Measurement Stories You Missed from April: West Corp. acquired Notified

West Corp made its first acquisition in the measurement space in fifteen months, Zissor was sold, AirPR has been renamed, and the AMEC Summit is almost here.

West Corp acquires Notified

West Corporation has acquired Notified for an undisclosed sum. Notified, the Swedish-based provider of a media monitoring and measurement tools, was founded in 2010. Ben Chodor, President of West’s Digital Media Solutions, described the company as “one of the most innovative public relations platforms with top-tier clients and over 10,000 users”. It’s West Corp.’s first acquisition in the space since it acquired Nasdaq’s PR services division in January 2018.

Zissor acquired

Let’s stay in the Nordics for just a moment. Zissor, the provider of media monitoring and digitisation software and services, has been acquired for 5.918 million Norwegian kroner. INVL Technology, which invests in IT businesses, is the lucky buyer and plans to consolidate a number of the IT services and software companies that it owns.

AirPR acquires Ozmotik and rebrands

AirPR has acquired earned media amplification company Ozmotik and rebranded to Onclusive. The acquisition will allow customers to not only identify and measure earned media but also amplify earned media content, using Ozmotik’s technology. Ozmotik CEO Hung Nguyen is joining Onclusive as VP of media, while CTO Prescott Lee is joining as VP of engineering. AirPR picked up $USD8 million in funding in December 2018.

Kantar’s bidders through to next round

Bain Capital and Apollo Global Management are among the buyout firms that are still in the running to acquire a majority stake in Kantar, according to Bloomberg. The news comes after private equity groups, including Blackstone and Carlyle, pulled out of the race. WPP, Kantar’s current owner, is seeking a valuation of as much as £3.5 billion for the business.

Martech growth is slowing, apparently

If, like me, you’re interested in marketing technology (martech), you’ll be well aware of chiefmartech.com‘s landscape supergraphic. This year’s graphic shows a whopping 7,040 marketing technology companies spread across six core areas. Released annually over the past eight years, the graphics have defined a rapidly growing industry. For example, 2018’s graphic included 27% more companies that 2017’s survey. This year, however, shows a slow down – just a 3% year-on-year growth. A plateau, perhaps, rather than a slowdown.

PRNews adds to its measurement Hall of Fame

PRNews held its annual PR Measurement Conference in Washington D.C. this month. The conference sees leading lights of PR measurement being inducted into its into its Hall of Fame. This year’s inductees are Marcia DiStasio, of the University of Florida; Google’s Corey duBrowa; Gary Sheffer, from Boston University and Weber Shandwick and Sean Williams, from True Digital Communications. Congratulations to all inductees.

AMEC Awards Shortlist

Speaking of honours, AMEC has released its 2019 awards shortlist. The shortlist contains 127 entrants across 23 categories, and congratulations to all those shortlisted. The AMEC Award ceremony closes out the annual AMEC Global Summit on Measurement. This year’s the Summit is being held in Prague from 21 to 23 May. So, now’s the time to book and I look forward to seeing you there.

Don’t forget to let us know about your measurement moments. Email us – hello@prmeasured.com.

PR Measurement Stories You Missed in April