British final mile delivery company enables retailers to reduce carbon footprint and provide customers with a sustainable shopping experience

Retailers in the UK can offer customers a new zero-emissions delivery option when it comes to final mile delivery of their products.  nShift, the global leader in parcel delivery management software, has confirmed zero-emissions carrier Fin as the latest edition to its library.

Founded in 2022, Fin provides logistics services that create a positive impact on society and the environment.  Deliveries are made exclusively using e-cargo-bikes and electric vans, meaning deliveries are emissions-free, while traffic congestion is reduced.

Shoppers today increasingly choose to buy from brands and retailers whose values mirror their own. Around half of consumers report a willingness to pay more for "environmentally friendly" products or services.  Meanwhile, 41% of shoppers will abandon their shopping carts if their preferred delivery provider was not available.

nShift customers can access this service after Fin, founded by former Google executive, Rich Pleeth and serial entrepreneur Chris Sargeant acquired Urb-it - a carrier with whom nShift had previously established connections in Sweden.  The service is launching in London, with expansion into other UK cities including Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester expected in the coming months.  Fin plans to grow into central Europe later in 2024.

Ian Russell, Director of Carrier Partnerships at nShift, said, "We're pleased to add Fin to our growing library of net-zero carriers.  This vital offering comes at a time when pending regulation demands that sustainable shipping is no longer a nice-to-have and when companies must do more than talk about their values, but instead, make them clear and tangible."   

Rich Pleeth, CEO and co-founder of Fin said, "Being integrated into nShift is huge for fin, being able to tap into nShift's extensive and well-established customer base.  This has accelerated our offering of zero-emissions and sustainable parcel delivery.  Our commitment to sustainability is more than just a business strategy it's in our company's DNA and encompasses protecting both the planet and people, all while maintaining profitability."

The partnership comes as businesses throughout the EU are preparing for the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) - regulations that require businesses to disclose, and report on, environmental and social impacts.

To help retailers track and report on their emissions, and highlight the impact of moving to low- and zero-emissions deliveries nShift has developed Emissions Tracker.  It collates all carrier data into one reporting tool with an easy-to-use template. Calculations are made at shipment level, giving retailers the ability to drill into shipping data, compile accurate reports, and identify quick wins for emissions reduction.

For the first time, marketers have a single solution to acquire identity-based audiences, verify eligibility to gated offers, and stream data throughout their martech stack for deeper personalized marketing

SheerID, the global leader in identity verification for commerce, today announced the launch of two significant platform capabilities that drive customer acquisition and retention for consumer brands with gated offers to high-value communities like GenZ, teachers and essential workers. Marketing Hub provides brands with a curated marketplace of data-driven marketing products, agency services and earned media solutions to drive awareness and accurately engage highly valued communities. DataConnectors take the first-party data provided by consumers and verified by SheerID, and streams it into more than 400 martech solutions such as a brand’s BI, CRM and CDP systems for personalized marketing. 

Marketing Hub

Launching gated offers for communities throughout the world is a proven strategy for attracting new customers such as students, teachers and healthcare workers. For example, SheerID’s research has shown that when students buy through a gated offer, 90% of them share it with others. This authentic, organic evangelism lowers acquisition costs and makes gated-offer programs deliver a return on investment of 337%, according to research from Forrester Consulting.

Many businesses need help promoting their offers to specific communities. Rather than limiting a brands’ reach and awareness to consumers who sign-up for closed, affiliate-based memberships, Marketing Hub allows brands to leverage best-in-class providers that provide more reach and expertise to communicate with these unique audiences. Marketing Hub provides access to:

• Specialized Agency Packages. SheerID has formed strategic partnerships with Refuel Agency and The Campus Agency to create turn-key, results-oriented packages. These packages provide brands with options for full-service digital and social marketing campaigns, branded content and video to students, teachers, military veterans, and military service members. Both Refuel and The Campus Agency have led successful campaigns for Spotify, Adobe, T-Mobile and more market-leading brands attracting consumer communities.
  
  Liz Carmo, SVP of Refuel Agency, explained, “Our partnership with SheerID enables brands to reach key audiences, including the military, first responders, students and teachers. We are thrilled to offer compelling custom marketing packages designed to pair expertly with SheerID's verification platform and boost brands’ campaigns authentically and with measurable results."

• Data-driven Marketing. SheerID has partnered with leading data partners to provide opt-in consumer data lists that can be used for omnichannel campaigns including email, social media, direct mail and ad platforms. Currently, audience targeting lists are available in the US for college students and the military and can be tailored to fit a brand’s ideal customer profile.
  
  Sheldon Katz, COO of Giant Partners, SheerID’s military database marketing partner, said, "We are excited to partner with SheerID to bring our industry-leading military database marketing to their customers. As more brands are interested in honoring the military community with exclusive offers, pairing our proprietary marketing database with SheerID's military verification platform will ensure brands reach their target customers, see more engagement, and ultimately more conversions."

• Earned Media Best Practices. As a SheerID customer, brands get access to the best resources and proven practices that accelerate the deployment of gated offers. These have been curated by SheerID’s 10+ years of experience designing and managing gated offers for brands and include webinars, marketplaces, media opportunities, and more.

DataConnectors

A pervasive B2C marketing challenge is collecting high-quality, first-party data that can be easily used for remarketing and engagement. Often data is stuck in a third-party marketing platform or data silo. DataConnectors in the SheerID platform help marketers for the first time, to overcome this challenge by instantly streaming opt-in, verified customer data to over 400 marketing solutions in a brand’s tech stack like Salesforce, Adobe, AWS, and many others. In a recent study conducted by SheerID, 81% of consumers indicated that their most meaningful attribute for future communication is their life stage or community. DataConnectors enable marketers to easily add this valuable first-party data to a customer profile for personalized messaging. It can also be connected directly to reporting systems like Tableau and Google Analytics and engagement platforms like Marketo, Braze and HubSpot. See the full list of integrations.

“Incomplete solutions, data silos, and cookie deprecation have severely impacted marketers' abilities to build trusted, tight-knit relationships with their customers,” said Jake Weatherly, CEO of SheerID. “Gated offers powered by SheerID have proven to be an effective way to invite consumers to engage with a brand, and leaders have seen tremendous results. Now with Marketing Hub and DataConnectors, we enable them to double-down on their Gated Offer programs to acquire consumers with best-in-class community marketing providers and instant data streaming through a brand’s tech stack to truly scale their programs and build long-term value.”

Brands & Agencies Empowered to Understand the Combination of End Publishers & Sellers that Drove Performance

Insights Inform Optimizations to Cut Waste & Find the Most Effective Supply Paths

Innovid, an independent platform for the creation, delivery, measurement, and optimization of advertising across connected TV (CTV), linear TV, and digital, today announced the availability of publisher-level outcomes analysis for all DSP and SSP campaigns. The first-of-its-kind offering helps brands and agencies break down silos inherent in DSP and SSP reporting to understand, assess, and compare performance across all of their media buys through a granular and unbiased measurement lens. 

The addition of this breakout analysis within InnovidXP augments the previously provided DSP and SSP reach, frequency, and unique reach, and offers a new level of transparency and granularity for campaigns and performance-driven optimization. Advertisers ultimately benefit through increased visibility into inventory performance, publisher-level impression details, device transparency, and how their campaigns performed across all of their investment strategies. These additional insights allow advertisers to find the most effective supply paths to optimize campaigns and drive ROI.

“As TV becomes 100% digital, a new world of transparent measurement is opening up across the advertising ecosystem, allowing buyers and sellers to identify optimizations and improve efficiency to decrease waste and strengthen performance,” said Blair Robertson, Head of Product Strategy, Innovid. “With InnovidXP, advertisers can optimize every part of their investment.”

Fueled by the scale and automation of Innovid’s ad server – which processes more than one billion video impressions and collects over six billion data points a day – InnovidXP delivers an unrivaled view of the converged TV universe and powerful, granular, always-on insights on all aspects of TV campaigns in one platform.

Robertson continued: “With so many ways to buy inventory, advertisers are challenged to understand where their ads landed, the outcomes they drove, and the performance of DSP and SSP partners. While most DSPs and SSPs provide measurement insights, there has never been a way to consistently compare them within a campaign. Now, with InnovidXP, brands and agencies get a chance to ‘see past their buys’ and start optimizing toward KPIs based on real-time, unbiased analysis.”

Pruitt to lead business development and brand communications for the growing Stagwell network connecting creative, media and commerce.

Stagwell's Brand Performance Network (BxP), today announced the appointment of Shannon Pruitt as Global Chief Marketing Officer. Shannon will be responsible for business development, marketing and communications globally for BxP, where she previously served as Global Chief Content & Partnership Innovation Officer. 

"After spending more than 20 years working in both agency and brand-side roles, I've come to understand the headache marketers face when brand and performance marketing operate in silos. The Brand Performance Network flips the script by treating brand and performance as a single, unified action," said Shannon Pruitt.

After joining Stagwell in 2020, Shannon was elevated to Global Chief Content & Partnership Innovation Officer of BxP in 2021. In this role, Shannon spearheaded partnerships with emerging platforms like Roblox and Audio, while collaborating with BxP agencies and Stagwell on key business initiatives. In 2023, Shannon launched Partners for Progress, Assembly's Global Diversity & Inclusion initiative, and consolidated Assembly Global's ESG efforts into Assembly Impact.

Prior to joining Stagwell, Shannon was the Chief Marketing Officer of The Honest Company and the co-founder and CEO of Dentsu's The Story Lab, amassing experience across Fortune 100 brands including GM, XBox, P&G, Fox, Microsoft, Mondelez, MasterCard and Macy's. Shannon has also led creative, marketing and business development teams at entertainment powerhouses 19 Entertainment, Mark Burnett Productions, Warner Bros and Octagon. Throughout this time, she was responsible for the strategy and activation of MasterCard's FIFA World Cup, Major League Baseball, and National Football League sponsorships.

"Given Shannon's deep background in brand storytelling, partnerships, content creation, and omnichannel campaigns, she is the ideal person to drive forward the Brand Performance Network's mission. Shannon understands the necessity for connected solutions across creative, media and commerce and can help us tell the story for brands seeking a modern alternative to the legacy players," said James Townsend, CEO of the Brand Performance Network.

"Shannon is also deeply passionate about sustainable growth and impact for brands. We know that DEI and environmental sustainability are important not only to consumers but to clients who have also made shareholder and business commitments in these areas. Shannon will continue to serve as a trusted advisor to clients defining their path forward," Townsend added.

A new study reveals trends in CTV, targeting, and sustainability for the European digital media industry.

As the programmatic ecosystem prepares for the deprecation of the third-party cookie, the proportion of campaigns run via CTV across Europe is set to increase substantially while brands and agencies alike lean more into curated media buys.

The market is also recognising the importance of sustainability, investing heavily in practical efforts to reduce carbon emissions. This is according to a new research report, CTV, Targeting, and Sustainability - Europe 2023-2024, published by ExchangeWire, in association with OpenX.

As brands and agencies recognise the increased attention and premium inventory CTV offers, they are flocking to the channel en-masse, with a majority of marketers reporting that in the next two years, at least 40 percent of their campaigns will be running via CTV. Meanwhile, the reliance on third-party cookies is steadily decreasing, with probabilistic identity graphs coming to the fore, especially in European markets.

“As the programmatic ecosystem collectively prepares for a huge shift, it’s really encouraging to see how significantly brands and agencies have embraced curation and programmatic CTV to continue to reach their desired audiences effectively,” says Joseph Worswick, VP, EMEA, and head of sustainability at OpenX. “OpenX is committed to building innovative solutions that help ensure both publisher health and buyer success as we enter a new era of programmatic.”

Highlights from the report include:

• A majority of respondents stated that at least 40% of campaigns will be run on CTV in the next 24 months.
• Two-thirds of brands and agencies are engaging in programmatic CTV buys, via both managed service providers and self-service platforms.
• Six-in-ten respondents stated that 40% or less of their inventory is reliant upon third-party cookies, as probabilistic identity graphs and CTV rise in their wake.
• Just 3% of media buyers report only advertising against traditional linear TV.
• 75% of marketers deem sustainability metrics to be a top priority for their businesses, representing a sizable increase from the 43% recorded last year.

PubMatic, an independent technology company delivering digital advertising’s supply chain of the future, has today announced its partnership with Vevo, the world’s leading music video network. The collaboration will allow for an accelerated phase of programmatic CTV growth for Vevo, allowing advertisers to drive scaled reach across its premium library.

Vevo’s global network spans more than 800,000 videos, boasting a total monthly average of 25 billion views. Partnering with PubMatic will offer unprecedented access to Vevo’s expansive high-quality CTV inventory for media buyers globally. Harnessing PubMatic’s huge demand, advanced programmatic trading capabilities, and strategic supply path optimisation (SPO) relationships, Vevo will unlock rich opportunities to deliver targeted ads for a wide range of audiences in engaged, immersive, and brand safe environments, while benefiting from significant ad yield gains.

The integration closely aligns with Vevo’s goal of achieving ubiquity through ever-broader video distribution and persistent development of its monetisation approach. With its content accessible on the Vevo TV app, over 20 unique Free Ad-Supported TV (FAST) channels, and social platforms such as YouTube, Vevo is increasing its participation in different types of sales environments, building on previous direct dealing success, by making inventory programmatically accessible to varied demand partners via PubMatic’s platform.

The new partnership gives media buyers access to Vevo’s premium inventory, coupled with access to PubMatic’s cutting-edge addressability and transparency solutions, known for enhancing return-on-investment (ROI).

PubMatic's Nicole Scaglione, Global VP for CTV/OTT and Video says: “This collaboration marks a major milestone on multiple fronts. The partnership will enable greater growth and innovation by fulfilling the requirement for an efficient, transparent, and premium-grade supply of inventory. As well as allowing us to connect programmatic buyers with high-value music video inventory, it reinforces PubMatic’s standing as a leading force in the CTV space — cementing our position as a go-to platform for existing and new CTV players. We look forward to playing a key role in powering trading that optimises ad revenue for both buyers and sellers.”

Vevo's EVP of Revenue, Distribution & Data Operations, Natalie Gabathuler-Scully, says: “This partnership will allow Vevo to considerably elevate the advertising opportunities we can provide at a global level and drive our programmatic business forward. Leveraging PubMatic’s extensive preferred demand relationships will considerably augment our monetisation approach, especially across our TV app and FAST channels on over 35 CTV platforms worldwide.”

Mitto, a dominant global omnichannel communications provider announced today that it entered a strategic partnership with MoEngage, an industry-leading insight-led customer engagement platform, to optimize WhatsApp Business and SMS communication quality and cost-efficiency while elevating the customer experience. Mitto will now be part of the MoEngage Catalyst partner program that focuses on helping brands scale at speed. 

This collaboration empowers MoEngage users to:

• Leverage Mitto's advanced SMS API and WhatsApp Business communication solutions to engage and support customers worldwide with two-way, individualized conversations
• Cost-effectively amplify their reach with Mitto's proprietary AI-routing platform, which proactively monitors carrier networks, runs simulations, and analyzes and prioritizes traffic to mitigate problems, identify the best message path, and provide the fastest delivery speeds at the lowest price points
• Drive sales, boost retention, and deepen customer connections with personalized campaigns, prompt 24/7 support, and loyalty programs
• Effortlessly segment customers, customize messaging, monitor key performance indicators in real-time, and increase efficiency with event-triggered automation
• Tap into Mitto's global network of over 800 direct carrier connections

By uniting abilities, Mitto and MoEngage allow brands to optimize ROI and deliver extraordinary conversational experiences to consumers worldwide.

"We believe that our collaborative efforts with Mitto will help businesses delight customers with unforgettable, hyper-personalized experiences across high-impact channels that make them feel seen, heard, and understood, " stated Raviteja Dodda, MoEngage® Inc. Founder and CEO.

"Our partnership with MoEngage reinforces our commitment to not just empowering brands with innovative communication tools but to reshaping the future of how businesses interact and care for customers," Andrea Giacomini, Mitto CEO, said.

Sinch AB (publ), which powers meaningful conversations between businesses and their customers through its Customer Communications Cloud, today announced that it has appointed Wendy Johnstone as Executive Vice President APAC and member of the Sinch Global Leadership Team.

Wendy brings a broad experience and a proven track record of success from over 25 years in the technology and SaaS sectors across EMEA and APAC. She joins Sinch from Zendesk where she had the position as Senior Vice President Asia Pacific and Japan.

"I am delighted to welcome Wendy Johnstone as our new Executive Vice President for the APAC region. Wendy will be instrumental in advancing our strategic initiatives across APAC, capitalizing on emerging opportunities, and fostering strong relationships with partners, clients, and employees. With her strategic vision paired with empathetic and courageous leadership, we are confident in Wendy's ability to drive innovation, align teams cross functionally, enhance operational efficiency, and achieve accelerated growth in this dynamic and diverse market," comments Laurinda Pang, Sinch CEO.

Wendy Johnstone will succeed Damien Tabor who has had this position on an interim basis and will continue as Sinch APAC's Chief Financial Officer. Wendy is based in Singapore and her first day at Sinch will be February 23.

Following this appointment, Sinch's leadership team will consist of:

• Laurinda Pang, CEO
• Brett Scorza, Chief Technology Officer
• Christina Raaschou, Chief Human Resources Officer
• Cristina David, Chief Information Officer
• Jonathan Bean, Chief Marketing Officer
• Julia Fraser, EVP Americas
• Nicklas Molin, EVP EMEA
• Roshan Saldanha, Chief Financial Officer
• Sean O'Neal, Chief Product Officer
• Sibito Morley, Chief Data and Transformation Officer
• Thomas Heath, Chief Strategy Officer
• Wendy Johnstone, EVP APAC