Recognized for our ability to execute and completeness of vision

SoftServe, a premier IT consulting and digital services provider, today announced it has been named by Gartner® as a Challenger in the 2023 Magic Quadrant™ for Custom Software Development Services, Worldwide. SoftServe was recognized for its ability to execute and completeness of vision.

“SoftServe is recognized throughout the market as a preferred partner for some of the world’s leading technology providers and enterprises,” said Alex Chubay, SoftServe’s CTO. “Our approach involves a holistic perspective encompassing business acumen, user experience, cloud and data engineering, along with cutting-edge technologies – such as Generative AI – that enable our clients to build award-winning digital products and transform their businesses.”

Magic Quadrant reports are a culmination of rigorous, fact-based research in specific markets, providing a wide-angle view of the relative positions of the providers in markets where growth is high and provider differentiation is distinct.

For more than 30 years, SoftServe’s clients have relied on advanced expertise from a global team of high-caliber technology experts to provide unparalleled support and burgeoning innovations in software development.

“We believe SoftServe’s recognition as Magic Quadrant Challenger culminates from the depth and breadth of our technical capabilities, decades of experience, and exceptional engineering talent that delivers world-class value to our clients every day,” Chubay said.

New CEOs take the torch from Mike Santoro as he caps a 16-year career of growth with the agency

Walker Sands today announced the appointment of co-CEOs Andrew Cross and Dave Parro as part of a planned leadership transition, succeeding outgoing CEO Mike Santoro, who remains on the Walker Sands board of directors.

Both Cross and Parro are veterans of Walker Sands, with more than 25 years of combined experience at the agency. Parro was serving as COO and Cross as President prior to this appointment.

The move caps a 16-year career at Walker Sands for Santoro, including 3 years as CEO. He oversaw the growth of Walker Sands from a niche player into one of the top integrated marketing agencies for B2B companies. Under Santoro’s leadership, Walker Sands was named an Inc. 5000 fastest-growing company for 10 years in a row.

“One of my proudest achievements as Walker Sands CEO has been watching new leaders take on more responsibility and open new doors for us as an agency,” said Santoro. “Eventually, if you do it right, you earn your own opportunity to watch those leaders grab the baton and run. Andrew and Dave are world-class leaders supported by extraordinary leaders themselves, and I feel so fortunate knowing this team and our clients are in great hands.”

“I’m so grateful to Mike for his leadership and mentorship,” said Parro. “He is a tireless advocate for our team, our clients and the industry. As we enter the next chapter of Walker Sands, we remain committed to accelerating the growth of B2B companies, and excited about the opportunity to innovate on how we deliver on that mission.”

In their roles as co-CEO, Parro will continue to oversee the agency’s corporate functions including finance, talent, operations, IT and sales and marketing, while Cross manages the agency’s billable teams including creative, content, demand generation, strategy and insights, public relations and client services.

“We’re entering such an exciting phase in our journey as an agency,” Cross said. “Clients are looking to us to be true strategic partners, to push beyond traditional channel excellence and develop programs that help them achieve their north-star business objectives. Walker Sands continues to be so well-positioned to deliver on this need. I’m incredibly proud of our team and so excited for what is ahead.”

Open Lending’s enhanced Lenders Protection™ program expands auto lending inclusivity and improves loan decisioning accuracy

Open Lending Corporation (“Open Lending” or “the Company”), an industry trailblazer in automotive lending enablement and risk analytics solutions for financial institutions, has been selected as a winner of the 2023 NAFCU Innovation Award for its enhanced Lenders Protection™ scorecard. The awards program recognizes companies making the most valuable and innovative contributions to credit union success, including groundbreaking advancements in technology and software.

“We are thrilled to have our enhanced Lenders Protection tool acknowledged as an impactful solution for supporting credit unions in the tumultuous automotive lending industry,” said Kevin Filan, senior vice president of marketing at Open Lending. “After being nominated as a finalist of the Credit Union Times LUMINARIES awards and forming a new partnership with CUNA, this award is the latest accolade in our mission to empower financial institutions in serving the underserved. As many lower credit and new-to-credit individuals are mistakenly viewed as too risky, the additional alternative data attributes more accurately determine borrower risk to allow many more Americans to build their financial well-being while fostering long-term loyalty with their financial institution.”

Since its inception in 2000, Open Lending has facilitated over 900,000 automotive loans valued in excess of $21 billion. By harnessing over 20 years of proprietary and third-party data through TransUnion and LexisNexis, Lenders Protection assesses the probability of prepays, defaults, and default severity to produce a more accurate risk score and competitive pricing backed by default insurance. This cutting edge AI tool helps provide attainable loans to deserving borrowers who are often overlooked by traditional credit score models.

Leadspons brings unparalleled efficiency and innovation to marketers and content creators

Leadspons, specialized in digital innovation, today announced the launch of Leadspons, a cutting-edge AI auto content creation service designed to revolutionize the digital marketing and content creation landscape.

In an era where content is king, Leadspons emerges as a game-changing solution, harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to automate and enhance content creation processes. This advanced platform promises to streamline content production, offering bespoke, high-quality content at the click of a button. 

According to Global Market analysis firm ‘Markets and Markets’,  Global Artificial Intellgience market size was valued at 1,345.2 Billion by 2030. Additionally, Leadspons got 170 Million valued by Official Accounting firms related with Leadspons full automation contents creation model this year.

Leadspons leverages sophisticated AI algorithms to generate diverse content types, ranging from engaging blog posts and articles to captivating social media updates and marketing copy. The service is engineered to adapt to various industry needs, ensuring content is not only original and relevant but also tailored to specific audience demographics and interests.

The platform's intuitive interface simplifies content creation, allowing users to input basic guidelines and receive fully fleshed-out content in minutes. This significant reduction in content development time frees up resources, enabling businesses to focus on strategy and growth. Additionally, Leadspons ensures consistency in quality and tone, a crucial aspect in brand messaging.

Early adopters of Leadspons have reported substantial improvements in their content marketing efforts. [Insert a brief testimonial or example of a success story, if available]. These testimonials underscore the platform's potential to transform content strategies across various sectors.

Founded in 2023, Leadspons has been diligently working towards advancing digital innovation. With a mission to empower creators and marketers through technology, the company has consistently introduced solutions that address core challenges in the digital space. Leadspons is the latest in its suite of offerings, embodying the company's commitment to excellence and innovation.

Quote from a Company Executive:

"Leadspons is more than just a content creation tool; it's a catalyst for digital transformation," says Yeom Seung Min, CEO of Leadspons. "We are excited to see how it will empower content creators and marketers to achieve new heights in efficiency and creativity."

Bloomreach, the platform fueling limitless e-commerce experiences, today announced a number of new features to maximize efficiency and security for larger teams using Bloomreach Engagement. Built to enhance large-scale project management, these features allow Engagement customers to manage platform users, data access, and project organization. These capabilities not only drive efficiency — they also maximize security, giving administrators more control over how data is managed across different brands and regions.

For large marketing teams, efficiency and security go hand in hand. The ability to manage user access and better organize projects also ensures that vast amounts of customer data collected by brands are secure and used in the appropriate campaigns. This is particularly relevant for businesses that operate across a number of different regions or have multiple, independent brands. With Bloomreach Engagement’s newly released features, businesses gain more control over how their projects are organized, how their teams manage data, and how users access the marketing automation platform itself. These features include:

• User groups: which allow the business’s account administrator to manage and restrict team members’ access to important parts of the application, such as individual scenarios or segmentations.
• App users management: which analyzes user accounts and provides new, additional measures to protect the platform against data leaks and malicious activities.
• Single sign-on with authorization: which enables teams to authorize and onboard new team members easily, granting secure access without the need to send out individual sign up invitations.
• Application tag management: which increases project organization by allowing marketers to manage tags quickly and easily.
• Account-level reporting: which provides an overall picture of business performance across all brands or regions, driving more efficient reporting and helping teams quickly understand larger business trends. (This feature is currently in closed beta testing.)

“Given the fast pace marketing teams work at, efficiency and security are absolutely critical,” said Michal Novovesky, General Manager and Head of Product, Bloomreach Engagement. “We’re pleased to launch these new features for our customers to streamline how they work across large teams and maximize the security of the data they need to drive personalized, omnichannel campaigns.”

LiveRamp announced today it has achieved the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency in the category of Privacy-Enhanced Data Collaboration. Achieving the AWS Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency recognizes LiveRamp for its expertise in providing customers with software solutions that empower advertisers and marketers to accelerate workloads with enhanced identity, connectivity, measurement, and data collaboration capabilities.

As advertisers and marketers look to leverage the cloud to innovate and lean into digital transformation, they are increasingly in need of partners with services and solutions that are purpose-built to meet their needs. AWS Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency Partners provide customers - including advertising agencies, marketers, publishers, advertising and marketing technology providers, and analytics service providers - with AWS validated solutions and services that help accelerate their advertising and marketing transformation.

LiveRamp’s embedded solutions, powered by AWS, allow data professionals at brands, publishers, media companies, and platforms to maximize the value of their first-party data directly from within their cloud environment:

• Enterprise Identity - LiveRamp helps clients build a strong, enterprise identity foundation in AWS by unifying cross-channel customer touchpoints on a common identifier that is supported by hundreds of media partners through Amazon Data Exchange (ADX Marketplace)
• Activation, Measurement and Ecosystem Connectivity - Clients can resolve their data to RampID™, LiveRamp’s privacy-centric identifier for connecting the digital ecosystem, to support more impactful audience modeling and planning, powerful activation, and comprehensive media measurement and analytics
• Flexible and Privacy-Focused Data Collaboration - LiveRamp’s identity solutions increase the volume and accuracy of data connections between partner engagements when collaborating in AWS Clean Rooms

Achieving the AWS Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency differentiates LiveRamp in the AWS Partner Network (APN) with demonstrated technical proficiency and proven customer success in running cloud solutions on AWS for the advertising and marketing industry.

To achieve the AWS Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency, AWS Partners must undergo a rigorous technical validation by AWS solution architects and have verified customer references.

“It’s an honor to achieve the AWS Advertising and Marketing Technology Competency in Privacy-Enhanced Data Collaboration,” said Noel McMichael, VP of Commercial Cloud at LiveRamp. “AWS is a valued collaborator that shares our commitment to delivering future-ready solutions for global companies. We look forward to expanding our work with AWS to help even more businesses accelerate innovation using identity-powered workflows.”

AWS is enabling scalable, flexible, and cost-effective solutions from startups to global enterprises. To support the seamless integration and deployment of these solutions, the AWS Competency Program helps customers identify which AWS Partner solutions and services are powered by AWS for specific industry use cases. Explore the AWS Partner solutions and/or services offered in AWS Data Exchange, AWS Marketplace, or APN Partners, including LiveRamp.

DESelect announced the launch of the DESelect Marketing Optimization Platform (MOP), to help marketing teams maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of their campaigns. This is part of DESelect's strategic initiative to help clients optimize their marketing holistically, from a single platform.

The DESelect Marketing Optimization Platform brings together DESelect's global products, including Segment, Engage, Search, and Deedee AI to provide clients with a mission control center for improving marketing effectiveness.

Founder and CEO Anthony Lamot commented,  "It's exciting to establish the Marketing Optimization Platform as an entirely new product category to meet our clients' needs. We're equipping marketers with everything they need to target the right people, with the right message, at the right time. This furthers our mission to elevate engagement through human intelligence at scale." 

Co-founder and CTO Jonathan van Driessen added, "Since day one DESelect has existed to help marketing operations teams engage their audiences more effectively and efficiently. By combining audience segmentation, frequency optimization, search, and AI together – in a single platform – we've made it possible for clients to have greater control and visibility over their marketing."

DESelect's Marketing Optimization Platform is available to all clients globally, with features based on their current plan tier. AI and machine learning will allow clients to build segments automatically via text prompts, ask questions about their audiences, and better understand their customers' marketing preferences.

CEO Anthony Lamot concluded, "We talk to customers frequently and a common theme we hear is that they need their marketing teams to do more with less, increase overall marketing effectiveness and improve visibility. I'm thrilled to establish this new product category that unifies our solutions and provides a true mission control center for clients to take their marketing capabilities to the next level."

This new partnership gives marketers using the FreeWheel platform
access to more than 3,500 FAST channels available via OrkaTV’s streaming TV marketplace.

The end result is access to a more diversified pool of FAST ad inventory.

FreeWheel, a global technology platform for the television advertising industry, and OrkaTV, the leading marketplace for streaming TV, today announced that they have partnered to provide marketers with a new way to buy advertising in today’s fast-growing, free-ad supported streaming television (FAST) sector.

Per this partnership, advertisers working with FreeWheel now have access to more than 3,500 FAST channels available through OrkaTV’s streaming TV marketplace. The end result is access to a more diverse pool of FAST ad inventory. This, in turn, will help drive up demand for such ad inventory.

Another key feature is more accurate contextual advertising targeting abilities.

Currently, metadata capabilities allow advertisers bidding on inventory to ensure ads are properly placed. In some instances, however, the metadata is missing or inconsistent. The two companies are addressing this issue through OrkaTV’s value-added tech layer.

The latter ensures consistent video contextual data is available to the ad buyer and can be mapped to corresponding audience segments. As such, advertisers can then enable buying through FreeWheel to target consistent channel names to reach their clearly defined demographics.

FreeWheel and OrkaTV are launching these new capabilities as a way to provide marketers with more scale and reach when it comes to finding and discovering new audiences in today’s rapidly growing FAST space. Per a recent Xumo and Comcast Advertising report, 84% of advertisers will increase spending in this sector in 2024, and 3 in 5 FAST buyers are currently using the medium’s niche programming to target specific audiences. This last element is critical for advertisers and yet has become increasingly harder to accomplish as viewership habits continue to shift in a fragmented and complex media landscape.

“Improving the viewer experience is a top industry priority for us and this new partnership with OrkaTV will help pave the way for that,” said Emily Bromley, VP, Growth, FreeWheel. “With this new integration, advertisers can better reach target audiences at a granular level, while engaging and capturing their interest with a new array of premium FAST channels.”

“It’s an exciting time to be in the FAST space,” said Mike Woods, Founder and CEO, OrkaTV. “With new channels and a growing stream of audiences tuning into this sector, we wanted to create a new way to give advertisers what they need to maximize the impact of their campaigns, while bringing the scale, reach and efficiency of TV to FAST.”