Combilift recognized by Constellation Research for leadership in deploying disruptive technology

Infor^®, the industry cloud company, today announced that Infor customer Combilift has been honored by Constellation Research with a 2023 SuperNova Award for leadership in deploying disruptive technology.

Combilift's IT manager, Fearghal McCorriston, was named the winner in the Next Generation Customer Experience category. Combilift is the largest global manufacturer of multi-directional forklifts and an acknowledged leader in long-load handling solutions. It uses Infor CloudSuite Industrial and Infor AI.

The 2023 SuperNova Award winners represent individuals, teams and organizations who have overcome significant hurdles amidst rising inflation, the boom of generative AI and a post-pandemic environment. They demonstrated excellence in responding to disruptive forces, implemented novel initiatives, and delivered proven results with the technical prowess needed for reinventing modern organizations. Out of 31 total finalists, six were Infor customers across multiple regions and industries.

"The SuperNova Awards reflect the best and brightest leaders and teams that have shown demonstrable ROI in business transformation," said R "Ray" Wang, chairman and founder of Constellation Research. "This year's winners have set the bar on what the art of the possible is and continue the tradition of delivering sustainable innovation."

"This year's nine SuperNova Awards winners stood apart from the more than 60 nominees and 31 finalists in this year's awards program," said Doug Henschen, vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research. "What distinguishes a SuperNova winner is not just technology innovation but concrete business results and outstanding returns on technology investment. Congratulations!"

The winners were announced at the SuperNova Awards gala at Constellation's Connected Enterprise.

SuperNova Award for Next Generation Customer Experience
Fearghal McCorriston, IT manager, Combilift

Ireland-based Combilift is the world's fastest-growing forklift manufacturer, exporting to more than 85 countries and with more than 60,000 trucks in use worldwide. Combilift places tremendous significance on customer experience. Specifically, in the realm of forklift service maintenance, customer satisfaction is closely tied to its ability to achieve first-time fixes. By resolving issues promptly during the initial visit, Combilift minimizes downtime and associated costs, leading to increased customer satisfaction. 

With a vast fleet of trucks in service, each tailored to individual customer needs, the company must maintain a comprehensive stock of thousands of parts and rely on experienced and knowledgeable staff who can navigate through relevant manuals to determine the precise combination of parts necessary for each service.  

Using Infor OS and Infor AI as part of Infor CloudSuite Industrial, Combilift has achieved these benefits:

• 30% increase in first-time fixes
• 30% faster completion of service jobs
• 30% increase in revenue per transaction
• 40% reduction in service job costs
• 75% faster time to determine related parts (20 minutes reduced to 5 minutes)
• Value realization in less than 90 days

"We're incredibly proud and excited for Combilift's recognition for next-gen customer experience through contextual, AI-driven recommendations that drive more accurate and timely service requirements," said Rick Rider, Infor SVP, product management. "Their ability to drive first-time fix approaches across their customer base using their blended approach of technology and creative culture is what helps set them apart in their industry. We're thrilled Infor could help play a role in that ongoing, continuous innovation journey."

SPEC Broadens Portfolio with Addition of Embedded Microprocessor Benchmarks, Creating the Industry’s Most Comprehensive Organization for Computer Performance Benchmark Standards

The Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC), the trusted global leader in computing benchmarks, today announced that EEMBC, the 25-year-old Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium, has become SPEC’s new Embedded Group (SPEC EG). EEMBC is known for developing industry-standard benchmarks for measuring the performance and energy efficiency of embedded processor hardware and software used in autonomous driving, mobile imaging, the Internet of Things (IoT), mobile devices, and more. The addition of EEMBC broadens SPEC’s portfolio with more than 15 highly regarded benchmarks for embedded computers and enables both organizations to share workloads and infrastructure costs to allow for more investment in research and development.

The combination of SPEC and EEMBC offers significant advantages to both members and customers. EEMBC gains access to workloads and harnesses developed across SPEC’s more than 20 committees, enabling faster and more efficient benchmark development. For example, SPEC EG benchmark developers can integrate the PTDaemon interface to enable measurements using a vast array of modern power analyzers and temperature sensors. EEMBC also gains access to SPEC’s administrative resources, enabling it to reduce costs and increase investments. With the addition of SPEC EG, SPEC expands its portfolio of computing benchmarks to enable measurements from the smallest microcontroller to the largest supercomputers.

“SPEC warmly welcomes EEMBC as the third major performance benchmark consortium to have chosen to join SPEC, enabling us to even more broadly address the critical international need for trusted, independent computing benchmarks,” said SPEC President David Reiner. “Given the growing adoption of edge compute and IoT, along with the insatiable desire for artificial intelligence edge inference, embedded systems are a critical industry with a direct effect on all our daily lives. With a remarkable 40+ standardized benchmarks, the combination of SPEC and EEMBC means the industry now has one source for benchmarks covering most areas of compute, giving customers the ability to evaluate the specific type of performance or energy efficiency they care about most.”

“The combination of our two great organizations is a huge plus for the entire technology industry, and I’m especially happy that EEMBC member organizations are gaining access to SPEC’s comprehensive expertise across the range of computing technologies, along with a broad array of benchmark workloads,” said Peter Torelli, the retiring President and CTO of EEMBC. “Making quality benchmarks is extremely hard and only getting more complex. Continued success depends on bringing together seasoned and talented professionals to collaborate in a more comprehensive, industry leading standards organization like SPEC. I believe we have set the ideal course for the future of embedded microprocessor performance benchmarking.”

The founding members of SPEC EG include representatives from Arm, Intel, Renesas Electronics Corporation, Silicon Labs, STMicroelectronics, and Synopsys. Individuals and organizations can join SPEC EG by visiting the SPEC membership page.

Since 1997, EEMBC has developed clearly defined standards for measuring the performance and energy efficiency of embedded processor implementations, including today’s IoT edge nodes and next-generation advanced driver-assistance systems. The benchmark suites are used to obtain performance measurements of devices and to compare the performance of various processor choices for a given application. The primary audience for the scores yielded by these benchmarks are companies creating systems that rely on embedded microcontrollers and microprocessors, everything from smartphones to solar panels.

SPEC EG now offers the EEMBC benchmarks in the following areas:

• Ultra-Low Power and Internet of Things, including IoTMark, a suite of benchmarks for measuring the energy efficiency of IoT edge nodes, and ULPMark, a benchmark for quantifying the many aspects of ultra-low power microcontrollers (MCUs).
• Heterogeneous Compute, including ADASMark, a suite of performance measurement and optimization tools for automotive companies building next-generation advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), and MLMark, a machine-learning (ML) benchmark designed to measure the performance and accuracy of embedded inference.
• Single-core Processor Performance, including CoreMark, a simple yet sophisticated benchmark that produces a single-number score for comparing processors, and AutoBench, a suite of benchmarks for predicting the performance of microprocessors and microcontrollers in automotive, industrial, and general-purpose applications.
• Multi-core Processor Performance, including CoreMark-Pro and AutoBench-2.0, which add parallelism and new workloads to the single-core versions.
• Phone and Tablet, including BrowsingBench, which measures browser performance.

Consumer Study Conducted by Alliance for Video-Level Contextual Advertising Found that Viewers Presented with Contextually Relevant Ads Have 300% Higher Brand Recall

Due to the advanced targeting capabilities of CTV, advertisers can now get more granular in how they pair their ads with the precise contextual indicators within individual episodes. A new study by Alliance for Video-Level Contextual Advertising (AVCA), an organization dedicated to funding research into the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for contextual advertising in streaming, found that consumers pay nearly 4X (3.9X) more attention to ads that are hyper-relevant to the content they are watching.

The research, titled Driving Viewer Attention and Brand Metrics in CTV Advertising, sought to determine how effective contextual targeting enabled by AI is compared to current targeting methods (demo targeting and publisher-declared metadata), to increase ad relevance, viewer attention and brand perception.

"When we established the AVCA, our mission was to advance the knowledge and understanding of video-level contextual intelligence to deliver superior user experiences and the highest value for publishers and brands in ad-supported streaming environments," said Rohan Castelino, CMO of IRIS.TV, and Principal Member of AVCA. "In our first study, we found consumers respond better when the ads they see are relevant to the specific content they are watching. Attention is a scarce resource and as CTV continues to grow, advertisers need to seek out deep contextual relevance to achieve strong return on ad spend."

Consumers Recall Ads Targeted with Contextual Segments Created by AI
AI-enabled contextually targeted ads attract and hold consumer attention as these ads had 300% higher aided brand recall and double the unaided brand recall of ads that were targeted using standard demographic data and publisher-declared metadata such as keywords, genre, and rating.

The study also found viewers of AI-enabled contextual targeting were least distracted, generating 15% more total ad attention than ads targeted with demographic and publisher-declared metadata. In fact, 63% of respondents stated that they paid more attention to AI-enabled contextually targeted ads.

Nearly a quarter (22%) more AI-enabled contextually targeted ads were seen from the beginning as viewers were less likely to look away when programming transitions into an ad break.

"Hyper-relevance is paramount for CTV engagement," added Mike Renfro, VP of Brand and Agency Partnerships at Silverpush. "When it comes to bidstream targeting, it's all about hitting the bullseye with contextually aligned in-video moments – a capability only achievable through video-level pre-bid decisioning. Amassing a wealth of first-party audience data is insufficient if your ad goes unnoticed. AI precision guarantees your message reaches the right audience at the perfect moment and in the most fitting context."

AI-enabled Contextual Targeting Drives Value for Brands in CTV
Ads placed adjacent to relevant content can be a significant differentiator for brands understanding the effectiveness of their campaigns and brand recognition amongst consumers:

• 42% of viewers said they were more interested in the brand and products.
• 38% learned more about a product shown in AI-enabled contextually targeted ads.

"As advertisers continue shifting spend into CTV, the need for actionable, scalable video-level contextual solutions has become critical to improving transparency for buyers and increasing returns for programmers," said Amit Nigam, VP of Product, Beachfront. "These findings and insights from AVCA demonstrate that, when enriched with AI, contextual data is a powerful driver of key branding measures and an impactful means for capturing viewer attention."

Poor Brand Suitability Reduces Brand Favorability
Even though the panel knew the content was a comedy intended for mature audiences and often satirized serious situations, respondents expressed confusion and frustration for ad placements they perceived as misaligned to the content resulting in negative brand favorability. In one example a scene depicting the characters joking about a serious disease preceded a pharmaceutical ad for a drug that treats serious diseases.

"I feel like I almost go in my shell, pretend like it didn't happen," said one respondent. "I think that it would have more of a negative effect on how I would perceive the brand just because I don't like feeling uncomfortable."

When analyzing how brand suitability impacts CTV viewers' attention and brand perception:

• More than half (54%) of respondents were less interested in the brand and products found in contextually misaligned ads.
• More than one-third of viewers liked the brand less and paid less attention when an ad was placed in unsuitable environments.

Respondents stated that the generic nature of ads in those environments were the least engaging and inspiring. Respondents' feedback to these ads was  similar to ads described as having poor brand suitability as they were likely to trigger disengagement and rejection of the ad.

"Brands must be more vigilant than ever about avoiding streaming content that may have a negative impact on their audiences," said Matt Duffy, CMO of Pixability. "At best, viewers tune out and the spend is wasted; at worst, half of them have a negative opinion of the brand. The good news is that AI solutions now make it possible for us to target and filter for brand suitability with nuance so brands can reach the right viewer in the right moment."

Castelino concluded, "In CTV, contextual relevance is the biggest driver of viewer attention and brand perception revealing that it's more important that consumers are 'in the mood' for a brand's ads than even being 'in-market' for their products. To engage consumers in streaming, brands must integrate deeper content data sets into their targeting strategies."

Shutterstock, Inc., a leading global creative platform offering high-quality creative content for transformative brands, digital media and marketing companies, today announced new creative AI-powered editing features and the potential for infinite options to refine and perfect images available in the company's high-quality library of more than 700 million stock images.

"This is an unprecedented offering in the stock photography industry," said Paul Hennessy, Chief Executive Officer for Shutterstock. "Now, creatives have everything they need to craft the perfect content for any project with AI-powered design capabilities that you can use to edit stock images within Shutterstock's library, presenting infinite possibilities to make stock your own."

Now in beta, Shutterstock's creative AI editing features leverage the company's priority access to the latest OpenAI technology supporting the integration of synthetic editing capabilities. This allows Shutterstock customers to not just generate new content using AI, but also to simply edit and transform any image in the entire Shutterstock library to accelerate ideation and production.

"Shutterstock was founded with the goal of bridging the gap between photographers and the creative professionals who want to license their content," continued Hennessy. "This new offering will bring our customers one step closer to their desired creative, as if they were directing the photoshoot themselves."

With six signature capabilities, additional secondary features like a virtual AI design assistant and the most advanced filters available in the industry, as well as additional features expected to launch at a later date, Shutterstock's creative AI editing suite will empower brands, digital media, and marketing companies to unlock transformative possibilities in content creation and ideation. Shutterstock will give a live demo of these features on November 9 during the Shutterstock Showcase: Creative AI virtual series.

Signature capabilities include:

• Magic Brush: Magically modify an image by brushing over the areas you'd like to change and simply describing what you want to add, replace or erase
• Variations: Generate alternate options of any stock or AI-generated image
• Expand Image: Broaden the view of any image, as easily as if zooming out through a camera lens, to see more of the scene behind the central image
• Smart Resize: Automatically change the shape of your image to match the dimensions you need
• Background Remover: Remove or replace the background with any scene when the subject of an image is perfect, but the background is not
• AI Image Generator: Launched in beta earlier this year and soon to be updated with the latest version of Dall-E, this tool allows anyone to create high-quality, ethically-sourced visuals in seconds (ready for licensing and indemnifiable for commercial use) by simply describing what they are looking for

Artists will be compensated if their images are licensed after editing. However, in alignment with Shutterstock's Contributor Account and Content Submission Guidelines, AI-generated or edited content will not be accepted as a submission for licensing on the platform to further ensure the protection of contributor IP and proper compensation of artists.

The launch of Shutterstock's creative AI editing suite follows several strategic steps the company has taken as one of the leading innovators bringing ethical and responsible AI advancements to the creative industry. Shutterstock also recently joined the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), through which the company will support the CAI's goal of addressing the prevalence of misleading information online through the implementation of technical standards for certifying the source and history of media content by integrating Content Credentials. Shutterstock intends to integrate the CAI's underlying Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) standard into its AI capabilities and various creativity tools, including its DALL·E-powered AI Image Generator and suite of AI-powered applications to further protect its users with verifiable and tamper-evident information across all forms of content. With Content Credentials, this will include ensuring each asset is certified with secure metadata about its creation, authorship and edit history.

Contentsquare, a global leader in Digital Experience Analytics, today announced the appointment of Jean-Christophe Pitié as Chief Marketing & Partnerships Officer. In this dual role, Jean-Christophe will lead the company’s global marketing organization and oversee strategic partnerships.

Starting as of today, Jean-Christophe will lead Contentsquare’s global marketing initiatives, focusing on strengthening the brand and driving customer demand in markets around the world. He will also be responsible for identifying, nurturing and enhancing strategic alliances with key partners, and continuing to grow Contentsquare’s rich partner ecosystem worldwide.

Jean-Christophe brings a solid track record of leading global companies through their digital growth and transformation journeys, while building scalable and world-class demand generation strategies. Prior to joining Contentsquare, he spent more than two decades at Microsoft, playing a key role in Microsoft’s journey to cloud-based solutions, and helping to launch Office 365 for consumers and Microsoft 365 for businesses. He also led Microsoft’s digital stores division at the company’s global headquarters in Seattle. More recently, he served as Chief Operating Officer for Microsoft France, where he was responsible for executing Microsoft’s go to market and strategy within the French market.

“We couldn’t be more excited to welcome Jean-Christophe to the team. Not only does he have an impressive track record of bringing innovative technology to market, he also embodies our company values and puts his team first with everything he does,” said Jonathan Cherki, CEO & Founder of Contentsquare. “Contentsquare is at an exciting stage of its journey and Jean-Christophe’s deep expertise in tech will be incredibly valuable as we continue to grow. We couldn’t think of a better person to activate our brand vision and partner strategy.”

“Having access to a holistic understanding of customers is critical in today’s business landscape and Contentsquare is leading the way when it comes to customer experience insights. I’m thrilled to join the company at this exciting moment in time and to help bring its unique insights to more teams,” said Jean-Christophe Pitié.

Jean-Christophe holds an MBA in Business and Economics from INSEAD and a degree in Civil Engineering from ESTP (École Spéciale des Travaux Publics, du Bâtiment et de l’Industrie).

As privacy concerns and weakening marketing performance erode traditional online advertising, Web3 Pro, a leading MarTech SaaS company built around targeted opt-in marketing, closed a substantial round of fresh funding from P101, one of the largest European venture investors, bringing the total raised to date to almost $10MM, with a post money valuation of $57MM.

Marketers are moving quickly to retool their efforts now that Google is planning to eliminate third-party tracking cookies in its dominant Chrome browser in 2024. The decreasing advertising effectiveness of social media has further increased urgency.

"There is a seismic shift towards engaging, 1-1 marketing experiences that consumers enjoy and brands find extremely effective," says Christian Ferri, Web3 Pro's founder and CEO. "We're delighted that our enterprise-grade platform has found such success with marketers and now has the strategic support of P101 and its vast network of European enterprise brands."

After years of building bespoke marketing campaigns for companies including Lamborghini, Juventus, RM Sotheby's, Showtime Sports and Ducati, and others, Web3 Pro recently launched the Hub, a platform that gives companies self-serve access to some of the most powerful marketing tools available anywhere, all for a low monthly SaaS fee.  

"As the leading investor in Web3 Pro's venture round, we are delighted to support their revolutionary marketing SaaS solution designed for enterprises", said Andrea Di Camillo, founder and managing partner of P101. "In a rapidly evolving digital landscape, harnessing the power of web3 technology is paramount. Web3 Pro has showcased a remarkable ability to merge innovation with practicality, offering a transformative solution that aligns seamlessly with the future needs of businesses. We commit to support Christian Ferri and the Web3 Pro team to develop the European market and those industries that are well established here."

P101 currently manages over $400 million in assets across 4 funds, and has backed companies including Fatmap (acquired by Strava) and Musixmatch, which completed a successful exit in 2022. P101 is one of the largest investor groups in southern Europe.

Existing investors of Web3 Pro include Sumitomo Corporation's CVC arm, Presidio Ventures, Seventy-Six Capital, River Capital Group, Ripple, and VU Ventures. Among its notable advisory board are Young Sohn, former President of Samsung Electronics and Gaetano Sciuto, former CEO of Giorgio Armani.

Based in Palo Alto, Calif., Web3 Pro provides a white-label SaaS MarTech solution that helps companies drive higher engagement, retention, and conversion, outperforming today's sub-par ads and loyalty programs by 3 to 5 times.

Proceeds from the new investment will be used to grow the sales and marketing division, including the expansion into Europe, MENA and APAC, which are centers of growing demand for new marketing engagement models.

Brand Safety and Suitability Solutions Usage Take Off

Today, IAB released a follow up to its earlier podcast study, which found that U.S. podcast ad revenues grew at a rate more than double the total digital advertising market overall.

Part two of the study, titled U.S. Podcast Advertising Revenue Study 2023: Drivers, Strategies, and Tactics for Growth, reveals the drivers, strategies, and tactics propelling podcast ad revenues, and shows where the market is heading.

"The growing interest we're seeing in podcasting among larger, brand awareness advertisers demonstrates the medium's evolution to deliver on a range of buyer's KPIs," said Matt Shapo, Digital Audio and Video Director, Media Center, IAB. "Podcasting continues to be a remarkably agile channel that enables advertisers to reach an expanding user base, adopt new functionalities and solutions, and develop new content with creators."

Key Findings

The report shows that podcasting can deliver on buyers' KPIs across the funnel: the majority of podcast advertising is used for brand-building, which encompasses 61% of total ad revenues — up 13% in the last two years.

For brand marketers, there's a lot to like. For example, podcasting usage of brand safety and suitability solutions has nearly doubled since last year, with 69% of publishers using brand safety solutions and 62% using brand suitability solutions, including contextual transcript analysis. As the report also shows, buyers are continuing to expand their range of measurement solutions commonly used with other digital channels for their podcast campaigns. 

Another key finding in the IAB study is that dynamic ad insertion (DAI) now represents more than 90% of ad revenues as its share has nearly doubled in the last three years. 

"For marketers who need to respond fast to trends and update messaging on the fly — but need a brand-safe and brand-suitable solution — podcasting is a proven winner," said David Cohen, CEO, IAB. "There's still real growth ahead."

Opportunities for Growth

For podcasting to continue this growth, it needs to further develop capabilities to better compete with other digital media channels for buyers' dollars.

For example, the study shows the industry must continue to invest in creating interconnected networks that offer advertisers both scale and precision. While programmatic has shown significant growth — up 5x from 2021 to 2023 — its share of podcast revenue is still only 11%. For comparison, other digital media channels' programmatic share is 87%.

Another opportunity for growth is for publishers to rethink their podcast ad inventory and repackage it to help advertisers reach audiences across shows, episodes, and properties. Right now, podcast ad inventory is still primarily show-specific. The kinds of sophisticated, audience-based buys common in other digital media channels only represent 25% of podcast revenues.

Perhaps the most unexpected opportunity for what had been an audio-only channel is video. Users are increasingly consuming podcasts in both audio and video formats, and are leveraging video platforms such as YouTube for podcast discovery and consumption. With video-enabled podcasts representing less than 10% of revenues, there is a major opportunity to engage listeners across environments and expand podcast monetization. The industry needs to create new ad models that align with larger percentages of podcast consumption within video environments.

Shapo concluded, "While there's significant work ahead for podcasters, there's more than enough investment from brand marketers to make it worth the effort. Buyers believe in podcasting, and they're ready to invest more."

New capabilities optimize the power of Salesforce Einstein and elevate brand performance and ROI with Salesforce Data Cloud

Acxiom®, the customer intelligence company, unveils its AI investment to help the world's leading brands implement Salesforce AI technologies. Acxiom's AI expertise can help brands deploy Salesforce Einstein and Data Cloud to boost the strategic value of their data, resulting in data-driven customer insights and business outcomes for marketers.

As a Salesforce partner, Acxiom provides end-to-end solutions spanning strategy, technology, and data, enabling clients to strategically implement, operate, and optimize Marketing Cloud and Data Cloud. Acxiom’s team of certified Salesforce professionals can help marketers implement Einstein for:

• Personalization: Tailoring content for precision engagement and guiding product recommendations, next-best actions, and focused campaigns.

• Data Analysis & Insights: Accelerating data processing and analysis through deep customer intelligence for spot-on audience insights and data-driven decisioning.

• Customer Segmentation: Applying advanced algorithms to fine-tune audience segments based on criteria ranging from demographics to purchasing patterns.

• Customer Support: Offering always-on chat assistance to elevate customer satisfaction by reducing response times.

• Marketing Optimization: Utilizing real-time analytics to refine message delivery, analyze engagement metrics, and pinpoint the best times for communication.

• Marketing Automation: Streamlining tasks from data preparation to campaign rollouts, ensuring efficiency and consistency.

"As an integral part of modern business operations, Acxiom is proud to collaborate with Salesforce," said Chad Engelgau, CEO at Acxiom. "Our clients trust us to maximize the value of their martech investments. Intensifying our focus on Salesforce's AI capabilities underlines this promise."

Salesforce recognized Acxiom with a 2023 Partner Innovation award for its work serving travel industry clients within the Salesforce ecosystem. Acxiom also recently became one of only four Salesforce partners worldwide to achieve Full Stack certification on Salesforce's Marketing Cloud.