Consequently, several industries are opting for real-time solutions besides spending on IT infrastructure and analytical solutions to gain a competitive advantage in the market. Modern businesses are marked by an increase in the need for advanced business intelligence. Artificial intelligence (AI) has enabled content marketing with significant technological advances. AI provides a centralized view of all business activities and associated information.

This new developments will see the content marketing market grow by $417.85 billion from 2020 to 2025, at a Compound annual growth rate, CAGR, of 16% according to a recent report by Technavio.

Among the key factors driving growth in the content marketing market is the rise in the number of users on social media.

And while this has been happening, companies and brands have been angling to tap into the power of tech to advance business solutions and stay ahead of their peers.

This week has seen Dentsu International, has announced the next generation of studio production in the cloud with the launch of dentsu Cloud Studio.

Built in collaboration with partners such as Microsoft, Adobe (Creative Cloud) and AI computing specialists NVIDIA (omniverse), dentsu Cloud Studio delivers frictionless efficiency at scale.

This solution seamlessly unites the tools, talent and assets needed to enable global talent to collaborate in real time on content including 3D, VFX, Video and Digital, pushing creativity and innovation for clients.

dunnhumby, the global retail data science organization, has also launched dunnhumby Sphere, an all-in-one customer first retail media platform.

dunnhumby Sphere is the end-to-end retail media platform that takes users from brand insights to campaign billing through its fully integrated set of modules, helping to unify audience targeting, media booking, forecasting and measurement across a range of retail media channels.

On the other hand, Amagi, a global player in cloud-based SaaS technology for broadcast and connected TV, has announced that Video Solutions AG has partnered with it to launch, distribute and monetize two Advertising Video-On-Demand (AVOD) channels – one in Germany and one in UK - on Samsung TV Plus, LG, Philipps, TCL, and Xiaomi.

Headquartered in Switzerland, Video Solutions AG runs AVOD platforms Watch4 and W4Free, which are top movie and TV series destinations for advertisers to reach targeted audience sectors in Germany, Switzerland and Austria and the UK, respectively.

This week has also seen a series of partnerships, mergers and acquisitions.

Global digital agency Dept has acquired US data science and software engineering agency Raybeam.

Raybeam joins Dept’s strong technology and engineering practice in the US, led by Rocket Insights and Devetry, both of whom joined Dept in recent years.

Their rich history in developing custom solutions bolsters Dept’s recently announced Ada by Dept proprietary martech platform, which gives brands access to proven best-in-class technology for performance marketing, creative, data and media optimization.

S 4Capital plc, the tech-led, new era digital advertising and marketing services company, has announced a combination between 4 Mile Analytics and Media.Monks, which significantly expands the capabilities of its Data&digital media practice.

The merger augments its global analytics capabilities and expands its client base. 4 Mile Analytics is a leader in data analytics, data engineering, data governance, software engineering, UX design and project & product management.

Kantar, the global data-driven analytics and brand consulting company, has announced the acquisition of all software intellectual property (IP) and the development team from MindIT, the Bologna, Italy-based artificial intelligence (AI) company.

MindIT, a spin-out from Bologna University, is an award-winning machine learning algorithms and AI specialist whose solutions have formed part of Kantar’s Trade Optimisation Revenue Management offer since 2018. The team will join Kantar’s Trade Optimisation SaaS business to advance their vision for an integrated, end-to-end Revenue Growth Management (RGM) platform.

On brands and sustainability, global furniture brand IKEA has released its 2021 Sustainability Report that says it is on track towards 2030 climate commitment. The key achievements the report highlight include improvements throughout the value chain to further reduce the IKEA climate footprint in absolute terms compared to baseline FY16, the launch of an interactive online circular product design tool, and taking a big step towards using only renewable energy across the value chain.

Volvo Trucks continues to deploy zero-tailpipe emission trucks across the world. In North America, the company now launches an enhanced version of its Volvo VNR Electric with up to 85% increased range and faster charging.

The Volvo VNR Electric is one of Volvo Trucks six all-electric heavy truck models and is specially designed for the North American market. Sales start was in December 2020.

In appointments, GroupM, WPP’s media investment group, has announced that Sebastian Muriel has been named GroupM Spain’s CEO, effective 14 February 2022. Muriel joins GroupM from Telefónica where from 2016 – 2022 he held the role of Global Director Customer Experience / Novum.

Dentsu International has also appointed Nnenna Ilomechina as Global Chief Operating Officer. Nnenna joins the business in May 2022, as Neil Gissler retires from the global COO role at dentsu in Q1 2022.

And three senior executives have been appointed to newly created positions at Hearst Media Production Group, which was formed in September 2021 to expand Hearst Television’s original program production and distribution, incorporating existing resources from Litton Entertainment and the weekly syndicated program “Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien.”

Bob Koigi is an editor at Marketing Report EU

www.marketingreport.eu