All the latest martech and adtech news this week from Adobe, IBM, Kochava, BlueJeans by Verizon, Aqilliz, Sitecore, Silverbullet, Astute, Acquia and Optimizely.
Adobe, IBM and Red Hat partner up
Adobe, IBM and Red Hat have announced a strategic partnership aimed at accelerating enterprise digital transformation and lifting real-time data security.
The trio said the intent of the latest partnership was about furthering the ability for companies to deliver more personalised experiences across the customer journey. To do this, the first focus is on providing hybrid cloud capability by certifying Adobe’s Experience Manager 6.5 platform to run on Red Hat OpenShift. Adobe is also joining IBM’s partner ranks providing CX solutions for the IBM Cloud for Financial Services, while IBM’s iX services division will also support Adobe’s enterprise applications including Adobe Experience Cloud.
IBM has also named Adobe its ‘Global Partner for Experience’ and will begin adopting Adobe Experience Cloud for its own global marketing efforts. IBM acquired Red Hat in 2018.
“Now more than ever, companies are accelerating their efforts to engage customers digitally,” said Adobe executive vice-president and general manager, Digital Experience, Anil Chakravarthy. “We are excited to partner with IBM and Red Hat to enable companies in regulated industries to meet this moment and use real-time customer data to securely deliver experiences across any digital touchpoint, at scale and compliant with regulations.”
IBM Global Markets senior VP, Bridge van Kralingen, added businesses across industries are operating in an experience-first world where it is possible to gain immense value from data if trust and technology flexibility are central to the equation.
“It is with these principles as the focus of our partnership – bringing Adobe’s marketing expertise, IBM’s industry domain knowledge and the open innovation of Red Hat –that will give clients the confidence to use their data for new competitive advantage.”
Acquia launches new open digital experience platform
Digital content management vendor, Acquia, has taken the wrappers off its new software platform.
The Acquia open digital experience platform is powered by Acquia marketing cloud and Acquia Drupal cloud, and is pitched as a unified solution enabling organisations to utilise data and content to create new digital experiences. The intention is to give marketers and developers a single platform to build, personalise and orchestrate multi-experience customer journeys across all modes of customer interaction.
Drupal cloud features a new, low-code marketer experience, as well as new developer tools to build, scale and secure websites and applications. With its newly built-in customer data platform, the marketing cloud provides a 360-degree view of the customer with real-time data integration, machine learning-driven insights and marketing support for delivering individualised customer experiences at scale.
Kochava launches IdentityLocker
Kochava, an attribution platform for real-time data solutions for mobile and connected devices, has debuted a new unified identity solution, Kochava IdentityLocker.
IdentityLocker provides an identity token, not a static identifier, which can be used in conjunction with any player in the advertising ecosystem. This enables demand- and supply-side platforms to onboard their own first-party data, prompt for user consent, and attach resource grants for usage on activities like deterministic targeting, while enabling permission-based rules for the first-party owner of the data.
BlueJeans Events boosts features and integrations
BlueJeans by Verizon has announced new partner integrations and feature enhancements to its BlueJeans Events interactive video live streaming platform to improve attendee recruitment, engage diverse audiences and follow-up post-event.
By matching audience expectations for modern, virtual experiences and enabling event managers to more closely simulate on-site customer connections, including the ability to host up to 150 speakers and 50,000 attendees, BlueJeans Events enables organisations and individuals to deliver multi-purpose digital events at scale.
Aqilliz partners with White Ops
Aqilliz, which specialises in blockchain-powered solutions for digital marketing, has partnered with White Ops, the bot mitigation and ad fraud protection outfit.
Aqilliz will be offering White Ops’ advertising integrity and marketing integrity solutions for all its enterprise clients across the globe, effectively bolstering its existing suite of programmatic campaign optimisation tools. In return, White Ops will equally be offering Aqilliz’s blockchain-powered solutions that span identity management, programmatic campaign optimisation and loyalty and rewards management.
By working together, Aqilliz and White Ops said they will be better able to better boost campaign transparency and offer improved fraud prevention measures across their respective partner ecosystems.
Sitecore content hub integrates Chili publisher
Sitecore and Chili publish have joined forces to enable content scaling by optimising the content creation process and centralising all marketing assets from different management systems with Sitecore content hub.
Chili publisher, the online editing software for artwork and marketing material creation, turns original designs based on these assets into smart templates. These documents can be edited and repurposed by any user within Sitecore content hub into brand-compliant print or digital visuals. The companies said the integration aims to help marketing departments worldwide adapt to the increasing demands for personalised content that drives the customer experience.
Silverbullet launches 4D
Silverbullet, a data-focused marketing services and product provider, has launched 4D, a contextual intelligence and brand suitability product that uses first-party data to help marketers contextually target appropriate audiences in a brand-safe, post-cookie world.
4D leverages first-party data from any supported DMP, CDP or ad server that can be transformed into contextual intelligence for actionable omnichannel contexts. 4D then ensures the delivery of optimal messaging in a brand suitable environment across display, video, native, audio and addressable TV.
Optimizely has laid off 15 per cent of staff
Customer experience optimisation outfit, Optimizely, has laid off 15 per cent of staff, around 60 employees, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The San Francisco-based startup, which specialised in A/B testing, last raised US$50 million in Series D financing from Goldman Sachs with participation from Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and GV. Its total venture capital raised to date is US$200 million.
Optimizely's enterprise customers include Visa, BBC, IBM, The Wall Street Journal, Gap, StubHub and Metromile. The company said it handles more than 6 billion events a day.
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