities of consent in the CTV landscape, which is highly valued by clients as reflected in their feedback on G2.

• The addition of HbbTV support to Sourcepoint's CTV CMP solutions marks a significant step in enhancing privacy management for broadcasters and content providers across diverse platforms.
• Sourcepoint's commitment to comprehensive consent management, coupled with its consultative approach and recognition from Google, positions it as a trusted partner for CTV clients navigating the evolving privacy landscape.

New survey highlights the need for an educational shift to equip students with essential soft skills as AI reshapes the workplace

• Canva, the all-in-one visual communication platform, has released its first Creativity in Education Report, highlighting the growing importance of creativity in the future of work and the need for educational systems to adapt.
• As AI continues to transform industries, 85% of hiring managers believe creative thinking will be crucial, making it a key differentiator in the job market.

1. Creativity's Role in Education and the Workforce

   • The report, based on a Harris Poll survey of 3,000 participants including recent graduates, educators, and hiring managers, reveals that more than half of recent graduates wish they had stronger creativity skills.
   • Creativity ranks among the top skills sought by employers, alongside problem-solving and communication, highlighting the need for educational institutions to prioritize creative skill development.

2. Creativity as a Critical Skill

   • Despite its importance, creativity often receives less emphasis compared to traditional STEM subjects in educational curricula.
   • The report underscores the need for education systems to evolve, focusing more on creativity to prepare students for success in an AI-driven world.

3. Survey Insights

   • Hiring Priorities: Over three-quarters of hiring managers prioritize creative thinkers, with creativity ranked among the top three skills along with problem-solving (58%) and communication (55%).
   • Graduate Feedback: 80% of recent graduates find creativity crucial in their roles, and many feel it is the most valuable skill they learned in college.
   • Preparedness Gap: Only 38% of educators and 56% of hiring managers believe graduates are adequately prepared for the workforce, highlighting a significant skills gap.
   • Barriers for Educators: Lack of time, curriculum support, and resources are major challenges, with 83% of educators acknowledging the growing importance of creativity in education.

4. Impact of AI on Creativity

   • As AI reshapes the job market, 85% of hiring managers and 84% of recent graduates believe creativity will become even more essential, reinforcing its value as a vital soft skill.
   • Amy Schultz, Canva's Global Head of Talent Acquisition, notes that successful candidates are those who approach problems with a creative mindset, emphasizing the need to nurture creativity from early education.

5. Canva's Commitment to Education

   • Canva offers Canva for Education free for K-12 teachers, students, and educational institutions, providing over 100,000 templates and more than 10 AI tools with safety features.
   • Canva for Campus extends this support to higher education, empowering campuses worldwide to collaborate and foster creativity in their work.

• The Creativity in Education Report by Canva underscores the critical need for educational systems to prioritize creativity as a fundamental skill for future careers.
• With the increasing influence of AI, fostering creativity from early education to higher education is essential to equip the next generation with the skills needed to thrive in an evolving job market.