Design-led transformation company Code Computerlove has secured three new partnerships in Warner Leisure Hotels, O’Neill Patient Solicitors and Wythenshawe Community Housing Group as it continues to enjoy a strong year of growth. UK Hospitality company Warner Leisure Hotels, part of Bourne Leisure, has chosen Code as its digital partner to provide design and conversion expertise to help the holiday provider benefit from the boom in bookings for UK breaks. Code will work alongside MediaCom North and Warner Leisure client teams to deliver high-priority, value-driven performance improvements, followed by a programme of product and service design to deliver a sustainable customer experience. Code has also been appointed by conveyancing firm O’Neill Patient Solicitors to deep dive into the behaviour of customers and deliver value-driven improvements across its brand, service and platforms. Community Benefit Society Wythenshawe Community Housing Group Limited, which provides homes for more than 29,000 people in Wythenshawe, south Manchester, is calling on Code to transform parts of its customer service delivery, and coach new ways of working whilst embedding modern design practices within the organisation.
Upstream, the mobile marketing platform, is announcing the launch of its new Mobile Identity technology, which uses first-party data to identify up to 85% of a website’s visitors for more accurate and efficient mobile marketing. With the upcoming demise of third-party cookies, Mobile Identity makes it possible for advertisers to work with mobile operators to acquire first-party information that identifies consenting users, allowing for personalization and better user experiences. According to data from Upstream’s new report on the technology, companies can boost their digital sales by 20-40%, increase opt-in conversions ten-fold and recover over 10% of revenue lost due to cart abandonment.
Cyanite, a tech company with various solutions in AI-powered music tagging and search, has signed a global deal with music giant BMG to unlock new value from its three-million-track catalogue. Bertelsmann-owned BMG, the world’s largest music company outside the three ‘majors’, has appointed Cyanite with the aim of making its entire repertoire more searchable and accessible for Synch – i.e. placing music in movies and advertising. Cyanite’s automatic tagging will support BMG’s internal and external creatives to identify “hidden gems” in the search for the perfect song for film, TV, games and advertising usages. Before deciding on Cyanite, BMG tested all available technologies extensively.
On Saturday 1st October, a bespoke TV campaign, created in partnership between Sky Media and credit card and payment services provider, Barclaycard Payments, aired for the first time during Saturday’s Premier League coverage. The greatly anticipated West Ham v Wolves game saw 954k viewers at its peak at 6pm as West Ham scored the first goal of the game. The bespoke campaign features UK-based small business Piglet’s Pantry. The advertisement is the second installment in a three-part series celebrating the transformational journeys of small businesses – and often the unsung heroes – behind some of the UK’s key cultural moments. The inspiring 90-second clip, filmed at King Power Stadium and presented by Sky Sports, first aired during the ad break of the West Ham v Wolves game. The clip was also shown during the Leeds v Villa match and airs again tonight during the Leicester v Forest match, with the ad running until 30 October 2022. 30-second cutdown clips of the advert are also being published across other Sky Media channels and platforms including linear, AdSmart, VoD and digital with a longer 120-Second version on @SkyUK social channel. The series is part of Barclaycard’s ‘The Payment Part is Just the Start’ campaign, which aims to get small businesses to rethink what payments can do for them – beyond being used for purely transactional purposes.
Cognizant has announced that it has extended its long-standing relationship with Centrica, the largest supplier of energy and energy services to the United Kingdom, to deliver business critical services encompassing application testing and management of its IT infrastructure landscape. As part of the new contract, Cognizant will provide a combination of application, non-production environment management and testing, and cloud infrastructure support. Through the creation of a more holistic and integrated IT engagement, Cognizant will enable a more efficient, cost-competitive, and integrated service. Centrica will benefit from flexibility to scale integrated application, infrastructure and testing services up or down, enhanced performance of its IT infrastructure, and consumer-facing applications with improved availability and responsiveness to enhance user experiences for Centrica’s ten million end-customers.
iProov, a specialist in face biometric verification and authentication technology, has announced that it has been certified to SOC (System and Organization Controls) 2 Type II. This certification assures that iProov’s system is designed with suitable organizational controls to ensure sensitive information is kept secure in the cloud. To achieve SOC 2 certification, organizations must implement controls on system monitoring, data breach alerts, audit procedures and forensics. SOC was developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), with SOC 2 Type II certification the most rigorous of these auditing procedures. SOC 2 is a standard that is subject to an annual accreditation process that assures service providers securely manage non-financial data to protect organizations’ interests and their users’ privacy.
Bidstack, the in-game advertising and video game monetisation platform, has announced it has raised a total of USD $11 million in a new round of funding. This includes a $6 million strategic investment from digital platform cybersecurity world leader, Irdeto, and brings Bidstack’s total funding to $42 million – the most raised for any company in the in-game advertising industry to-date. This is the first strategic investment in Bidstack’s seven-year history and will fuel the pioneering company’s US growth strategy following the recent hire of Jude O’Connor as Chief Revenue Officer. With more than 80 staff across five international locations, Bidstack now has the infrastructure and talent in place to take on the huge, untapped opportunity for in-game advertising in the US market. Bidstack has already run award-winning in-game campaigns for brands such as Marriott Bonvoy, Paco Rabanne, and Doritos, and works with world-leading game publishers such as Codemasters, and Take-Two Interactive.
New TV insights platform, 7M Discovery, provides brands with unique, data-driven insight on when they and their industry are discussed on television to enable tactical planning for marketing strategies.
Contextual data company 7th Minute has launched TV analytics tool 7M Discovery, which uses advanced transcription technologies to identify and analyse every word spoken on TV and determine whether it is an ad or occurs as part of a broadcast programme. Sign-up to the self-service platform is free and straightforward, after which users can search the resulting database for relevant terms (such as brand, product and competitor information); these ‘TV mentions’ are presented via a dashboard and a series of easy-to-read charts. Results are highly granular, providing details of the day, time, TV channel and TV programme where the TV mention occurred. Using data to understand how and when they are discussed on TV gives brands new fact-based knowledge to underpin marketing strategies.
Acxiom, the customer intelligence company whose data-driven solutions create business growth by enabling better customer experiences, has announced a new offering in partnership with Tealium, a trusted leader in the customer data platform (CDP) marketscape. This partnership brings Acxiom’s award-winning Real Identity solution to Tealium’s AudienceStream CDP, providing brands with a global, scalable framework to eliminate blind spots, identify predictive behavioural clues, and reveal confirmed interests. Marketers can then use that deep, actionable insight to create experiences that strengthen connection with every engagement, increasing sales, improving satisfaction, and growing customer lifetime loyalty and value.
Employees at MediaCom UK who are experiencing any stage of menopause, can now benefit from new initiatives designed to support and empower them in the workplace. MediaCom have introduced Menopause coaching for women, actively supporting at a time when women are feeling inadequate or invisible due to their symptoms. The expanded employee wellness programme will provide access to resources, talks and workshops, as well as upskilling line managers so that they feel confident speaking to, and advising, those in need. As one of the world’s leading media communications specialists with over 1,200 people across five offices in the UK, MediaCom aims to address the lack of support that employees traditionally receive in the workplace when going through the menopause transition. A new dedicated team has reviewed and updated policies within the company, with the aim of raising awareness and supporting affected employees while simultaneously educating others about the role that they can take.
