New product launches, new hires, and new events in the marketing technology industry that you may have missed this past week.
The Emergence of Foldable Screens
Samsung plans to launch a Galaxy foldable smartphone soon while Google will improve the Android OS to natively support foldable screens. This means marketers will need to make a lot of choices including deciding if a different type of content should be developed. While it may seem a long way off, creating content for multiple device formats may need an added layer of creativity with foldable screens.
YuMe by RhythmOne Expands Offering
To meet the changing needs of marketers, YuMe by RhythmOne announced it is offering an expanded set of Smart TV Impression Units. Smart TV Impression Units will serve connected TV media buyers, digital video media buyers, and digital display media buyers.
Chicago-based predictive emotional connection intelligence solutions company, Motista, has appointed Amir Zaheer to serve as the company’s Vice President of Sales. With 30 years of experience, Zaheer will focus on driving sustained growth within the company and boosting measurable results for clients.
Federal Court Dismantles International Hacking Ring
A federal court indicted eight individuals last week for their roles in digital advertising fraud. Representing the interests of ad tech, security, and internet infrastructure, nearly 20 companies worked with Google to find the bot kingpins. 3ve and Methbot botnets are just two of the kingpins responsible and it is estimated that they counterfeited more than 10,000 websites.
Claritas Purchases Barometric, Bringing Together Ad Targeting and Optimization
Claritas, an organization that helps companies find customers, has acquired media tracking and measurement company, Barometric. In an effort to modernize target identification capabilities, Claritas believes this acquisition will allow the company to validate the efficiency of its targeting efforts.
Splash Expands Team for Event Marketing Automation
Event marketing automation platform, Slash, has recently announced two expansions to its leadership team. Kevin O’Neil, former SVP of product at Rocketrip and Vincent DiDonato, former VP of technology and engineering at SiteCompli, will join Splash as the new VP of product and VP of engineering, respectively.
Samsung Runs Past P&G as World’s Largest Advertiser
In an attempt to get past their highly publicized 2016 recall of exploding phones, Samsung is increasing their ad and sales promotion spending and it seems to be working. Samsung took the top spot as the World’s Largest Advertiser, passing Proctor & Gamble. In 2017, Samsung had a 13% increase in advertising and sales promotion, pumping $11.2 billion into the initiative while P&G only put $10.5 billion into advertising and marketing costs that year.
Sage Reaches Milestone with 1 Million User Queries Solved with AI Assistant
Market leader in cloud business management solutions, Sage, has solved 1 million customer and employee queries with their AI platform, Pegg. First launched in 2016, Pegg was originally a conversational interface to assist small businesses with their accounting practices. Pegg quickly became a development platform, enabling Sage to solve productivity challenges. Now, Pegg is equipped with AI and machine learning to solve productivity challenges, reduce customer service wait times, and perform back-office administrative functions.
IBM Launches Talent & Transformation Business Unit
In an attempt to close the widening skills gap, the top supplier of mainframe computers, IBM, has created a new business unit called IBM Talent & Transformation. IBM’s new business unit offers robust AI skills training to help technical and business professionals make more decisions based on data-driven analytics.
Humanity Announces New Executive Leadership Team
The leading provider of cloud-based scheduling solutions, Humanity, has announced their acquisition of a new executive team featuring industry leaders Jack Robinson, Andrej Luneski, and Charles Orlando. Robinson will serve as Humanity’s VP of solutions engineering, Luneski will serve as the company’s VP of engineering, and Orlando as the company’s VP of marketing.
Amobee Announces Collaboration with Oracle Data Cloud
In an effort to activate third-party data across programmatic and social media, Amobee has announced a new collaboration with Oracle Data Cloud. Amobee is a global digital marketing technology company and has become one of the first companies to activate third-party data across programmatic and social media through its platform. This new collaboration will provide marketers with seamless activation across digital channels and allow them to access offline purchase-based transaction data sets.
Ultimate Software Ranks #4 on Fortune’s List of the 50 Best Workplaces for Parents
The leading provider of human capital management solutions in the cloud, Ultimate Software, has ranked 4th as the best workplaces for parents. As a part of Ultimate’s commitment to always put people first, the company pays 100% of medical, dental, and vision premiums for employees and their families, and offers paid maternity, paternity, and adoption leave.
Extreme Networks Names Remi Thomas as New Chief Financial Officer
Extreme Networks has named Remi Thomas as their new Chief Financial Officer. Thomas will report directly to the company’s president and chief executive officer, Ed Meyercord. Thomas joins the company with over 25 years of financial experience and most recently served as Senior Vice President and Corporate Controller of CA Technologies.
NetApp Boosts Cloud Leadership and Announces New Data Solutions and Services
The data authority for hybrid cloud, NetApp, recently announced new data solutions and services that will empower customers to innovate in the cloud. The new offerings provided by NetApp include expanded availability of the Microsoft Azure NetApp, NetApp Cloud Volumes for Google Cloud Platform, and NetApp SaaS Backup for Salesforce.
If you have news, press releases, or other announcements about your company, product, or service that martech industry professionals and executives must know about, please send them to be included in this report to news@techfunnel.com.
