PearlMountain Limited's flagship video creation platform, FlexClip, is pleased to reveal the release of the its latest version, featuring the highly anticipated Chroma Key, Reverse Video, and Freeze Frame functionalities. These additions are specifically designed to elevate the creative video editing experience, providing users with enhanced tools for crafting compelling and dynamic content. 

In this latest update, FlexClip introduces the Chroma Key feature, enabling users to seamlessly edit out the backgrounds of green screens - or any other color in videos or photos and replace them with different images or video clips entirely. This enhancement simplifies video compositing and post-production editing, expanding the scope of video creation for virtual backgrounds, special effects sequences, news segments, and educational content.

Additionally, FlexClip also adds the Reverse Video tool, which expands creative options by effortlessly reversing video timelines for captivating effects, adding creativity and entertainment to video content. The extension helps create magical music videos, highlight action replays, craft thrilling movie scenes, design engaging ads, and explore unconventional techniques in artistic short films.

What's more, FlexClip incorporates the Freeze Frame functionality, enabling users to capture and freeze key moments in their videos, enhancing visual effects and injecting more fun into their content. This feature brings users a fresh video editing experience suitable for creating artistic effects, creative expressions, educational demonstrations, and producing film trailers, among various other scenarios.

"I am excited to introduce these new editing features to our users," says PearlMountain CEO and founder, Lin Xiao. "We believe the addition of these features will enrich users' creative experience, bringing them more inspiration and enjoyment. We eagerly look forward to seeing how users leverage these features to create impressive video works."

Marketers agree that CTV advertising is the most effective digital channel in their media mix and 23.6% plan to increase their spending on connected TV (CTV) campaigns, according to a new survey from tvScientific, the leading performance advertising platform that gives advertisers the ability to deliver targeted ads and measure impact through outcomes for CTV. The study, which collected responses from more than 600 marketing professionals in Q4 of 2023, found that 35% of respondents plan to increase their overall ad spend in 2024 and that 65% report an increase in sales when performance TV is added alongside other paid channels like search and social.

“Finally, we have validation from a large group of marketers of what we have always known – TV is a superior and highly effective medium that can now be connected to business outcomes,” said Jason Fairchild, Co-Founder and CEO of tvScientific. “Marketers are putting their money where their results are, with CTV leading all mediums in terms of planned investment increase for ‘24.”

The data was collected amidst the ongoing transition of the $72 billion TV advertising market to programmatic execution, as technologies emerge that enable the buying and measurement of TV advertising in a manner similar to the $200 billion search and social media market. CTV advertising is expected to grow by 22.4% globally in 2024 to $25.9 billion, according to GroupM’s mid-year forecast. Additional findings from the tvScientific survey include:

• 65% of advertisers report an increase in sales when performance TV is added alongside other paid channels like search and social.
  
  
• With a diverse marketing mix, 68% of respondents say their company’s brand awareness has increased since using performance TV.
  
  
• 62% of respondents said it’s easy for them and their team to prove TV’s impact.

“We expect advertisers will continue making intelligent, bold investments in performance TV as it helps brands drive more engagement, ROAS, and sales in 2024,” Fairchild said. “With structural changes underway in other digital advertising channels, CTV’s addressability, accessibility, and efficiency are poised to change the game for advertisers of every description.”

Pacvue, the industry’s first commerce acceleration platform, today welcomed industry veteran Abi Harmon to its leadership team. Harmon will hold dual titles as Executive Vice President of Pacvue and General Manager of Pacvue’s small-to-midsize business (SMB) segment, Helium 10, where she will be responsible for supporting its continued growth.

A seasoned tech entrepreneur and veteran in the retail industry with roots in both Amazon and Target, Harmon is the latest in a series of strategic appointments to the Pacvue leadership team. Harmon’s hire is another signal that Pacvue is full steam ahead on its mission to drive the transformation of omnichannel technologies and empower enterprises and SMBs to win in commerce.

“Pacvue, together with Helium 10, is uniquely positioned as one of the only solution providers that can cover both the enterprise and SMB segments,” said Harmon. “It’s a huge honor to join this team to continue to grow the Helium 10 brand, which has become a staple for millions of sellers.”

With more than 18 years of experience, Abi is a seasoned tech entrepreneur and retail industry expert. Previously, she served as CEO of Perpetua, held various roles at Flywheel Digital from early-stage leader to Managing Director and spent a decade in retail roles at Amazon and Target.

“Abi is one of a few leaders in the space with a keen perspective across enterprise, SMB and retailers,” said Rahul Choraria, Chief Operating Officer of Pacvue. “We know her insights and expertise in the industry will translate to immense value for our customers and long-term vision for both Pacvue and Helium 10.”

Marketplace sellers and brands face more challenges than ever before – intense competition, increasing fees and the need to constantly optimize current channel strategies, while simultaneously launching opportunistically on new channels. Pacvue’s unique cross-segment positioning in the marketplace, innovative roadmap, cutting-edge data science and generative AI technologies, and deep bench of domain experts demonstrate its commitment to helping brands and sellers win.

Optimove represents a new category for the MACH Alliance, expanding its scope to ensure it serves the evolving needs of technology buyers

Optimove, the first Customer-Led Marketing Platform, today announced it has joined the MACH Alliance, the group of independent tech companies dedicated to advocating for open, best-of-breed technology ecosystems, as an ISV member. Optimove, the First Customer-Led Marketing platform, represents a new category for the MACH Alliance as it continues to grow and expand to best serve composable technology buyers' needs. Optimove is a recognized leader in retention marketing. Its solutions are proven to increase customer lifetime value, and it is ranked #1 by Gartner for Journey Orchestration among Multichannel Marketing Hubs.  

 MACH Alliance Managing Director Holly Hall said, "Optimove represents a new category for the MACH Alliance as we expand our scope to ensure we're serving the evolving needs of composable technology buyers," said Holly Hall, MD, MACH Alliance. "Their commitment to innovation and excellence aligns perfectly with our mission to advance modern, composable technology solutions. We are thrilled to formally welcome them as a certified member, bringing our membership to a balanced 50/50 North America/Europe representation. And at a time when our research shows US MACH adoption is overtaking Europe for the first time." 

Shai Frank, SVP of Optimove, added, "The MACH Alliance is a boon to tech buyers and, in Optimove's case, B2C marketing technology leaders, who are increasingly looking at composable solutions. We are honored to be chosen as a member and open a new category for this prestigious alliance."

Enhanced reporting facilitates impactful client conversations and informed decision making regarding audiences across the marketing funnel

Inuvo, Inc., a leading provider of marketing technology, powered by its proprietary IntentKey artificial intelligence (AI) that serves brands and agencies, has announced significant enhancements to its custom-designed, AI-powered Insights Dashboard, detailing target audience interests and campaign performance.

Inuvo’s AI was designed to solve the two biggest problems facing advertisers in a cookieless world: audience targeting and performance measurement. With this update, clients now have the information they need to make better decisions. The enhanced dashboard includes three key sections:

Funnel Overview: This added view illustrates how IntentKey clients build brand awareness to drive users down the conversion funnel over time. It highlights key metrics around brand affinity, site engagement, and conversion, showcasing the customer's path to purchase. These updates allow clients to better understand the differences between audiences at different stages across the marketing conversion funnel.

Model Insights: The interface already provides detailed analytics on audience insights, segments, concept drivers, AI-generated personas, television programming, and conversion likelihood by state. With the latest update, clients can now also see specifically which podcasts align with their audiences.

Performance Spend Analysis: The view instantly provides Inuvo clients the power to predictively measure the impact of campaigns across marketing tactics based on their KPIs. Uniquely, this feature now empowers clients to deploy and measure cookieless versus cookie-based tactics, a capability not available with vendors whose technology requires cookies to function. With advanced Media Mix Modeling (MMM), clients can easily and accurately compare the efficiency of different programmatic tactics across devices including IOS, where cookies are no longer present.

“We are excited to launch the next generation of our Insights Dashboard that arms our clients with unmatched transparency into the true drivers of their campaign performance,” said Inuvo SVP of IntentKey Products, Amir Bakhshaie. “By marrying IntentKey’s predictive AI with enhanced analytics, we can have more impactful conversations that help our clients' campaigns and businesses thrive."

The enhanced dashboard advances Inuvo’s mission of AI-powered audience discovery and delivery of actionable insights to drive performance. Going beyond standard dashboards, the IntentKey Insights Dashboard allows clients to make more informed decisions to boost acquisition and conversion. As one of the first to provide such comprehensive analytics in a cookie-free world, Inuvo is pioneering the future of advertising performance measurement.

Protects OneTrust against costly litigations from patent assertion entities, strengthening the company's trust intelligence and privacy innovations 

OneTrust, the market-defining leader for trust intelligence, today announced that it has joined LOT Network, the international, non-profit community of companies working together to protect themselves against litigation brought on by patent assertion entities (PAEs, also known as "patent trolls"). OneTrust joining the LOT (License on Transfer) Network's community of 3,700+ companies, including eight of the world's largest cloud providers, is intended to enable OneTrust to protect the interests of the Company against patent assertion entities.

The LOT Network community is committed to protecting members against costly and frivolous PAE litigation. Members agree that if a member's patent asset falls into the hands of a PAE, other members are granted a license to that patent – rendering them immune to a PAE lawsuit using that patent. With the number of intellectual property rights cases initiated by patent trolls growing by 500% in the last decade¹, the average lawsuit costing $4 million to defend, and 87% of patent assets used in PAE lawsuits originating from operating companies², LOT Network's coverage of 4 million patent assets globally provides broad protection and peace of mind to member companies.

With today's news, OneTrust is adding over 300 patents and nearly 100 patent applications covering various technologies in the privacy management domain – including assessment automation, data mapping, and privacy rights automation – under the protection of LOT Network, shielding members of the LOT Network from assertion of those patents by PAEs and encouraging industry-wide open innovation. The patents covered by LOT Network represent a wide range of technologies, including AI, IoT, the Metaverse, and cloud computing, among others, and members – including Google, IBM, and Microsoft – hail from 56 countries across the globe.

"As a company whose mission revolves around prioritizing trust, it is important that we take this step to proactively protect ourselves and our business," said Kim Rivera, Chief Legal & Business Affairs Officer at OneTrust. "Through our membership in LOT Network, we are joining a group of like-minded organizations that see strong value in protecting the traditional uses of patents, while fostering open innovation for today and the future. I hope our move inspires other companies to join LOT Network and help reduce the overall impact presented by patent troll litigation and assertions across all technology sectors."

"The proliferation of PAE lawsuits costs companies millions annually in litigation expenses, with a real impact on business operations," said Ken Seddon, CEO of LOT Network. "OneTrust's decision to join LOT Network illustrates its commitment to protecting its business ecosystem and retaining resources to invest in real innovation."