Influencer marketing took centre stage in August, with news from both Impact and IBM. In social intelligence news, Brandwatch has announced a raft of new data initiatives, and three Chinese social media monitoring providers have reportedly been hacked. Meanwhile, Burton-Taylor has released its latest report on M&A activity in media intelligence, and a group of marketers and researchers in the UK are highlighting the need for diversity.
Impact acquires Activate
Impact, a provider of partnership automation solutions, has acquired Activate, an influencer marketing platform for an undisclosed sum. Impact claims that the acquisition of Activate makes it the world’s top influencer marketplace, with over 300,000 opt-in qualified and vetted influencers.
IBM launches influencer marketing tool
IBM has launched the Watson Advertising Social Targeting solution with influencer marketing provider Influential. The solution harnesses Watson’s AI capabilities to help brands identify influencers that best align with their brand values. The tool will leverage IBM Watson’s NLP to analyse social media data, and recommend potential partners.
Burton-Taylor: Cision and Meltwater lead M&A activity
If there’s one activity that is common in our industry, it’s consolidation. Burton-Taylor have examined mergers and acquisitions to create a helpful guide. As we all know, Cision & its previous owners GTCR were the drivers of recent activity, spending just over $USD 2.25 billion from 2014 to 2019 on 14 transactions. Meltwater was also active, though on a much smaller scale, with Burton-Taylor estimating a spend of $USD 69.8 million over eight deals between 2016 and 2018. The Burton-Taylor analysis shows that media monitoring has had the most transactions among media intelligence companies, followed by social media, as organisations consolidate and acquire to expand product offerings.
Brandwatch partners with Kinetiq
Brandwatch, the UK-based social intelligence leader, has announced a new partnership with Kinetiq, the provider of real-time TV intelligence. The partnership will integrate Kinetiq’s data from over 2,600 TV stations across more than 85 countries into the Brandwatch platform. The integration of TV with Brandwatch’s social data will help brands understand paid, earned, and owned media presence across social, online, and TV. The partnership comes as part of a broader data expansion from Brandwatch, which also includes LinkedIn data, Disqus, and better location tracking.
Social media monitoring providers hacked
In China, a group of hackers known as CCP Unmasked are claiming that they have hacked three social media intelligence businesses working with the Chinese government. They claim to have stolen internal documents from Knowlesys, a company based in Hong Kong and Guangdong, Yunrun Big Data Service, a company based in Guangzhou, and OneSight, based in Beijing. The group was blocked on Twitter after posting the hacked materials.
Voices4All Initiative encourages diversity
In the UK, a group of marketers and researchers have come together to launch the Voices4All Initiative. The initiative encourages the market research industry to expand national representative samples to statistically reflect sexual orientation and ethnicity as well as the already included age, gender, region, and socio-demographic breakdowns. The initiative has been set up by Vitreous World, The7stars, FleishmanHillard Fishburn, The Barber Shop, Touchstone Partners and Shoppercentric. While the Voices4All initiative is focused on sampling, it highlights a need to be mindful of potential bias when conducting any research or insight activity.
FIBEP Congress: Save the date
Last year, the FIBEP World Congress was in Lima. This year, it can be in your living room, as the FIBEP World Congress is heading online. The full details have not yet been announced, but the annual conference will take place from 17 to 19 November, so mark your calendar.
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