Berland brings over 20 years of experience building some of the world's most iconic brands to oversee Verizon's global marketing strategy

Verizon Communications today announced the appointment of Leslie Berland as Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, effective January 9, 2024. Berland brings over two decades of strategic and creative marketing expertise, transforming world-class brands such as Peloton, Twitter and American Express. Overseeing Verizon's global marketing strategy, Berland will join the company's executive leadership team and report directly to Hans Vestberg, Verizon Chairman and CEO.

"There has never been a more transformative time for our industry. While our networks and technology are core to realizing the promise ahead, the strength of our brand is critical to delivering on our strategy and maintaining our momentum," said Vestberg. "As we design and develop a more connected world, we need a marketing leader with the foresight and vision to usher in a new chapter for the Verizon brand that reflects how we are growing as a company. Leslie has spent her career at the helm of some of the most iconic brands, transforming their marketing efforts to connect more meaningfully with customers and drive impact across channels. She brings a combination of creativity and business acumen that will help steer and scale our marketing strategy while capitalizing on our next phase of growth."

Berland will lead all aspects of Verizon's global brand and marketing strategy, including marketing activation and creative, marketing effectiveness, consumer insights, media and strategic partnerships.

Most recently, Berland served as Chief Marketing Officer at Peloton, where she led global marketing and communications and launched a new brand identity to grow and galvanize its member community. Previously, she was Chief Marketing Officer at Twitter, where she defined and deepened the company's influence on a global scale. For most of her tenure at Twitter, Berland also served in a dual role as the company's Chief People Officer, reinforcing how the employee and customer experience are inextricably linked. Prior to that, she was EVP of global advertising, marketing, and digital partnerships at American Express, where she played a critical role in the company’s digital transformation.

"Verizon's brand is at an exciting inflection point as the fundamental need for human connection has never been more critical,” said Berland. "What we offer today and what we’re building for the future is rooted in Verizon’s commitment to bring people closer together and enable them to thrive. I can think of no better story to tell, and I’m thrilled to join a world-class team driving growth for the business, reinvigorating the customer experience and lifting up the communities in which we serve."

Leslie was recognized in 2022 by Forbes as part of its CMO Hall of Fame and previously included in its annual Most Influential CMO ranking. Additionally, she has been honored by Ad Age, Adweek and Business Insider for her work as a brand builder and visionary.

Gracenote programme metadata and content IDs delivered through the MetaBroadcast active data platform broaden Barb's coverage, speed ratings reporting

MetaBroadcast, the UK's leading metadata management specialist, and Gracenote, a Nielsen company, announced today that it has been awarded a three year contract renewal by Barb, the UK audience measurement service, to operate its combined content ID and genre allocation system from January 2025.

MetaBroadcast will now use industry-leading Gracenote schedule metadata and unique content identifiers to reduce timescales for accurate programme identification, validation, enrichment and genre classification, as well as improve coverage and accuracy of broadcaster IDs. The inclusion of Gracenote will also allow Barb to better deduplicate content and accelerate reporting from seven days to three days after programmes are first made available on linear channels or streaming services.

"MetaBroadcast is delighted to continue supporting Barb by leveraging the robust metadata management capabilities of Atlas, our cloud-based active data platform, and by now working with premier global metadata provider Gracenote to improve content ID coverage and classification," said Jamie Mackinlay, CEO, MetaBroadcast. "We recognise the importance of accurate, consistent, and timely programme data that allows Barb to fulfill the needs of its audience measurement customer base. We look forward to continuing our collaboration."

"By leveraging Gracenote's unique content IDs and programme metadata, measurement providers can quickly identify and better understand what people are watching across different services and platforms," said Tim Cutting, Chief Revenue Officer at Gracenote. "We look forward to working with MetaBroadcast and enabling Barb to deliver new levels of speed, accuracy, consistency and completeness in their multi-screen audience measurement."

Barb's audience measurement relies on a world-class system for identifying and classifying traditional linear broadcast, catch up or streaming viewing. Using best-in-class Gracenote data as a key system input will ensure consistent programme titles and genres, accurate connections between programmes and episodes and linkages to broadcasters' linear and streaming content across platforms.

Pexip's new Video Platform as a Service (VPaaS) provides tools and APIs to easily integrate video in any app or service – designed for regulated industries that demand privacy and control of data.

Pexip, a global leader in providing secure and customizable video solutions, today announces its new VPaaS beta release. With this release, a select group of Pexip customers are testing this "on-demand" cloud service, enabling them to easily embed and customize video experiences into any web service or application.  

VPaaS is built on the strengths of Pexip's video software, which is used in some of the world's largest video deployments today. 

"We see video moving into many new segments that are now digitalizing their services. Our VPaaS offering is designed to make video a seamless part of existing apps and services so that developers can integrate a custom video experience with minimal effort," says Trond Johannessen, CEO of Pexip.  

A compliant and secure video platform  

To meet the compliance needs of highly regulated industries such as healthcare, financial services, and government, Pexip VPaaS is designed from the ground up to avoid the need to store Personal Identifiable Information (PII), and all data traffic is kept within defined regions to adhere to growing data sovereignty regulations in parts of the world.   

"At Pexip, we are committed to meeting the video needs of organizations that require the most secure and custom solutions – such as for a healthcare facility or a bank operating under European or American regulations, and we have extensive experience providing video software in these settings. There are strict data privacy and protection requirements to be met and a growing focus on upholding the highest security standards among our customers," says Johannessen.   

"With our new VPaaS offering, we are sticking to our core principles of privacy and data control while also offering a solution that is easy to adopt, support, and scale so that our customers can build a video experience that's ideally suited to them and their customers' needs," he adds.  

Unique features of the Pexip VPaaS  

• No storage of Personal Identifiable Information (PII)  

• Regionally geo-fenced managed services 

• Full SDKs, components, sample apps, and documentation 

• Fully brandable and customizable layouts  

• Support for simultaneous audio, video, and data streams from multiple devices 

• Rich, high quality video experience designed by experienced industry experts 

Frost & Sullivan on Pexip VPaaS  

"Data privacy and control are paramount when addressing the video collaboration needs of end user organizations in highly regulated industries, such as healthcare, finance, and public sector. With the upcoming release of VPaaS, Pexip is leveraging its experience in these industries to strengthen its embedded video collaboration solutions. There is a significant difference between a custom-developed video platform and a generic video conferencing application, which Pexip clearly understands," says Michael Brandenburg, Sr. Industry Analyst for Information & Communications Technology, Frost & Sullivan. 

From beta to full release in 2024  

Still in beta testing, Pexip VPaaS is currently available by invitation only. The full version is expected to be released in early 2024. It will be made available directly to end users and through Pexip's service provider partners, who will integrate VPaaS with more extensive product offerings.

Survey of 400 ad executives in the UK, US, France, and Germany finds that a vast majority of US retail media advertisers plan to expand use in the coming year and that media quality is essential to their buys

DoubleVerify (“DV”), a leading software platform for digital media measurement, data and analytics, today released its state of retail media report, “The Rise of Retail Media: What to Expect in 2024,” surveying over 400 advertisers and agency executives about retail media networks (RMNs) in the UK, US, France, and Germany. The report explores the rapidly expanding retail media market, which includes RMNs provided by retailers or e-commerce platforms.

Key takeaways from the survey include:

• The US Leads the Way: 87% of respondents in the US reported that they use retail media networks, and 83% plan to increase their RMN spend, leading all other markets. Ultimately, DV found that the pace of retail media adoption differs between the US and EMEA, showcasing the need for retailers to drive adoption and growth with region-specific goals in mind.
• The Importance of Trust and Transparency: An overwhelming 91% of respondents buying RMN inventory are working with an ad verification partner today. Additionally, 89% of those polled in the US said "ensuring ad quality within retail media networks is important," followed by 77% in the UK and 73% in France.
• Brand and Agency Benefits: When asked about the biggest benefits from using retail media networks, 37% of brands cited "reaching target audience" as their top advantage, whereas 32% of agencies highlighted "increased brand awareness". When evaluating RMN effectiveness, brands predominantly measured success by an "increase in in-store or online sales" (50%), whereas agencies focused on "impressions/reach" (43%).
• Big E-commerce Representation: A majority surveyed primarily work with Amazon Advertising. Amazon was ranked the #1 most adopted RMN across 3 of the 4 markets polled: US (51%), UK (71%), and Germany (51%).
• Reasons for Choosing RMNs: Nearly half of survey respondents (45%) said their primary goal of advertising with RMNs is to “attract first-time customers,” followed by “targeting specific demographics and product interests” (40%), and "reaching consumers at the point of purchase” (37%).
• Adoption Challenges: When survey respondents were asked to identify the primary challenges in using RMNs, four issues emerged as top concerns, each cited by 30% of participants: limited targeting options, constrained on-site ad space, high costs, and the absence of ad quality verification by third parties.
• RMNs Garner High Spend But Strong Return: Among all respondents, nearly half (48%) felt that RMN cost-per-mille (CPM) rates are higher than other channels, with this sentiment being particularly strong among agency executives, as 58% echoed this view. However, when asked about the return on ad spend (ROAS) of retail media, 61% of buyers said they believe RMNs perform better than other channels.

"Retail media has quickly become a key channel in digital advertising, attracting a large share of advertiser ad budgets,” said Mark Zagorski, CEO at DoubleVerify. ”Brands are recognizing its value and effectiveness in reaching customers at the purchase point, especially with third-party cookies phasing. Our research provides advertisers and retailers with valuable insights to refine and improve their strategies in this growing and dynamic space."

DV's study explored several critical areas of RMN advertising investments:

• Growth: How high is advertiser demand for RMNs and where is it focused globally?
• Value: Why are advertisers seeking out RMNs and which KPIs are they focusing on?
• Challenges: What barriers are limiting future RMN adoption?
• Verification: How can RMNs and advertisers bridge the ad quality measurement gap?

For the analysis, DV partnered with Sapio Research, focusing on RMN engagement levels, emerging trends, and industry sentiment.

“Retail Media Networks present a valuable marketing opportunity. However, like all advertising on the open web, retail media ad quality is not a guarantee for advertisers or retailers,” added Zagorski. “That’s why DV’s comprehensive suite of solutions offers a standardized measurement and optimization framework that facilitates transparency, drives performance, and enables the development of more sophisticated retail media strategies.”

Pixalate’s October 2023 Global Made For Advertising (MFA) Report for Websites reviews the state of MFA websites, including ad spend trends and MFA websites with the most advertising. Research finds 11% of global open programmatic web ad spend goes to MFA sites - 27% sold by Magnite, according to Pixalate’s data.

Pixalate, the global market-leading ad fraud protection, privacy, and compliance analytics platform, today released the October 2023 Made For Advertising (MFA) Benchmark Report for Websites. The report benchmarks advertising trends on MFA websites, including ad spend, invalid traffic (IVT) and ad fraud, the top ad platforms (SSPs) selling ads on MFA websites, and the MFA websites with the most advertising.

MFA websites and apps can feature intrusive advertising techniques like pop-up ads, auto-play videos, or ads restricting access to content, often resulting in a poor advertising-to-attention ratio.

Pixalate's data science team analyzed over 12 billion open programmatic ad impressions on websites in October 2023 to compile the research. 

Key Stats: Pixalate’s Benchmark Report for MFA Websites in October 2023

• 11% of global open programmatic web ad spend goes to MFA websites
• 20% higher IVT (invalid traffic, including ad fraud) rate on MFA websites compared to non-MFA websites
• 70% of ad spend on MFA websites goes to private domains (compared to 18% for non-MFA websites)
• Over 20% of ad spend on MFA websites goes to the top five MFA publishers (according to ads.txt “owner domain” data)
• 27% of all advertising on MFA websites was sold by Magnite in October 2023 
  • Google AdExchange sold ads on 93% of MFA websites
    
    

What’s inside the report

Pixalate’s October 2023 Made For Advertising Report for Websites includes:

• Global regional breakdowns of MFA ad spend patterns (North America, EMEA, LATAM, APAC)
• IVT rate on MFA sites, including ad fraud
• Viewability rate on MFA sites
• MFA websites with the most programmatic ad traffic
• Top ad platforms (supply-side platforms, SSPs) used by MFA sites
• MFA website country of registry
• Private vs. public registration
• MFA programmatic ad spend by website category

Conversational AI+ simplifies bot creation for faster self-service that feels human.

Sprinklr, the unified customer experience management (Unified-CXM) platform for modern enterprises, today announced the launch of Conversational AI+ in Sprinklr Service. Part of Sprinklr’s Release 18.11, Conversational AI+ empowers businesses to quickly deploy and scale generative AI-powered bots that can have human-like text and voice conversations.

"Sprinklr is committed to helping our enterprise customers recognize 20-40% productivity improvements across the front office," said Sprinklr Founder and CEO Ragy Thomas. "Our 18.11 release includes AI-powered capabilities across every product suite, including tools empowering brands to create and deploy virtual assistants that truly understand and engage with customers. We believe that Sprinklr is the fastest and most effective way for customers and prospects to get AI into a global brand’s front office.”

In today's fast-paced business landscape, brands are constantly seeking innovative ways to enhance customer experiences. The Sprinklr 18.11 release and Conversational AI+ address this need by providing businesses with a simple and efficient solution to build human-like intelligent bots in just three easy steps. Customers can now create a bot by simply defining the bot persona, the functions it has access to, and the skills on which it is trained.

The Sprinklr platform then creates and refines the bot using:

1. FAQ & Transaction Skill, which enables businesses to quickly train a bot by simply entering their website/knowledge base URL or uploading PDF documents. This feature empowers businesses to deflect FAQ volumes or automate transactions that can be done without the need for a human agent. By automating the handling of frequently asked questions and transactions, brands can improve efficiency and customer satisfaction.
2. Free form conversational flows, which provide a natural conversational experience to end customers. This feature eliminates the rigid decision tree-based bot workflows, which often result in a less flexible and more robotic experience for customers. By allowing for dynamic and context-specific conversations, businesses can create a more engaging and personalized interaction with their customers.
3. Sprinklr Guardrails, which helps assure businesses that the responses generated by the generative AI are brand compliant. This feature adds an extra layer of control and helps ensure that the virtual assistants maintain the brand's voice and values.

“Conversational AI solutions have solidified their place among the set of software services that organizations view as critical to their ongoing digital transformation by providing self-service capabilities. There’s a huge need for innovation in this area, and it’s exciting to see Sprinklr stepping up to simplify the deployment of AI-powered bots that feel human,” said Lou Reinemann, Research Director, Voice of the Customer and Experience Management at IDC.

These features significantly reduce deployment times, allowing brands to go-to-market quickly with conversational bots for use cases like helping improve self-serve rates by empowering customers to solve their issues using a conversational interface, boosting sales through automated product recommendations, reducing costs on the voice channel by leveraging conversational AI-powered voice bots with in-house ASR capabilities, and many more.

By streamlining the bot creation process, businesses can save time and resources while delivering exceptional customer experiences. Conversational AI+ marks a significant milestone in the evolution of AI-powered conversational bots. With its user-friendly interface, advanced capabilities, and focus on enhancing customer experiences, Conversational AI+ can help businesses transform their customer interactions and drive customer satisfaction to new heights.

Acquisition Adds User-Generated Content and Performance-Based Creator Compensation to IZEA’s Suite of Software Solutions

IZEA Worldwide, Inc., the premier provider of influencer marketing technology, data, and services for the world’s leading brands and agencies, today announced it acquired Zuberance, a pioneering advocate marketing software platform. Zuberance provides marketers with the tools to build white-label communities of their customers and influencers while engaging these communities to serve as advocates for their brand, leading to low-cost content creation. Zuberance joins IZEA’s family of software platforms, which recently crossed 1 million registered users.

Advocate Marketing leverages the authentic voices of a brand's most satisfied customers, transforming their organic enthusiasm into an influential social campaign. This approach, rooted in genuine customer experiences and satisfaction, perfectly complements influencer marketing by adding depth and authenticity. IZEA’s acquisition of Zuberance signals a strategic move toward harnessing the combined power of influencer presence and authentic customer advocacy within the integrated marketing ecosystem.

Core Features of the Zuberance Platform:

• Customer Referrals: Generate sales and leads through both customers and influencers through a performance-based affiliate model. Participants are rewarded based on the sales they generate.
• Customer Reviews: Boost product ratings on third-party sites with fully disclosed reviews.
• Customer Stories: Get valuable testimonials, case studies, videos, and more.
• Customer Answers: Get advocates to answer prospects’ questions, driving leads and sales.
• Social Sharing: Turn your customers into influencers who actively promote your brand.
• Analytics: Track and optimize campaign results in real time.

“Advocate Marketing takes customer satisfaction and turns it into authentic, affordable UGC that generates sales,” said IZEA Founder and CEO Ted Murphy. “Brands can now combine the power of both influencers and customers to leverage the full potential of the Creator Economy through one company. We are excited to welcome the Zuberance team to IZEA and are pleased to incorporate their platform into IZEA’s dynamic suite of software products.”

Zuberance measures and rewards the direct sales impact of customers and influencers. The platform is directly integrated with Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce for retailers and has a dedicated Salesforce application for B2B advocacy programs. B2B customers can now create influential communities of advocates with a streamlined program that is fully measurable.

“We are thrilled to join forces with IZEA, the company that created the influencer marketing space,” said Rob Fuggetta, CEO and founder of Zuberance. “This strategic move allows us to leverage IZEA’s robust technology, services, and infrastructure to further empower brand marketers and advocates. Together, we are poised to redefine the landscape of the Creator Economy and deliver unparalleled value to brands worldwide.”

This announcement comes the same week IZEA announced its acquisition of Hoozu, an established influencer marketing company based in Australia.

“With the acquisition of Hoozu this week, we expanded our geographic footprint in APAC,” said IZEA President and Chief Operating Officer Ryan Schram. “With the acquisition of Zuberance, we’ve enhanced IZEA’s ecosystem by adding capabilities that not only benefit our direct customers but also the customers of our growing family of influencer marketing companies around the world.”

Amid Increased Cyberattacks and Regulatory Pressure, Enterprise Demand for Opal Security’s Identity Security Solution Rapidly Grows

Opal Security, the next-generation identity security and access management company, today announced its $22 million Series B funding, led by Battery Ventures, with participation from existing investors Greylock and Box Group. The round brings Opal Security’s total funding to date to $32 million.

Since Opal Security’s 2022 Series A financing, the company has realized a 4x increase in annual recurring revenue for its suite of identity access management solutions, driven by intense enterprise demand for identity-security products. With this new round of funding, Opal Security will expand its global team, scale enterprise customer support and ramp up new product development, including a new suite of visualization and AI tools to remediate identity risk.

The new wave of cybersecurity regulation, including a new U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rule requiring companies to quickly and comprehensively disclose cybersecurity incidents, is behind this spike in enterprise demand. Opal Security customers are eager to use the company’s platform to reduce the lack of visibility and enforce least privilege across their organizations to reduce the likelihood of ‘compromised credential’ incidents. These incidents, which surface when bad actors gain access to employees’ valid credentials, like passwords and logins, are the leading cause of successful cyber intrusions according to the U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). 75% of compromised credential incidents result from system misconfigurations or mismanagement of access, per Gartner.

Scaling organizations and large enterprises demands flexible, cloud-native identity security that can manage identities and access across fragmented, interconnected systems and hybrid environments. Opal Security’s next-generation platform, currently used by customers including Databricks, Figma, Scale AI and larger enterprises, enables users to securely manage access to the tools and resources they need to do their jobs quickly, easily and, importantly, securely. The Opal Security platform simplifies the management of human and non-human identities by providing a clean, API-driven approach to unifying and acting on identity and authorization data.

“There are more cybersecurity regulations coming, and with them, increased exposure of what’s really happening inside organizations when it comes to access and authorization,” said Umaimah Khan, CEO and co-founder of Opal Security. “In large organizations, the complexity of security and IT challenges often leads to decision paralysis as teams grapple with where to begin addressing massive organizational and technical debt. Despite identity and access processes spanning multiple departments, accountability for outcomes and risk falls on security and infrastructure teams. The need for a unified system is becoming more important to guard against malicious attacks and reduce the blast radius of damage caused.”

“Identity and authorization are the cornerstone of security infrastructure. One of the primary hurdles faced by organizations is establishing comprehensive and uniform IAM practices,” said Caleb Sima, Chair of CSA AI Security Alliance. “Opal Security has developed a platform that integrates various solutions, significantly advancing progress in this domain. I am enthusiastic about contributing to their efforts in shaping the next generation of identity and access.”

“The cybersecurity landscape is continually evolving, as attack surface areas expand and attackers become more sophisticated. Market dynamics are also forcing companies to become as efficient as possible,” said Dharmesh Thakker, general partner at Battery Ventures, the global, technology-focused investment firm leading Opal Security’s Series B financing. “The Opal Security team has homed in on a key market opportunity: bolstering the security of companies’ internal systems through identity and access management, while not compromising the ability of employees to do their jobs.”