Veritonic, the industry’s comprehensive audio analytics and research platform, announced today that Audacy has renewed its partnership with the company. The continued partnership will allow Audacy to provide their clients and advertising partners with insightful and comprehensive data that can be used to optimize their audio campaigns, resulting in an increase in both reach and ROI.

“Measuring the impact of our total Audio campaigns — including radio, streaming and podcast advertising— with Veritonic allows us to show the power of Audacy’s content in connecting with audiences and mobilizing customers,” said Idil Cakim, Senior Vice President of Research and Insights, Audacy. “We’re thrilled to continue our partnership and enable our clients and advertising partners to leverage audio to achieve the utmost in competitive edge, reach, and ROI.”

“We take great pride in our ongoing partnership with Audacy, supporting their clients and advertising partners with unparalleled data & insights to inform their audio strategies," said Scott Simonelli, CEO of Veritonic. "Through the utilization of our creative measurement and brand lift solutions, Audacy can continue to empower their clients with the data required to fine-tune their campaigns and ensure a robust return on their investment in the channel."

Veritonic’s measurement platforms and tools enable Audacy to pressure test the sonic qualities of the company’s clients’ messaging and advise them on the optimal sounds that will generate positive emotions, recall and action. Audacy uses Veritonic’s audio-first Brand Lift and Creative Measurement solutions to measure the impact of their clients’ audio campaigns on key brand performance metrics, across the funnel.

The studies provide a deeper understanding of how audio contributes to achieving a client’s goals in terms of emotional resonance, awareness, favorability, intent, and recall. By equipping brands with these tools for validating their investments, Veritonic helps mitigate risks and enhance the performance and ROI of audio across various formats, including streaming audio and podcast advertising.

Veritonic’s AI-powered Creative Measurement solution provides brands and agencies with robust pre-market insights that delve into the emotional resonance, recall, and engagement of audio content. With this actionable information in hand, brands and agencies can optimize their content for maximum impact, ensuring that every element of their audio campaign captures the attention and hearts of their target audience.

The exclusive provider of independent and holistic audio data and analytics, the Veritonic platform is supporting the audio strategies of leading brands, agencies, and platforms around the world. 

The first scraper-specific product tailored to the unique characteristics of scraping attacks.

Akamai Technologies, Inc. the cloud company that powers and protects life online, today announced the availability of Content Protector, a product that stops scraping attacks without blocking the good traffic that companies need to enhance their business.

Scraper bots are a critical and often productive part of the commerce ecosystem. These bots search for new content, highlight products in comparison sites, and gather updated product information to share with customers. Unfortunately, scrapers also get used for harmful purposes such as competitive undercutting, surveillance before inventory hoarding attacks, and counterfeiting goods and websites. Scrapers also ping sites 24/7 unless stopped — so they can degrade site performance, which in turn frustrates consumers and causes them to abandon their visits. In addition, scrapers have become much more evasive and sophisticated over the past few years.

Akamai Content Protector helps detect and mitigate evasive scrapers that steal content for malicious purposes. It enables improved site performance, an enhanced user experience and protection of intellectual property while facilitating significantly better detections and fewer false negatives without increasing the rate of false positives. The product is designed for companies that need to protect their reputation and revenue potential. It offers tailored detections that include:

• Protocol-level assessment: Protocol fingerprinting checks how visitors connect to your site to ensure they're legitimate. It evaluates how the client establishes the connection with the server at the different layers of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model — verifying that the parameters negotiated align with the one expected from the most common web browsers and mobile applications.
• Application-level assessment: Evaluates if the client can run some business logic written in JavaScript. When the client runs JavaScript, it collects the device and browser characteristics and user preferences. These various data points are compared and cross-checked against the protocol-level data to verify consistency.
• User interaction: Analyzes user interactions to distinguish between human and bot traffic. It assesses how users interact with devices such as touch screens, keyboards, and mouse, identifying bots through their lack of interaction or abnormal usage patterns.
• User behavior: Monitors visitor behavior on your website to identify unusual patterns indicative of bots.
• Risk classification: Provides a deterministic and actionable low-, medium-, or high-risk classification of the traffic, based on the anomalies found during the evaluation.

"Content Protector is more than just a security tool; it's a business enabler," says Rupesh Chokshi, SVP and GM, Application Security at Akamai. "By safeguarding your digital assets from scraping threats, it prevents competitors from undercutting your offers, enhances site performance to keep customers engaged, and protects your brand from counterfeiters. Content Protector provides direct business value to grow your digital business with confidence."

Achieves SOC 2, Type II Compliance & TPN Blue Shield Certification

 LucidLink, pioneers in enabling instant access to data and real-time collaboration for the world's most creative companies, has completed its Systems and Organization Controls (SOC 2), Type II audit, and has completed the TPN Blue Shield certification by the Trusted Partner Network (TPN). These certifications recognize LucidLink's commitment to providing secure and reliable file transfer solutions for the media and entertainment (M&E) industry, helping creatives work collaboratively to create award-winning programs such as The Bear and Oscar-winning movies such as The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse.

LucidLink Filespace technology, with its secure "Zero-Knowledge" encryption model, exceeds industry compliance standards. This ensures that neither LucidLink nor storage providers can access customer data, providing a safe operating environment for sensitive workloads across all M&E segments.

Developed by the American Institute of Chartered Public Accountants (AICPA), SOC 2 is a rigorous compliance framework designed to ensure the effectiveness of a company's security policies and procedures. LucidLink's SOC 2 audit was conducted by Prescient Assurance, a leading security and compliance attestation provider for B2B SaaS companies worldwide.

TPN is an industry-driven global security consortium that aims to standardize security requirements and assessments for the M&E supply chain. The TPN Blue Shield certification affirms that LucidLink has met the organization's stringent requirements to safeguard valuable media assets.

In an era where M&E companies increasingly rely on cloud-based technologies, LucidLink's SOC 2 and TPN certifications become crucial assets. Cloud technology facilitates streamlined workflows, remote collaboration, and improved content delivery to global audiences. As organizations migrate to the cloud, data security becomes paramount for sustaining operations and maintaining stakeholder trust. SOC 2, Type II, and TPN compliance are gold standards for proving a company's capability to safeguard confidential customer information.

Gregory Tomczyk, Vice President of IT at LucidLink, emphasizes the company's dedication to data security: "Data security is a fundamental tenant to LucidLink's mindset and operating model. We continually strive to protect our clients from current and emerging threats. We recognize that our customers' data is their most valuable asset and are committed to applying relevant industry standards across our products and services adhering to the highest international compliance standards. We can demonstrate this commitment by achieving SOC 2, Type II compliance, and TPN Blue Shield certification."

Also taps former Walmart executive Dory Butler to lead work across consumer channels

Verizon is investing more in customer experience with the creation of an organization dedicated solely to creating the best experiences for customers and employees. Under Verizon Consumer CEO Sowmyanarayan Sampath, Brian Higgins has been appointed as the company’s first-ever Chief Customer Experience Officer for the consumer group. Former Walmart executive Dory Butler will join Higgins as senior vice president of Customer Experience, where she will lead the development and delivery of high-quality sales and service experiences focusing on the end-to-end consumer journey.

The Customer Experience Organization will invest heavily in transforming the way customers do business with Verizon, and how our employees serve them. Focus areas include AI and personalization, digital channel and systems functionality and delivering best-in-class experiences across all consumer touch points. The team will create a more simplified approach and help deliver customized experiences based on customers’ and employees’ unique needs.

“Everything starts with the customer, and we have a big opportunity to connect with them in a way we’ve never done before,” said Sampath, CEO, Verizon Consumer. “It begins and ends with the customer experience, which we are dedicated to improving, and the new Customer Experience organization is laser focused on just that. I have no doubt our customers will see meaningful benefits as a result.”

Higgins, a telecommunications veteran, previously served as senior vice president of Device Marketing and Consumer Product where he led all product and marketing for the Verizon Consumer Group. Prior, he held roles of increasing responsibility throughout Verizon including network implementation, product development and long-term technology planning.

Butler was recently tapped to join the team as senior vice president of Customer Experience. She comes to Verizon from Walmart, where she led Omni Customer Experience Product Management for the Walmart US Mobile App and Walmart.com. Prior, Butler spent 20 years at American Express where she led AmericanExpress.com globally in over 25 markets, overseeing product management, marketing and operations for the global web experiences.

Higgins’ team is also led by Lance Koenders, vice president of Experience Products and Chris Paul, vice president, Digital, Sales and Experience. Koenders, who previously led mobile product management at Verizon, will focus on developing new customer-focused products that are unique to Verizon and built solely to improve the customer experience. Paul, who has held digital marketing roles across Verizon, has responsibility for Digital Channels and Consumer Experience, including all digital sales and consumer-facing channels, with a focus on improving the customer’s digital experience.

Verizon Communications Inc. was formed on June 30, 2000 and is one of the world’s leading providers of technology and communications services. Headquartered in New York City and with a presence around the world, Verizon generated revenues of $134.0 billion in 2023. The company offers data, video and voice services and solutions on its award-winning networks and platforms, delivering on customers’ demand for mobility, reliable network connectivity, security and control.

Nextplane, a leading provider of AI-enabled connectivity services is excited to announce a strategic partnership with Teammate Technology, a pioneer in advanced voice calling systems. This collaboration marks a significant step in unified communications, offering new interoperability experiences for Microsoft Teams users.

The two companies have partnered to combine their strengths to improve user experience and productivity. NextPlane is skilled in Artificial Intelligence and offers interoperable collaboration solutions that will be integrated with Teammate Technology's unique interoperability platform that enables UCaaS providers to easily integrate Microsoft Teams with their UCaaS service. By working together, they hope to revolutionize how businesses communicate, both internally and with their clients.

Key Features of the Partnership:

Unified Presence: Combining NextPlane's robust presence technology with Teammate Technology's voice solutions, users can enjoy a seamless experience between Microsoft Teams and their existing UCaaS platforms, ensuring efficient and effective communication.

Chat Federation: The partnership enables UCaaS users to share presence and status, and exchange messages (including rich text and emoji reactions) with users of Microsoft Teams and other collaboration services, as if they were on the same platform.

Farzin Shahidi, CEO of NextPlane, stated, "We are thrilled to partner with Teammate Technology. This partnership is about bringing the best of both worlds to UCaaS providers. With improved communication, businesses can expect a significant boost in productivity and collaboration, fostering a more dynamic and responsive work environment."

"Teams has emerged as the go-to digital work hub for organizations of all sizes," says Eric Hernaez of TeamMate Technology. "But despite its ubiquity, Teams users are still unable to communicate seamlessly with users of other UCaaS and collaboration platforms.  By partnering with NextPlane we intend to bridge this divide and set a new standard for Teams interoperability services."

RTVM Optimizes Targeting with Real-Time Insight into Exactly Who Was Reached and Who Was Not Across Platforms

Semcasting, a leader in cookieless targeting and digital identity solutions, today launched Real-Time Voter Measurement (RTVM), a new voter transparency feature in AudienceDesigner (ADS). With RTVM, for the first time in digital political campaigns, candidates and their agencies have complete transparency across platforms into which voters they have reached, who they have not reached, and what messages have been delivered in one holistic view.

RTVM is able to re-identify the recipient of an impression from the original audience as it happens, automatically creating a child segment of the original audience in ADS. This child segment can be profiled, versioned, deployed with new creative and even downloaded as a postal list. RTVM empowers more impactful voter communication by providing more transparency and campaign optimization across the voter funnel with message sequencing, cross-platform activations and real-time measurement.

Unlike other voter onboarding options, ADS is not limited by singular universal ID types or cookies with spotty or incomplete reach. The platform utilizes a constellation of match keys ranging from postal addresses, devices, hashed emails to over thirty-five social, display and connected TV (CTV) media platform IDs that cross-reference to registered voters. ADS averages over 90% onboarding match rates to all voter registration list sources.

With ADS, political advertisers’ target audience segments can be deployed in minutes or the same day across multiple platforms (digital display, CTV, FAST, social and more) at the same time. In order to respond to rapidly changing news cycles, time-to-market remains an important value proposition of ADS.

ADS with its RTVM feature within the platform is designed to support one-to-one communications with the voter where messaging can be leveraged throughout all stages of a campaign – fundraising, persuasion and get-out-the-vote (GOTV).

Ray Kingman, CEO and founder of Semcasting, said, “2024 is lining up to be one of the most consequential elections of our time and more efficient voter communications strategies are essential for positively impacting fundraising, persuasion and GOTV. For the first time ever with RTVM and ADS, political marketers can deliver more impactful messaging sequences at the audience level and verify proof of engagement on a one-to-one basis with each voter. Our solutions elevate voter communications as the primary metric for digital campaign planning and optimization throughout the election process.”

Semcasting has a legacy of proven expertise in political digital marketing since 2016, identity and targeting technology supported by eight patents and unwavering privacy compliance.

Taylor Swift to Draw New Gen Z and Millennial Viewers; Michelob Ultra Wins with Chiefs Fans, Modelo with 49ers Fans

Numerator, a data and tech company serving the market research space, has released findings on consumer behavior related to Super Bowl LVIII. The analysis leverages Numerator’s verified purchase data, a sentiment survey of over 1,000 consumers, and psychographics data to provide data on celebration, shopping, and viewing plans of Super Bowl LVIII, as well as behavioral nuances among NFL fans, Kansas City Chiefs fans, and San Francisco 49ers fans. Sports fandom is one of more than 2,500 demographic, psychographic, and media consumption attributes that panelists elect to share with Numerator.

Super Bowl Survey Findings Include:

• 3 in 5 consumers plan to watch Super Bowl LVIII, and most plan to do so in the comfort of their own homes. 61% of US consumers are planning to watch this year’s Super Bowl, and the most popular place to watch is their own homes (82%). 67% plan to watch at home alone or with their household, 15% plan to host gatherings at their home, 16% plan to watch at someone else’s home, and 4% plan to watch at a bar, restaurant or other public space. Gen Z and Millennials are twice as likely to watch the Super Bowl away from their own homes.
• The game might take center stage, but many consumers tune in for the advertisements. Super Bowl watchers say they are looking forward to watching the game (66%) and the commercials (60%). About half (48%) say they are looking forward to the halftime show, and 47% are looking forward to eating and drinking.
  • Older generations are focused on the game, while younger generations are more about the experience. Boomers+ are much more likely than younger generations to say they are looking forward to watching the game (75% vs. 59% of Gen Z and Millennials). Younger consumers are equally looking forward to the commercials, halftime show, and eating and drinking (all 55%).
• A Taylor Swift appearance will likely draw more Gen Z and Millennial viewers. While most consumers (79%) say an appearance by the pop star would not impact their likelihood of watching the game, 12% of consumers say they are more likely to watch if Taylor Swift attends. This number jumps to 20% for Gen Z and Millennial consumers.
• Soda is the most popular beverage for Super Bowl celebrations, with beer in second place. Half of Super Bowl watchers (50%) say they will purchase soda for the game, followed by beer (37%), spirits (22%), wine or champagne (22%), sparkling water (15%), juice (13%), hard seltzers (10%), ready-to-drink cocktails (9%) and THC- or CBD-infused beverages (3%).
  • RTD cocktails, hard seltzers, and cannabis-infused drinks are more popular with younger consumers. Gen Z and Millennial consumers are twice as likely as older generations to say they will celebrate with RTD cocktails (20%), hard seltzers (18%), and THC- or CBD-infused beverages (6%).
• Chips and classic game day favorites top the Super Bowl food shopping list. Three-quarters (75%) of Super Bowl watchers plan to buy chips, followed by dips / salsa / guacamole (67%), pizza (47%), chicken wings (42%), and nachos (22%).

Consumer Profile and Purchase Data Findings Include:

• The average NFL fan is more likely to be an older, high income male. Compared to the average consumer, those who watch or attend NFL games are 10% more likely to be Boomers+, 16% more likely to have an income of 125k+, and 14% more likely to be male.
  • 49ers fans are young, diverse, and avid about their sports fandom. San Francisco fans are 2.5x more likely to be Hispanic/Latino and nearly 5x more likely to be Asian compared to Chiefs fans. They are also 10% more likely to say that they are avid sports fans compared to Chiefs fans.
  • Chiefs fans tend to be older and enjoy in-person college sports. Kansas City fans are 30% more likely to be Boomers+, 26% more likely to have attended a college football game in the past year, and 49% more likely to have attended a college basketball game, compared to 49ers fans.
• Advertising is informative and entertaining for NFL fans. Compared to the average consumer, NFL fans are 21% more likely to say that advertising keeps them up-to-date and 20% more likely to find advertising entertaining.
• NFL fans spend more on beer and snacks than the average shopper. NFL fans make five additional trips per year for beer and snacks compared to the average consumer, spending almost $100 more annually on beer and $52 more on snacks.
  • Kansas City Chiefs fans and San Francisco 49ers fans differ on their most popular beer brands. While Chiefs fans are most likely to reach for Michelob Ultra, 49ers fans opt for Modelo as their top choice.
• Television plays a large role in the daily life of NFL fans. 51% of NFL fans say they watch TV for over three hours each day, with 15% watching more than six hours per day. NFL watchers are 83% more likely than the average consumer to tune into ESPN.
  • Three-quarters of NFL fans own a smart TV and subscribe to a variety of streaming services. 73% of NFL fans own a smart TV, making them 15% more likely to do so than the average consumer. They are also heavy streamers, with 69% subscribing to Amazon Prime Video (which broadcasted Thursday Night Football games during the 2023-2024 NFL season). Other popular streaming platforms for NFL watchers are Netflix (62%), Hulu (45%), and Paramount Plus (30%) – which will be streaming Super Bowl LVIII.
• Three-fifths of NFL watchers use social media several times a day. The top platforms for NFL fans are Facebook (82%), Instagram (54%), Snapchat (26%), and TikTok (26%).

LiveRamp^®, the leading data collaboration platform, today announced that it has completed the acquisition of Habu, a data clean room software provider that makes sharing data across organizations safe, simple, scalable and smart.

“The acquisition of Habu further cements LiveRamp's leadership position in data collaboration, bringing together the scale and simplicity our customers need,” said LiveRamp Chief Strategy Officer David Eisenberg. “Through our combined offering, companies will now have one, simple platform to measure campaigns across all walled gardens, programmatic, and media channels while connecting data seamlessly across any cloud, warehouse, or clean room. I’m thrilled to officially welcome Habu to the LiveRamp team."

The combination of LiveRamp and Habu establishes the industry-leading interoperable platform for data collaboration across all clouds and walled gardens globally, strategically expands the Company’s collaboration network, and drives further adoption of the Company’s core identity and connectivity solutions.