Tech Talk: DAN, MDA, Oracle, Salesforce, AppNexus and more

DAN launches data innovation centre

Dentsu Aegis Network has launched its Global Data Innovation Centre—touted as the network’s first-ever R&D centre of its kind—supported by the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB).

The Singapore-based centre will soon house more than 25 to develop and produce innovative applications and serve as a hub for data scientists and technology talent for the entire network globally. The group will work closely with Dentsu Aegis agency brands from the network’s top 20 markets including the U.S., the UK, China and Australia.

It also seeks to drive Dentsu Aegis Network’s leadership in data excellence and power the exponential growth in digital media expenditure driven by mobile, video and programmatic advertising. Solutions developed from the centre will be deployed to its worldwide operations and adapted to solve clients’ marketing data challenges.

Nick Waters, CEO, Dentsu Aegis Network Asia Pacific:

Data is central to our business strategy and now all businesses require a strategy for the digital economy to remain relevant. Dentsu Aegis Network Global Data Innovation Centre allows us to hone data literate talent that will lead to a competitive advantage for our clients. We are committed to being at the forefront of innovation and this initiative serves as an excellent opportunity to nurture great talent while providing clients with expertise to drive growth for their brands.

MDA launches initiatives to boost digital industry 

The Malaysian Digital Association (MDA) has launched two major initiatives aimed at uplifting knowledge and know-how of talent in the digital industry.

The first is the MDA School programme that will focus on enriching the grasp and know-how of industry members as well as to equip them with the cutting-edge technology, development and trends in the industry.

The inaugural training session, entitled The Age of Video Advertising: How Interactivity is Adding Another Layer to Online Video, to be helmed by council member Sizmek and held on 5 October.

The event will also feature the release of the Best Practice Report, a regular quarterly document released by the association to share best practices, recommendations and benchmark of digital advertising and publishing.

The MDA Best Practice Report will be made available for download on the association’s website in October. Registration for the training session will be on a first-come-first-served basis.

Serm Teck Choon, president, MDA:

One of the key initiatives of the newly elected MDA Council is to uplift the knowledge of our talents in the industry. Digital changes so fast and everyone in the industry is straining to learn, un-learn and re-learn about new things, new technologies and new ways of handling challenges. Hence we have developed the MDA School as a programme aiming to provide relevant training to our talent so we that we can increase their knowledge level. We also hope that these best practise updates, alongside the MDA School, can act as a catalyst to help the industry in cultivating Malaysian digital talents as one of the best digital workforces in the region.

LinkedIn display inventory now available on AppNexus

AppNexus has announced the availability of LinkedIn display inventory through the AppNexus platform. Advertisers can now target LinkedIn’s premium audience of more than 450 million professionals through the adtech company’s open and private auction buying options.

AppNexus’ core real-time decisioning platform, and the suite of publisher products that it supports, is enabling LinkedIn to harness its audience data to engage professionals, industry thought leaders, and decision-makers in a privacy-safe way.

Brian O’Kelley, CEO of AppNexus:

We are incredibly excited that LinkedIn has chosen to adopt AppNexus’ Publisher Suite to sell LinkedIn Display Ads. We see this integration as a tremendous opportunity for programmatic buyers on our platform to access LinkedIn’s premium viewable inventory with unmatched professional audience targeting.

Salesforce Commerce Cloud goes live

Salesforce has launched its Commerce Cloud, based on the company’s acquisition of Demandware, which enables brands to provide personalized experiences for shoppers that span web, mobile, social and in-store.

The Commerce Cloud is able to power commerce operations across all points of sale, including web, social, mobile, store and more. Features include one-touch checkout with Apple Pay and integration with Salesforce Einstein, the company’s artificial intelligence layer.

It will enable Product Recommendations to personalize product recommendations to shoppers, Predictive Sort which will infuse personalized sort and search results based on likelihood to engage, and Commerce Insights that will help retailers understand product purchase correlation to power smarter merchandising and store planning.

Jeff Barnett, CEO, Salesforce Commerce Cloud:

The connected customer is transforming commerce, creating new opportunities for brands to transform the buying experience. By bringing together the leader in enterprise cloud commerce with the world’s No 1 CRM, we’re empowering brands to deliver personalized and unified customer experiences.

Thailand’s PPTV selects Brightcove

Brightcove has been selected by PPTV, a Thailand-based Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT), to power its video-on-demand (VOD) content in high-definition (HD), making them the first DTT to do so in the country.

Owned by Bangkok Media and Broadcasting, PPTV launched its over-the-top (OTT) offering in January with VOD content and without any geo-restrictions. With Brightcove, PPTV can now look to deliver an ad-supported VOD experience across multiple connected devices with Brightcove’s server-side ad insertion technology.

Metadata-driven ad insertions and built-in integrations with leading ad networks will now boost PPTV’s advancement into creating personalized viewing experiences, especially on mobile devices where a rapidly increasing amount of Thai audiences are consuming video.

Chutintra Wattanakul, new media director, PPTV:

As media consumption shifts toward mobile, we felt it was critical to distribute our content on these platforms. We partnered with Brightcove to leverage their technology to power our HD OTT VOD service and deliver a seamless,TV-like video experience to our viewers. Our need to go live quickly required working with a partner like Brightcove that offers a one-stop solution that includes video player, transcoding and a Content Delivery Network (CDN). Brightcove’s proven track record of working with some of the world’s leading media companies, as well as top tier media companies in Thailand, was also something we took into consideration.

Oracle enhances cross-channel orchestration

Oracle has announced innovations to the Oracle Marketing Cloud that will make it easier for marketers to develop personalized customer experiences, and to deliver these experiences based on unified consumer identities from different channels.

For the first time, brands will be able to orchestrate a consistent and personalized experience to consumers at scale. The ‘Orchestration Canvas’ is a simple, yet sophisticated user interface of the Oracle Marketing Cloud that enables consumer marketers to efficiently manage experiences at every touch point throughout the entire consumer lifecycle.

Additional enhancements include a Mobile App Visual Editor where marketers can test and optimize mobile experiences across their mobile apps and as a part of the cross-channel experience.