Rapid advances in technology mean we are about to undergo a sonic renaissance, with sound and audio tech set to be a much more integral part of our everyday lives. In this exclusive piece for ExchangeWire, Phil Rowley (pictured below), head of Futures at Omnicom Media Group UK, delves into these technological advancements, what they mean for the future of audio, and how brands can prepare. Sound is the oldest communication method on earth. We’ve passed through the primitive era of [...]

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In today’s ExchangeWire news digest: Spotify acquires podcast platform Megaphone for USD $235m; WPP merges agencies AKQA and Grey into AKQA Group; and NBCU partners with PayPal to enhance its shoppable TV offering.   Spotify buys Megaphone for $235m Streaming platform heavyweight Spotify has acquired podcast service Megaphone for USD $235m (£178.2m). The deal builds on a previous relationship between the two companies which allowed Spotify to use some of Megaphone’s hosting services. However, it is the purchased firm’s ad tools which appear [...]

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In today’s ExchangeWire news digest: China denounces the US TikTok deal as “extortion”; Facebook warns it may have to leave the EU if it enforces a ban on data transfers to the US; and the UK sees its first tech sector trade union.   China denounces TikTok deal as ‘extortion’   China has denounced the prospective deal between ByteDance and US firms Oracle and Walmart to keep TikTok in America, calling it “unfair” and “dirty”. The arrangement, which will purportedly see Beijing-based ByteDance booted [...]

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In today’s ExchangeWire news digest: Samsung wins a multi-billon dollar bid to provide new technology to Verizon; Italy’s competitions authority launches a set of investigations into Google, Apple, and Dropbox over allegations of unfair practices around their cloud services; and MMA Germany appoints Katja Griesser as its new country director.   Samsung wins $6.64bn Verizon bid   Tech behemoth Samsung has revealed that it has won the bid to provide wireless communications solutions to US telecoms giant Verizon. The deal, worth USD $6.64bn (£5.08bn), [...]

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Few industries remain untouched by COVID-19, but travel has been hit particularly hard by the global pandemic. Now, as the world begins to re-emerge from lockdown, it’s time for the travel sector to get back in action and look for ancillary sources of revenue. Ryan Afshar (pictured below), co-founder and head of commercial at Inadvia, writes about how the in-flight advertising sector can learn from TV broadcasters when it comes to starting again during the new normal. As the aviation sector [...]

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Affinio, an augmented analytics company with the mission to democratise data science across all enterprises, has today [4 May 2020] announced a strategic partnership with cloud data platform Snowflake to provide AI-powered insights to joint customers on the Snowflake Data Marketplace in a privacy compliant, safe haven manner. Affinio’s ATON technology enables graph analytics on Snowflake’s data platform, empowering Snowflake customers with the ability to analyse and cluster massive sets of customer behavioural data and extract actionable insights. Behavioural data, such [...]

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The IPA has today [29 April 2020] published its annual Agency Census detailing a breakdown of the make-up of agencies within IPA membership in 2019. Overall numbers reveal that, at the time of data collection, the employed base in IPA member agencies in 2019 was 24,866, compared with the 25,142 recorded in 2018. While the number of employees in media agencies continued to grow, increasing by nearly 400 year-on-year to 11,357, the number of employees at creative and non-media agencies fell [...]

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Writing exclusively for ExchangeWire, Jonas Jaanimagi, technology lead, IAB Australia discusses why recent initiatives from IAB Tech Lab need to be adopted by all parties, in order to address the contemporary challenges facing the advertising industry. Many see the digital advertising market as currently going through difficult times, but to be honest I often feel that it ‘was ever thus’ and that the challenges (and opportunities) we face, whilst always critical at the time, are simply perpetually changing. Any businesses [...]

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In this weekly segment, ExchangeWire sums up key industry updates on ad tech from around the Asia Pacific region – in this edition: Mindtree reports 10.3% y-o-y revenue growth; Investis Digital announces the launch of Connect.ID; and Mobile Web Usage Tops On Mobile, Eclipses Facebook App By 3%. Mindtree reports 10.3% year-on-year revenue growth Mindtree, a global technology services and digital transformation company, has announced its consolidated results for the first quarter ended June 30, 2019 as approved by its board of [...]

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Automation in advertising has scaled so quickly over the past decade, that in many cases, it has caused a disconnnect between the automation specialists and their leaders. In this exclusive piece for ExchangeWire, Jonas Jaanimagi (pictured below), technology lead, IAB Australia explains why this can cause significant strain, and how the launch of their new Mentorship Program aims to address this. Advertising businesses of all types have been experiencing rampant change over the past decade or so, much of it operationally [...]

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