R/GA MARKETING TECH VENTURE STUDIO WITH IPG AND SNAP INC. COMPANIES PRESENT AT ADVERTISING WEEK NY
NEW YORK, September 26, 2017 – Today, the participating companies in the R/GA Marketing Tech Venture Studio with IPG and Snap Inc. presented in front of an industry audience at Advertising Week New York. Concluding the four-month long program, the eight companies took the stage to pitch leaders from the marketing and advertising industry.
Snap and R/GA worked closely to identify companies that could expand Snapchat’s advertising ecosystem across content creation, analytics, and mobile commerce. The cohort represents the next wave of digital marketing solutions for brands and agencies looking to leverage the full potential of social platform communications.
Throughout the program, all companies enjoyed access to resources and support from R/GA, IPG’s agency network and Snap Inc. Emphasizing opportunities for business development, pilots, and partnerships the program provided the companies with unparalleled access to brand leaders and top-tier agency talent.
Updates announced today include:
Adludio is the leading sensory advertising platform connecting users and brands with high-impact creative and made-for-mobile experiences. Over the last few months, Adludio expanded globally, opening offices in New York, Singapore, and Paris, while launching multiple campaigns with Snapchat and Instagram.
Dashbot is a bot analytics platform that enables brands and developers to increase user acquisition, engagement, and monetization. Over the course of the program, Dashbot processed an increase of 8 billion additional messages, which was driven in part by strategic partnerships, additional platform support, and new developer tools to take action on data.
Lytics helps companies personalize engagement with customers through the industry’s most advanced Customer Data Platform (CDP). On the path to quadrupling revenue over 2016, Lytics has many integrations with third-party marketing tools, and recently integrated with Snapchat Ad Manager and Google Tag Manager. Recently, Lytics announced the launch of Orchestrate, a fresh way to understand and conduct omnichannel marketing campaigns from a CDP’s user interface.
Popwallet helps brands turn communication into conversion through mobile wallet marketing. Through the R/GA program Popwallet has transformed their brand identity and strategy, enabling business growth across direct clients and channel partners, including Snap, Oath, Oracle, and IBM. Popwallet recently hired COO Charlie Whittingham who led global revenue for BrightRoll from inception to $640m acquisition, in order to operationalize and scale the Popwallet business and fully capitalize on the large market opportunity ahead.
Quickframe is a platform for creating short-form original video at scale, with over 100 Brand and Publisher clients who have used Quickframe for social content, ads, O/O site content, branded content, and versioning/editing of existing assets. During the program, Quickframe closed a strategic funding round, became a preferred content partner of Snap, launched media/distribution capabilities, expanded its creator network to more than 35,000 creators and production companies, and completed a world-class product redesign with R/GA.
Relative Insight is a new kind of audience research tool, using comparative language analysis to help marketers discover real insights and turn them into communication. During the program, Relative Insight closed a round of funding, partnered with Samsung and R/GA on a new market approach, gained business from IPG companies including McCann, and leveraged R/GA branding expertise to redesign a new UI for the tool
Sightworthy helps businesses create custom video at scale. During the program, Sightworthy repositioned their platform to focus on shorter, multi-video content, gaining traction in the SMB market with an approach converting long-form YouTube videos to personalized Snap and Instagram ads. The company also worked with Mercedes Benz USA, reviving existing assets to turn around an Instagram campaign for the US Open in less than a day. (Waiting for approval from MBUSA, approved by SW)
Whalar provides a highly creative, scalable and cost effective solution to authentic content creation through influencer collaborations. In just 18 months since inception, Whalar has built up an impressive roster of over 200 clients working across 40+ markets with the likes of Apple, Disney, Uber, Dior, Unilever, Adidas, L’Oreal and Hyatt.
During the program, Adludio, Lytics, Popwallet, Quickframe, and Whaler were accepted into the Snap Inc. preferred partner program.
Throughout the program, the companies partnered closely with R/GA’s product development, consulting, marketing, branding, design, and technology services; received feedback and guidance from senior product and strategy leaders within Snap Inc., and enjoyed access to industry-leading experts from across the full range of IPG operating companies as well as access to the global networks of R/GA and IPG including clients, industry partners, mentors, and investors. As program partners, American Airlines, Intel, and Intertech Ventures also provided support and access to senior executives.
In June, the companies also had the opportunity to participate in the R/GA Startup Academy at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, where the founders engaged in a week of meetings with industry luminaries and presented to an audience of global marketers on the Lions Innovation stage.
For more information, please visit www.rgamarketingtech.com and follow @rgaventures.
About R/GA
R/GA is connected by design. An innovation leader for more than 40
years, R/GA has expanded to offer consulting, ventures,
technology, marketing, architecture, and IP development services
in addition to its award-winning design practice. Its work spans
web, mobile, and social communications, retail and e-commerce,
product innovation, brand development, and business
transformation. The company has more than 2,000 employees globally
with 19 offices across the United States, Europe, South America,
and Asia-Pacific. R/GA Ventures was founded in 2013 and has equity
stakes in 60 startups that have graduated from its Accelerator and
Venture Studio programs. R/GA Ventures is also member of the GAN
(gan.co), a network of the world’s most respected
accelerators and organizations in support of the startup
ecosystem. R/GA is part of The Interpublic Group of Companies
(NYSE:IPG), one of the world’s largest advertising and marketing
services organizations. For more information about R/GA, please
visit www.rga.com/ventures and @rgaventures.