Audience Store, a leading international customer insight and programmatic media activation partner, has entered into a strategic alliance with Fenestra, an innovative provider of AI-driven solutions for the advertising industry.

The partnership is part of Audience Store‘s Innovation Lab initiative, aimed at enhancing its proprietary audience intelligence platform, Discover AI, and next-generation CTV solution, Targetcast.

With the advertising landscape continually evolving, this collaboration will enable both companies to leverage cutting-edge technology, including AI, to significantly enhance campaign efficiency and effectiveness. Discover AI and Targetcast will empower brands to adopt a logical, audience-first approach to CTV advertising across their programmatic campaigns, focussing on brand impact, dynamic creative and performance.

By combining forces, Audience Store and Fenestra will help brands maximise their reach and achieve incremental growth, while seamlessly integrating with linear TV delivery.

“Partnering with Fenestra aligns perfectly with our mission to clear up the market’s confusion around the changes in the TV landscape and the complex world of digital marketing,” said Jon Hewson, CEO of Audience Store. “Their expertise in AI and data-driven solutions complements our commitment to providing brands with the insights they need to engage with and acquire customers more effectively. Together, we will drive innovation and deliver exceptional value to our clients.”

Fenestra, led by digital advertising veterans Ashley MacKenzie and Javier Campos, specialises in creating independent, customisable platforms and data ecosystems. Their solutions empower agencies and advertisers such as Media by Mother, Epitaph Group, Deutsche Telekom, Republic of Media, and Unibet to optimise their global biddable advertising investments through enhanced performance analysis and automated improvements.

“Joining forces with Audience Store is an exciting step for Fenestra,” said Javier Campos, Chief Information Officer of Fenestra. “By combining our AI capabilities with Audience Store’s extensive market insights, we can revolutionise how brands approach audience engagement and CTV advertising, paving the way for smarter, more efficient campaigns.”

As part of Audience Store’s Innovation Lab initiative, the partnership will not only enhance existing offerings, but will also explore new avenues for technology and AI development, setting the stage for future advancements in the advertising sector.

Source: Audience Store

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With eight of the world’s top tennis players competing, the Nitto ATP Finals promises world-class tennis and nail biting moments. In order to reach new social audiences and bring fans closer to the action, ATP has partnered with immersive social agency Make My Day, to launch a world-first immersive highlights campaign.

The campaign’s first stage runs throughout the tournament and involves bringing real match footage to life with cutting-edge CGI and 3D technology overlays. The highlights, supplied by ATP’s broadcast and production arm NATPF, will be shared on ATP’s Instagram account (@atptour).

The second stage of the campaign kicks off in the semi-finals of the competition, bringing a cutting-edge AR experience directly to viewers wherever they are. Using ATP’s AR filter, fans can relive pivotal, game-changing moments in four simple steps. Firstly, the viewer scans their surroundings with a phone and taps to begin; a virtual court then materialises, ready to be placed onto any surface, like a tabletop. The game highlight then plays on a continuous loop, allowing the viewer to move around and explore the scene from every angle. Finally, viewers are encouraged to share the immersive experience with friends or across their social networks.

Andrew Walker, Senior Vice President Brand & Marketing at ATP, said: “For our fans, we are always seeking ways to add excitement and interactivity to the viewing experience. Make My Day’s expertise in socially native content that is powered by technology has opened doors to new possibilities. The augmented highlights unveiled this week will be a first for tennis fans and will pave the way for our fans to experience their favourite ATP players and sporting moments in dynamic new formats.”

Will Scougal, co-founder and managing director at Make My Day, said: “We’re seeing XR fundamentally change the way culture is experienced by people, from wearables, to broadcast to social AR. This work sets a new standard for sports viewing, merging real match data with cutting-edge technology to create a new and unforgettable fan experience right at the heart of where sport is discussed the most, social media.”

Source: Make My Day

Officially launching today, we are HUMAIN offers intelligent production solutions that combine traditional craftsmanship with the power of Ai. Supported by their ethical Ai framework and the world’s largest roster of pioneering Ai artists, we are HUMAIN enables clients to unlock unprecedented creative possibilities built on a foundation of integrity. As leaders in ethical Ai, we are HUMAIN are setting a new standard in responsible, innovative content creation that will redefine the future of advertising production.

Founded by Matt Morgan and Charlie Lonngren, we are HUMAIN leverages their extensive experience in traditional production with advanced Ai tools and skilled Ai Artist to bring clients’ ideas to life. This approach merges the ingenuity of human creativity with cutting-edge Ai tools, to produce remarkable still and moving image content that can fit seamlessly into traditional pre production, live action, CG or VP workflows or as standalone full Ai productions. Matt Morgan, an industry leader, who’s played a key role in shaping the future of digital creative content,  has handpicked a diverse global group of talented Ai Artists from traditional creative backgrounds including directors, art directors, creative directors, photographers, designers, illustrators, animators, VFX and 3D artists – who are embracing this emerging technology to elevate their craft. The roster, the biggest in the world, spans a range of  disciplines enabling we are HUMAIN to  provide fast and budget friendly production solutions to fulfil a wide range of briefs.

Matt Morgan, Founder, we are HUMAIN said “Our Ai Artists live and breathe creativity and are deeply passionate about Ai. All are pioneers who’re blending their traditional expertise with an advance Ai toolkit. They’re leading conversations on Ai, developing new toolsets, and setting new standards in the industry.”

Charlie Lonngren, Founder, we are HUMAIN added “In this emerging field, where no one is yet an ‘expert,’ we’ve built a collaborative community that shares knowledge and grows together. When you work with us, you benefit from the collective brilliance of this forward-thinking network.”

“Accessing Ai is easy—achieving outstanding results is not.” said Charlie Lonngren. “That’s why we’ve carefully curated a roster of the world’s top Ai artists who can draw on their industry experience, specialist insights and connections to support our clients in navigating the fast-evolving Ai landscape.”

With ethical Ai at the heart of we are HUMAIN’s mission, founders Morgan and Lonngren have collaborated with leading Ai legal experts and copyright lawyers, to create their bespoke ethical workflow policy which enables the roll out of commercially viable campaigns created with Ai, and supported with their robust legal framework.

Lonngren “We’re committed to working within our ethical Ai framework wherever possible. This enables us to honour original content creators, ensuring they’re compensated, whilst offering legal reassurance to our clients. Furthermore, we can take measures to protect our clients’ valuable assets in the creation of new work”.

Matt Morgan is a seasoned Executive Producer and Digital Production expert with over 20 years of experience leading innovative, high-impact projects for top brands such as Coca-Cola, Apple, Sky and The Prince’s Trust. Throughout his established career across industry-leading, digital-first organisations including founding  Moonshine Media, Morgan has been known for delivering complex, immersive digital experiences and for pioneering ethical Ai production. With a deep understanding of Ai, VR, AR and cutting-edge technologies, Morgan  pushes creative boundaries to shape the future of digital storytelling.

Charlie Lonngren is an accomplished Agency Producer. With over 25 years of experience, she has created standout content for leading agencies and global brands including Google, Guiness and Toyota. Known for her expertise in transforming complex briefs into streamlined, efficient workflows, Charlie is excited by the possibilities Ai brings to redefine production processes in today’s evolving landscape. She’s embracing this opportunity to  evolve  her approach to creative content creation and position herself at the forefront of a new era in production. Charlie’s expertise lies in developing strong collaborative partnerships and motivating teams to achieve exceptional results. Her goal is to bring sustainable, forward-thinking solutions to the creative industry without compromising on production and creative excellence.

Source: we are HUMAIN

The partnership leverages A1 expertise and network reach to enable responsible digital marketing

Utiq, the European AdTech company with a unique telco-powered first-party identifier that harnesses Authentic Consent to enable responsible digital marketing, has officially entered the Austrian market in collaboration with A1, Austria’s leading telecommunications provider.

This partnership brings Utiq’s innovative, people-first Authentic Consent Service to A1’s vast user base, facilitating more relevant digital marketing experiences between brands, publishers, and people. The Service enhances data privacy, giving consumers real control and choice over their consent, whilst offering advertisers the ability to target deterministically and accurately at scale.

Marc Bresseel, CEO of Utiq, commented on the expansion into Austria by saying: “This is another significant step for Utiq in partnering with A1 Telekom to bring privacy-focused responsible marketing solutions to Austria, aligning with our vision of empowering users while delivering value to brands and publishers through more relevant, ad-funded experiences.”

Marco Harfmann, A1 Director of Marketing Communications, on the collaboration with Utiq: “Through the cooperation with Utiq, we are bringing an exciting and above all practical and secure successor technology to 3rd party cookies to the market. In combination with our large customer base, this opens up exciting solution approaches for the digital advertising industry.”

First-Party Identifier vs. 3rd Party Cookies 

Secure and encrypted addressability is crucial for targeted online advertising. Previous solutions like cookies are ineffective, inaccurate and also face increasing restrictions, with alternative, innovative solutions using telecommunications services now being accepted as the privacy-first, deterministic alternative.

Telco-powered identifiers are replacing 3rd party cookie solutions to address users on brand and publisher websites. Only when the user gives their consent will they receive personalised online advertising or website optimisations based on this dedicated technology, through pseudonymized IP addresses.

Utiq, which is backed by the telecommunications providers Deutsche Telekom AG, Orange SA, Telefónica S.A., and Vodafone Group plc, arrives in Austria with a mission to help foster a trusted and responsible ad-funded open internet. 

The partnership connects A1 with Utiq’s trusted publishers and brand partners via a real-time, end-to-end secure consent signal match – its first-party data identifier – to create Authentic Audiences that have unambiguously and freely provided consent for marketing purposes.

This unique alliance marks a significant step in Utiq’s European expansion and strengthens both companies’ market positions, combining Utiq’s cutting-edge technology with A1 established leadership in Austrian telecommunications.

Source: Utiq

The Brandtech Group is working with Northwestern University’s Adjunct Assistant Professor of Instruction, Anas Ghazi to enable graduates in his Digital Storytelling class to be the first-ever students to work with Brandtech’s Gen AI marketing platform, Pencil.

Graduate students in his class will be given full access to the Pencil Gen AI marketing platform as part of the curriculum, as they learn about AI content generation and digital storytelling. The platform enables marketers to make ad campaigns from end-to-end. The students’ learning will culminate in them showcasing their new expertise in a live pitch for food rescue nonprofit Sharing Excess‘ year-end fundraising campaign across TikTok, LinkedIn and Instagram. 

Once the course is completed, students will be awarded a certificate verifying their expertise in Gen AI, which will be showcased via a Pencil Pro Certification LinkedIn badge, providing them with a competitive edge in the job market. Additionally, top performers may secure internships with The Brandtech Group, creating a seamless link between education and industry.

The specialised curriculum is designed to bridge the gap between theory and practice, offering students – who will be the next generation of marketers – real-world experience in AI-driven content creation from the world’s number-one Gen AI marketing platform, from text and image generation to full-fledged advertising campaigns.

Through this initiative Brandtech is tackling the urgent need for AI skills. A recent report shows a 29% surge in employer demand for AI expertise and a 70% talent shortage in the field, underscoring the necessity of this initiative. As part of the MSC’s Digital Storytelling class, Brandtech is committed to arming the market with skilled professionals poised to drive innovation in the marketing industry.

“We couldn’t be more excited to be supercharging the next generation of marketers,” says Will Hanschell, co-founder and CEO of Pencil. “AI is already transforming the ad industry, and we’re thrilled to now be upskilling talented marketers who will use Gen AI to push both creativity and performance. I can’t wait to see what the students produce with Pencil.”

Brandtech’s Pencil platform, which came to market in 2018, has already transformed marketing ecosystems for top-tier clients like Unilever and Diageo – and has created more than 1 million ads for 5,000+ brands, with $1bn+ of media spend having flowed through the platform enabling performance prediction as well as generation.

Pencil is unique as it aggregates the latest and most advanced Gen AI models from Google AI, OpenAI, Adobe Firefly, Runway, StabilityAI and more, positioning the participating students at the forefront of digital storytelling. 

The Pencil Certification Program will immerse students in leading AI tools like GPT-4, Google PaLM 2, Gemini, and DALL-E 3, taking them through the entire process of creating an ad using Gen AI – from consumer insights and ideation, to image and text generation, to launch and impact measurement. It will equip them with essential skills in AI-driven content creation and campaign analysis. 

This initiative goes beyond traditional curricula – it’s a strategic move to upskill the next generation of talent, which Brandtech has in its sights as the leader in AI-powered marketing. Brandtech is not only transforming education but also preparing the marketing industry with a new generation of AI-savvy professionals ready to redefine digital storytelling, from the classroom to the boardroom.

Rebecca Sykes, Brandtech Partner and Head of Emerging Technologies, says: “This initiative is incredibly well-aligned with what we’re trying to achieve at Brandtech. We don’t just want to train the next generation of AI talent in marketing, we want to hire them! We want to work with Gen AI superstars at Brandtech. That’s why we’re so excited to see how these talented students use the Pencil Gen AI platform.”

Anas Ghazi, Adjunct Assistant Professor at Northwestern, adds: “As a storytelling practitioner and educator, I am not just teaching theory—I am tearing down the walls between the classroom and the real world. By supporting mission-driven brands like Sharing Excess and leveraging the cutting-edge power of the Pencil Pro platform, my students receive the perfect 1-2 punch of purpose and innovation. Generative AI is no longer the future; it is here. As educators, technologists, and storytellers, we bear the responsibility to serve humanity and speak the truth—this is the weight we carry and demonstrate to the next generation. This initiative equips my students to not just compete, but to disrupt and lead—where AI-savvy professionals are essential to driving purpose and shaping the future..”

Brandtech founder and CEO David Jones, who will deliver a keynote address to Northwestern students, says: “I don’t think anyone has fully understood just how much Gen AI is going to disrupt marketing beyond all recognition. It will be a bigger revolution than television, the internet and mobile combined! It’s going to create tectonic disruption and the need for dramatic transformation throughout companies and marketing departments. The students at Northwestern are going to be at the forefront of this change, and we’re proud that Pencil can play a role in showing them how seismic it will be.”

Sharing Excess COO, Victoria Wilson says: “As a nonprofit focused on addressing food insecurity, we are excited to see how the students at Northwestern University will leverage cutting-edge AI tools like Pencil to drive our story. By combining creativity with the power of AI, we’re confident that their work will not only help us create impressive campaigns but also bring greater awareness to the pressing issue of food waste and hunger across our communities.”

Source: The Brandtech Group

Teads, the global media platform, today introduced its new Contextual Commerce solution powered by Dynamic Product Ads (DPA), making the company one of the largest DPA open internet platforms. As personalized shopping demand grows, this innovation — currently in beta with plans to scale in early 2025— enhances shopper relevance by tailoring ads based on factors like price, stock, and delivery options within premium, contextually relevant environments.

Teads’ Contextual Commerce formats connect consumers with relevant products at key moments, delivering native ads that align with shopper behavior and context. This results in measurable business outcomes, driving core performance metrics like CTR, CPC, CPVisit, CPA, and ROAS across trusted editorial content.

“Teads Contextual Commerce offers our growing Retail and Commerce brands an opportunity to deliver real-time, contextually relevant ads in premium environments while balancing performance with brand experience,” said Jeremy Arditi, Co-CEO of Teads.

Designed for sectors like fashion, electronics, and home goods, the solution is set to expand in 2025 to other industries. Adidas, a global leader in the sporting goods industry, is the first partner to leverage this solution with more than a dozen brands across multiple verticals from retail and technology to beauty and luxury in the queue to leverage during the busy shopping season ahead.

With the implementation of DPA, brands can easily upload or connect their product feed to Teads Ad Manager (TAM), enabling the curation of product sets based on top-selling items, popular categories, or custom criteria. The ads are automatically updated with real-time product data, including pricing, availability, and discounts, ensuring maximum relevance for always-on campaigns. With just a few clicks, clients can launch campaigns using Teads’our Single Product ad format, seamlessly aligning with their campaign objectives and targeting strategies.

Source: Teads

Blis, the geo-powered advertising tech stack, has announced a new partnership with Virgin Media O2 Business to position the company as the exclusive partner for the O2 Motion Brand Elevator product. With access to brand-level data, this groundbreaking deal will enhance Blis’s omnichannel advertising platform allowing advertisers to leverage extensive anonymised and aggregated data.

Through the Blis suite of data providers, including Virgin Media O2 Business, advertisers will now have access to one of the most comprehensive and highest-quality telco datasets available. This will enable Blis users to strengthen their audience planning and measurement capabilities with access to high quality brand insights.

“Telco data is becoming an essential resource for understanding purchase intent, and we’re thrilled to be able to now utilise brand-level data from Virgin Media O2 Business as an exclusive partner for their O2 Motion Brand Elevator product,” said Charlie Smith, European MD at Blis. “This deal reinforces our commitment to providing high-quality data for our clients’ campaigns while ensuring privacy compliance. We believe this should be the industry standard. Our clients can now maximise campaign effectiveness without compromise.”

Blis’s Audience Explorer platform will now include anonymised and aggregated data from Virgin Media O2 Business, allowing advertisers to craft and measure against precise target audiences for their omni-channel campaigns. This ensures they don’t have to compromise on the quality, depth and breadth of the data they use. The platform operates on geo-powered insights, enabling clients to plan, activate, and measure campaigns across all channels. Advertisers can easily layer on any additional demographics or consumer spending data, such as Mastercard insights, for enhanced targeting.

In addition, Blis is pioneering the use of app and web usage data for omnichannel measurement through its innovative Smart Holdout Groups. This solution allows advertisers to accurately assess brand outcomes across various channels, measuring key metrics such as sales uplift, footfall increase, and app usage growth.

“Our expanded partnership with Blis showcases the power of anonymised and aggregated data when applied in digital advertising. Through access to O2 Motion’s Brand Elevator product, Blis users will be able to make data-driven decisions to enhance both planning efforts and work impact,” said Andy Gillham, O2 Motion Business Development Director at Virgin Media O2 Business. “Combining Brand Elevator outputs with tools like Blis’ Smart Holdout Groups, customers will be able to unlock valuable insights that enable greater collaboration within the advertising industry.”

The Virgin Media O2 Business application and anonymised Brand Elevator product is now available in the Blis Audience Explorer platform starting today. Advertisers can test Smart Holdout Groups for free for a limited time.

Source: Blis

Customer acquisition specialist esbconnect has announced a partnership with Sagacity, the UK’s leading data and analytics consultancy, that will see Sagacity’s UK-wide Intra dataset combined with esb’s own email dataset of 17m UK consumers.

The combination of the two datasets offers an end-to-end solution that brands can use to enrich and understand their existing audiences, and to target lookalikes and activate new audiences via email, social, programmatic and postal – all from one unified dashboard. As such, it offers a highly appealing alternative to the few UK consumer data offerings available to advertisers. 

Sagacity’s Intra dataset offers the most up-to-date, detailed and accurate view of the UK population, broken down into five core affluence groups. These break down into 55 micro-segments covering demographics, interests and hobbies, income, shopping habits and more.

The Intra data can now be combined with esb’s Inbox Extend dataset, which spans more than 400 attributes, including factors such as age, household income, marital status, type of home, property value and proximity to specific retail outlets.

“This partnership with Sagacity enables esb’s customers to leverage the power and granularity of the most comprehensive dataset of UK consumers for enrichment, profiling, modelling and creating personas,” says esbconnect CEO Suzanna Chaplin. “It is the perfect complement to our own Inbox Extend offering.”

Sagacity contains more data than any other full-coverage file in the market, and is subject to a strict due diligence process – every piece of information processed holds a complete audit trail and permission code, and no data is accepted into Intra without meeting Sagacity’s strict compliance standards. It also offers higher match rates with clients’ data, owing to the fact that Intra datasets are available at individual, household and postcode level.

Dean Standing, Chief Revenue Officer at Sagacity added: “Intra data, and the insights it offers, are trusted by many of the UK’s best-known brands. The partnership with esbconnect will make it easier for more brands to access and activate these insights from within esb’s platform, across multiple channels.”

Source: esbconnect

Using such channels to supplement linear TV activity, Audience Store was able to help Furniture Village beat footfall and sales targets in the lead-up to Black Friday last year.

The campaign is one that will inevitably interest habitual TV advertisers intrigued by the possibilities of CTV for brand and performance. Furniture Village has relied on linear TV as its biggest media channel for many years, and while digital has been added into the mix in recent years, linear TV still accounts for a large proportion of its media budget.  The challenge was to reach the retailer’s ABC1 householder target audience with a limited budget, and with minimal TV investment that month.

Audience Store turned to CTV to plug the gap. Budgets were allocated so that CTV spend was higher in weeks where there were fewer or no TVRs, and lower when TVRs were greater. In the event, results were such that CTV has now become a regular part of Furniture Village’s AV strategy.

The execution called on a number of partners, including the LightBox TV platform, to inform inventory planning across BVOD, AVOD and YouTube apps; Kogenta, to track footfall uplift to Furniture Village stores; and Audience Project, to understand the incremental reach of CTV over linear TV.

Deals were curated across a variety of inventory sources, including LG, Samsung, Pluto and Discovery Plus, either directly or via Magnite, and built around genres and content categories that indexed highly for the ABC1 householder audience. Additionally, Samsung and LG created direct deals that overlaid ACR data for Light TV Viewers to add incremental reach to the linear and BVOD activity.

On YouTube, Audience Store created an inclusion list of channels based on a blend of relevance to home furniture/design audiences, and content categories and interests that the Furniture Village website audience over-indexes for based on Audience Store’s DiscoverAI proprietary audience insights tool.

The campaign surpassed the 56% incrementality reach target Vs. linear TV by 10 percentage points, with 66% of the CTV activity reaching users that were not reached by linear TV activity. These targets also translated into sales for Furniture Village as they beat their combined in-store and online target, equating to significant additional revenue. Footfall analysis confirmed that the biggest increases in footfall correlated to areas where CTV activity was greater.

Further testing has brought SVOD services such as Freevee and Amazon Prime Video into the planning.

“This campaign highlights the value of CTV as both a branding and a performance channel,” says Audience Store MD, Jon Hewson. “It also proves that a smaller budget doesn’t have to equate to lower reach, so long as you have access to the tools needed to harness the precision targeting that CTV and other digital channels can deliver.”

Source: Audience Store 

VIOOH, with its advanced technology platform and global footprint, seamlessly connects buyers and sellers in the DOOH space, offering a streamlined programmatic advertising experience. Through this partnership, advertisers worldwide will access BackLite Media‘s premium inventory across Dubai and Abu Dhabi, unlocking the potential to reach residents and the UAE’s ever-growing tourism population.

“This partnership is another great market addition to VIOOH’s real-time trading offering across programmatic DOOH. We know there is significant interest, both within the local market as well as overseas, for inventory in this region, and are pleased to partner with Backlite to provide opportunities for advertisers to take advantage of the flexibility and data-driven nature of programmatic DOOH,” said Gavin Wilson, Chief Customer and Revenue Officer at VIOOH.

“We are excited to partner with VIOOH and bring their expertise in programmatic DOOH to the Middle East,” said Sean Gadsby, Head of Programmatic at BackLite Media. “This collaboration will open new doors for global advertisers looking to tap into the dynamic UAE market through our high-quality digital screens across Dubai and Abu Dhabi. At BackLite, we are thrilled to capitalise on VIOOH’s extensive global reach, allowing us to position our premium inventory on a larger scale.”

This strategic partnership empowers global advertisers to plan and purchase BackLite Media’s extensive Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) inventory, featuring over 300 digital screens across the UAE. BackLite Media boasts prime locations along Dubai’s busiest road, Sheikh Zayed Road, and a vast indoor and outdoor screen network in prominent malls and destinations across Dubai and Abu Dhabi. This provides advertisers with highly targeted audience options, reaching commuters, global tourists, residents, and shoppers.

Through programmatic buying, advertisers can benefit from enhanced flexibility, precision targeting, and improved efficiency, ensuring maximum impact and engagement.

As the UAE continues to evolve as a leading destination for tourists and business travellers, this partnership comes at an opportune moment, providing brands with the opportunity to engage with a diverse and affluent audience.

Through this collaboration, BackLite Media and VIOOH are poised to transform the DOOH landscape in the Middle East, providing brands with powerful new ways to connect with consumers in a rapidly growing market.

Source: VIOOH