Comscore, a global leader in consumer behavior measurement and analysis, has appointed Frank Friedman as Chief Data and Analytics Officer and Head of Measurement. With his extensive experience in agency, research, publishing, and client leadership, Friedman is set to spearhead Comscore’s data governance, currency adoption, and measurement strategies.

1. Frank Friedman’s Expertise and Career Background

• A seasoned operator with a career spanning agency, research, publishing, and client leadership roles.
• Formerly at The E.W. Scripps Company, Friedman negotiated Comscore’s first agreement and worked on integrating data into a cohesive system for both National and Local divisions.
• Experienced in driving efficiencies in planning and buying from his time at Publicis Groupe.

2. Frank’s Role at Comscore

As the Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Frank will:

• Oversee data governance and lead efforts to drive currency adoption.
• Develop tailored measurement strategies for diverse customers, acknowledging that "one size does not fit all."
• Shape the future of omnichannel measurement to adapt to an evolving digital landscape.

3. Leadership’s Perspective on Frank’s Appointment

Jon Carpenter, Comscore’s CEO, commented:

• "Frank has been a leader in challenging conventions and implementing strategies that drive meaningful change. His appointment will be crucial as Comscore enters the next phase of its transformation."

4. Frank’s Commitment to Advancing Data Analytics

• Friedman has held pivotal roles with industry bodies such as the Media Rating Council (MRC), Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM), and Video Advertising Bureau (VAB).
• He is committed to advancing data analytics, ensuring rigorous measurement governance, and promoting collaboration across the industry.

5. Industry Impact and Future Vision

• Frank has a proven track record of using data to disrupt traditional models and drive growth.
• At Comscore, he will help define the next era of omnichannel measurement, particularly crucial as the ecosystem shifts towards digital and programmatic strategies.

Frank Friedman’s appointment as Comscore’s Chief Data and Analytics Officer and Head of Measurement marks a pivotal moment for the company as it continues to innovate and lead in consumer behavior measurement. With his expertise and leadership, Comscore is poised to further advance the industry’s approach to data, measurement, and customer insights.

Captello, a leader in innovative lead capture and engagement solutions, has announced the appointment of Nassir Jamal as Chief Technology Officer (CTO). With over 21 years of expertise in technology innovation, AI-driven solutions, and enterprise-scale architectures, Nassir brings a wealth of knowledge to propel Captello’s mission forward.

1. Nassir Jamal’s Extensive Background

• Over 21 years of experience in technology innovation across startups, Fortune 500 companies, and the public sector.
• Co-Founder and CEO of Revity, where he advanced sustainable nutrition through AI-powered vertical hydroponic farming systems.
• Expertise in AI solutions, enterprise-scale architecture, and sustainable agriculture through automation.

2. Nassir’s Role at Captello

As CTO, Nassir will spearhead initiatives to:

• Drive revenue growth with AI-driven demand generation.
• Enhance Captello’s position as a technologically advanced lead engagement platform.
• Fortify the company’s security and optimize its cloud infrastructure.
• Create thought leadership content and engage with the broader tech community.

3. Leadership’s Perspective on Nassir’s Appointment

Ryan Schefke, CEO of Captello, shared:

• "Nassir’s innovative mindset and proven track record make him an ideal fit for Captello’s growth and innovation goals."
• "His expertise in merging AI with practical applications will redefine lead engagement and customer success."

4. Collaboration and Strategic Vision

• Nassir will work closely with engineering, sales, and support teams to streamline operations and align strategies.
• His leadership highlights Captello’s commitment to customer success and staying at the forefront of technological innovation.

5. Impact on Captello and the Industry

• Nassir’s career has focused on bridging technology and human needs, a vision that aligns seamlessly with Captello’s mission.
• His guidance will ensure businesses using Captello’s platform achieve greater efficiency and success through cutting-edge solutions.

With Nassir Jamal’s appointment as CTO, Captello embarks on an exciting chapter of growth and technological advancement. Nassir’s expertise in AI and innovation, combined with his passion for practical solutions, reinforces Captello’s position as a leader in lead engagement and customer success.

VaynerX, a leading modern communications company, and Ipsos, a global market research leader, have released key insights on the growing significance of Organic Social Media for marketers. This research highlights how Organic Social is transforming consumer engagement, building brand awareness, and influencing creative strategies.

1. Increased Investment in Organic Social

• 79% of marketers have increased their investment in Organic Social over the last three years.
• Half of the surveyed marketers plan to allocate more budget to Organic Social in the upcoming year.

2. Organic Social’s Versatility Across Marketing Funnels

• 87% of marketers agree it supports upper-funnel objectives like brand awareness.
• 84% see its value for mid-funnel objectives like engagement and consideration.
• 48% recognize its potential for lower-funnel objectives, including conversions.

3. Organic Social as an Insights Engine

• 72% of marketers believe it validates hypotheses before larger investments.
• 65% use Organic Social to inspire and guide product innovation.

4. Social-First Thinking: Beliefs vs. Practice

• 84% of marketers agree Organic Social determines winning content for scaling to other platforms.
• 68% view social media assets as the “new TV commercial.”
• However, only 47% prioritize designing campaigns specifically for social channels.

5. Barriers to Adoption: ROI and Executive Buy-In

• 42% of marketers cite difficulty in demonstrating ROI and securing executive buy-in as major challenges to expanding Organic Social efforts.

The research conducted by VaynerX and Ipsos underscores Organic Social Media's transformative potential in the marketing mix. As a versatile tool for all stages of the marketing funnel and a driver of insights and creativity, Organic Social offers immense untapped potential. While barriers like perceived ROI remain, the growing investments and belief in social-first strategies signal its role as a key growth driver for modern marketers.

Listrak, the leading cross-channel marketing platform for the retail industry, became the first provider in the United States to launch a Rich Communication Services (RCS) marketing campaign. Partnering with Dooney & Bourke, a renowned heritage handbag and leather goods brand, the test campaign during the 2024 holiday season demonstrated RCS's potential to more than double revenue per send compared to traditional SMS/MMS campaigns.

1. RCS Adoption in the U.S.

• Wireless carriers are set to roll out RCS support in 2025.
• Dooney & Bourke gained early access to RCS via Listrak and Infobip's partnership.
• RCS marks a new era in messaging, transforming brand-to-customer communication with interactive and personalized experiences.

2. The "12 Days of Dooney" Campaign

• The campaign targeted subscribers capable of receiving RCS messages.
• Messaging focused on dynamic and engaging holiday shopping promotions.
• The RCS campaign achieved over double the revenue per send compared to SMS/MMS.

3. Benefits of RCS Messaging

• Interactive features, such as multimedia content and dynamic engagement options, elevate user experience.
• Verified brand identities enhance trust, leading to higher conversion rates.
• RCS modernizes traditional text messaging, competing with apps like WhatsApp and GroupMe.

4. Industry Leadership and Collaboration

• Jamie Elden, CRO of Listrak, emphasized RCS’s potential to revolutionize customer engagement.
• Dooney & Bourke showcased its commitment to innovation by leveraging RCS during the competitive holiday season.
• Infobip, the global cloud communications platform, highlighted the North American messaging revolution through this collaboration.

5. The Global Potential of RCS

• With over a billion active users worldwide, RCS is set to redefine business communication.
• The channel supports text-like messages, multimedia files, voice calls, and video calls seamlessly via native messaging apps.

The successful partnership between Listrak, Dooney & Bourke, and Infobip highlights RCS's transformative potential in retail marketing. By delivering interactive and personalized messaging, brands can revolutionize customer engagement, differentiate themselves, and drive impressive results. As RCS adoption grows, businesses have an opportunity to lead the messaging revolution.

Abnormal Security, a leader in AI-native human behavior security, has released a comprehensive report on advanced email threats in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. The findings reveal a significant rise in phishing and business email compromise (BEC) attacks targeting organizations in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Singapore from January 2023 to December 2024.

1. Rising Email Threats in APAC

• The APAC region witnessed a 26.9% increase in advanced email attacks between 2023 and 2024.
• Attack volumes grew from 472 to 600 per 1,000 mailboxes monthly.
• Significant quarterly increases were observed in 2024:
  • 16% rise from Q1 to Q2.
  • 20% rise from Q2 to Q3.

2. Phishing Attacks Lead the Surge

• Phishing incidents saw a 30.5% year-over-year rise across APAC.
• Regional spikes:
  • Japan and Singapore: 37% increase.
  • Australia and New Zealand: 30% increase.

3. Business Email Compromise (BEC) Growth

• BEC attacks grew by 6% year-over-year in APAC.
• Despite slower growth, these attacks are high-risk:
  • Average financial loss per attack: $137,000.
  • Global losses in 2023: $2.9 billion.
• BEC attacks rely on social engineering, making them harder to detect with traditional security tools.

4. Factors Driving the Surge

• APAC countries’ roles in trade, finance, and defense make them prime targets.
• Attackers exploit economic dynamics and seek sensitive data from critical industries.

5. Need for Advanced Defenses

• Advanced solutions that detect and block threats in real-time are crucial.
• Businesses must prioritize investing in intelligent security tools to combat these sophisticated threats.

The APAC region is becoming a focal point for advanced email threats, with phishing and BEC attacks on the rise. Organizations must strengthen their defenses by implementing AI-driven security solutions to mitigate risks and safeguard against financial and reputational damage.

SundaySky, a leading AI-powered video platform, has launched the next generation of its platform, elevating it to a comprehensive business solution for video creation that is data-driven, AI-powered, and creatively limitless. The new update introduces innovative features like AI avatars, in-app screen recording, and advanced AI media generation, all designed to enhance the video creation process for marketers, customer experience professionals, product managers, and customer success teams.

1. Streamlining Video Creation with AI-Powered Features

• The latest update consolidates a variety of video creation tools into one unified platform. These advancements simplify workflows for businesses by reducing the number of separate tools needed, providing a one-stop solution for video production, personalization, and scaling.
• Marc Zionts, CEO of SundaySky, emphasized the importance of video as a core resource for business engagement, and the platform's goal of empowering teams to effectively leverage video at all stages of the customer journey.

2. Unified Solution for Efficiency

• A recent survey found that 66% of SundaySky customers were using multiple video tools. SundaySky’s platform addresses this fragmentation by integrating AI avatars, screen recording, video editing, and more, all in one place.
• This unified solution enables businesses to deliver personalized and scalable video content, regardless of whether they are onboarding new customers, driving product adoption, or providing customer support.

3. Key New Features for Business Teams

• AI Avatars: Maintain brand consistency while scaling personalization without incurring high production costs.
• In-App Screen Recorder: Seamlessly capture and incorporate screen recordings into videos directly within the platform.
• AI Video Generation: Create brand-aligned video assets tailored to tone, aspect ratio, and other parameters, with just a simple prompt.
• AI-Powered Editing Tools: Automatic video trimming, rotating, cropping, and background removal for greater creative control.
• Enhanced AI Voices: A new library of synthetic voices offering more human-like pronunciation and improved video quality.
• AI-Powered Language Translation: Translate voiceovers and captions into multiple languages with just a click.

4. Customer Success Stories

• David Homan, CMO of McGohan Brabender, shared how the SundaySky platform has been a game-changer, allowing the company to personalize messaging, streamline communication, and educate clients about new products. He also highlighted the upcoming avatar feature as a valuable addition that would help scale personalized communication for over 500,000 clients.

5. Data-Driven Personalization for Impactful Engagement

• SundaySky is the only enterprise video platform offering data-driven personalization. Businesses can tailor video elements—such as narration, media, text, and calls to action (CTAs)—based on audience segments or individual customers, ensuring the most impactful communication possible.

The new features introduced by SundaySky position it as the go-to AI-powered video platform for modern enterprises, empowering businesses to create scalable, personalized video content with ease. With AI avatars, enhanced editing tools, and real-time video generation capabilities, SundaySky’s platform is setting a new standard for video in business.

Chatmeter, the leader in multi-location customer intelligence, announces exciting new features to its Pulse Ai platform, including AI-powered image analysis and a Review Generation tool. These updates aim to enhance how brands manage customer feedback, gather insights, and improve customer experiences across multiple locations.

AI-Powered Image Analysis: A Game Changer for Reputation Management

One of the most groundbreaking features of Pulse Ai is its ability to analyze photos in reviews. Chatmeter’s Signals can now surface relevant images from reviews, helping businesses identify key customer feedback trends—an industry-first capability. This new function helps multi-location businesses better understand customer sentiment and discover actionable insights from visual content.

• Key Benefits:
  • AI-driven sentiment analysis
  • Identifying critical business risks such as health and safety issues, and employee welfare
  • Identifying key trends across visual content at scale

“Imaging models will allow us to identify at scale crucial insights from images, including summarization, sentiment, and flagging risks,” said Dan Cunningham, CTO of Chatmeter.

Review Generation: Driving More Reviews Faster

Chatmeter’s Review Generation tool helps multi-location brands accelerate review collection by three times faster. With customizable templates for email, SMS, and QR codes, businesses can easily create, send, and track review requests, driving credibility and increasing customer trust.

“The ability to respond to and generate more reviews is a gamechanger for us,” said Desereé Lopez, Senior Director of Digital Marketing at Caliber Collision.

Survey Insights: Reviews Drive Consumer Trust and Decisions

A recent survey by Chatmeter uncovered key consumer preferences regarding online reviews:

• 95% of consumers trust businesses with a lot of online reviews.
• 92% of consumers look at photos when reading reviews.
• 46% of consumers wouldn’t dine at a restaurant without reading reviews, and 30% would even look at reviews or photos while ordering.

“Reviews have incredible influence over customer decision-making,” said John Mazur, CEO of Chatmeter.

Multi-Platform Presence is Essential for Trust

The study also highlighted the importance of multi-platform presence, with Google Reviews being the most trusted platform. However, preferences vary across generations, with Gen Z (42%) most trusting Google Reviews, and Baby Boomers (39%) preferring Better Business Bureau reviews.

Consumers look for signals like:

• At least a 4/5 average rating (52%)
• Reviews with photos (51%)
• A lot of reviews (46%)

LPL Financial LLC, a leader in wealth management, introduces an enhanced Marketing Solutions portfolio, including a new Digital Marketing Platform. Designed to deepen client relationships and accelerate business growth, this customizable platform empowers advisors to effectively engage clients and prospects through streamlined, multi-channel communication.

1. Customization to Fit Every Advisor's Needs

Advisors can choose from:

• Hands-on Tools: For those who prefer direct control, the Digital Marketing Platform offers an easy-to-use interface.
• Full-Service Support: For advisors who prefer to outsource marketing tasks, freeing up time to focus on their practice.

“By streamlining the often-overwhelming task of marketing, our advisors can focus on strengthening client relationships, nurturing prospects, and running a thriving practice,” said Les Matthews, EVP and Head of Business Services at LPL Financial.

2. Digital Marketing Platform Highlights

• Content Library: Access to financial content from trusted sources and LPL Research.
• Multi-Channel Capabilities: Efficiently manage email, social media, and more.
• AI-Powered Recommendations: Suggests high-value content that aligns with client interests.
• Automation Tools: Simplifies workflows for enhanced efficiency.
• Real-Time Analytics: Delivers insights on client preferences and identifies engaged prospects.
• Compliance-Friendly Workflows: Built-in review and approval processes ensure compliance.

Proven Results and Growth Impact

Advisors using LPL’s Marketing Solutions experience:

• 39% Faster Asset Growth: Over a six-month period compared to their peers.
• Improved Client Retention and Referrals: Personalized marketing drives stronger relationships and loyalty.

“Our tailored solutions help advisors stand out and differentiate their services,” added Matthews.

Seamless Integration and Accessibility

The Digital Marketing Platform integrates seamlessly into the LPL ecosystem through LPL Business Solutions, a comprehensive suite of strategic services aimed at helping advisors optimize and grow their practices.