ADVERTISER CAMPAIGN MANAGEMENT
Hello Sunshine | March 21, 2023
Hello Sunshine, a part of Candle Media, announced today the launch of Solar, an in-house social agency helping brands connect with women through story-driven advertising. Overseen by Maureen Polo (Hello Sunshine’s Head of Direct to Consumer), Solar is being led by agency veteran Jennifer Wiener (SVP, Solar) in close collaboration with new creative leadership, Teneille Craig (VP, Creative, Solar).
Hello Sunshine has a rich history of partnering with advertisers to shape female-focused commercial messaging that truly resonates. With Solar, brands will now have the opportunity to partner more deeply with Hello Sunshine and to drive story-led marketing that shapes culture, drives impact, and ultimately makes the world a better place for women and diverse audiences. Solar empowers brands to tell more inclusive and representative storytelling that ultimately brings more underrepresented voices into modern media offerings. The agency also serves as the internal marketing engine that fuels Hello Sunshine’s content, commerce, and community model.
“Hello Sunshine has proven time and time again that we know women – what inspires them, connects them, and drives them to action. We're thrilled to formally launch Solar, an innovative in-house social agency that leverages Hello Sunshine's creative expertise to help brands authentically communicate with women,” said Maureen Polo, Head of Direct to Consumer at Hello Sunshine. “Our incredible team of marketers, creatives, strategists, and producers will work seamlessly with partners to drive story-led marketing that moves the needle.”
“Solar presents a more formal offering that operationalizes Hello Sunshine’s trust, influence, and deep expertise with female consumers,” added Sarah Harden, CEO of Hello Sunshine. “Leveraging our heritage in premium storytelling that centers women, we’re partnering with brands with full-service capabilities across the modern media landscape.”
More than a traditional agency, Solar teams up with mission-aligned brands to go beyond their standard strategy and creative needs. The agency’s collaborative model provides deep insight, intelligence, and credibility among women consumers. Solar’s work with brand partners includes extensive brand partnerships through Hello Sunshine IP and DTC brands, social marketing services, influencer marketing, licensing, product development, co-marketing, and women-centered consumer insights. The agency has already been working with a range of renowned brands, including Oui by Yoplait, P&G, Diageo, Pure Leaf, Stacy’s Pita Chips, Buick, Biossance, Lavazza, Anheuser Busch, Epson, Norwegian Cruise Line, and Fidelity.
“We approached Hello Sunshine because of their like-minded audience with Oui yogurt,” said Susan Pitt, Brand Experience Director for Cereal and Yogurt brands at General Mills. “We really wanted to reach women who are passionate about saying yes to making time for themselves. Hello Sunshine built out a strategic multi-channel program that has helped catapult our shared creative purpose messaging and ultimately help drive double digit increase in sales velocity.”
Along with Maureen Polo, Hello Sunshine’s Head of Direct to Consumer, Solar is led by SVP Jennifer Wiener. Wiener previously worked at Fullscreen, where she led sales and integrated marketing teams and re-positioned Fullscreen with Fortune 500 clients as trusted, insight-led marketing solutions and social services experts. Prior to Fullscreen, she worked at Dentsu Aegis, where she and her team led award winning branded content efforts for Microsoft and focused on business development for the agency. Before joining Hello Sunshine, Wiener ran the Entertainment Marketing Solutions team at WarnerMedia, leading all brand marketing, brand positioning, creative, brand partnerships and go to market storytelling for HBO Max, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, DC Comics and Theatrical.
Along with a cross-disciplinary agency team, Polo and Wiener are joined by VP, Creative, Teneille Craig, an award-winning creative with over 15 years of experience in publishing, advertising, digital media, and fashion. Prior to joining Hello Sunshine, Teneille has made an impact in senior creative roles at ESSENCE Magazine, Dentsu McGarrybowen for American Express, and TikTok.
Hello Sunshine will continue to focus on long-form branded entertainment with Zoe Fairborn, Head of Brand Business Development and Branded Entertainment, continuing to lead those efforts.
About Hello Sunshine
Founded by Reese Witherspoon, Hello Sunshine puts women at the center of every story it creates, celebrates and discovers. Hello Sunshine tells stories across all platforms – from scripted and unscripted television, feature films, podcasts, audio storytelling, and digital series – all shining a light on where women are now and helping them chart a new path forward. Hello Sunshine is also home to Reese’s Book Club. Fast growing in reach and influence, this community is propelled by meaningful connections with stories, authors and fellow members.
Hello Sunshine is part of Candle Media, an independent, creator-friendly home for cutting-edge, high-quality, category-defining brands and franchises. By bringing together elite talent operating at the intersection of content, community, and commerce, it helps to position leading entertainment businesses for accelerated, sustainable growth in the current market and beyond. Candle is run by its Co-Chairmen and Co-CEOs, leading entertainment executives Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs, and backed by investment capital from funds managed by Blackstone’s flagship private equity business.
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AD TECH AND MARTECH
Smartly.io | March 17, 2023
Smartly.io, one of the world’s largest SaaS digital advertising platforms, today announces significant company advancements, stemming from months of strategic moves—including two acquisitions, a new platform release and strategic hires to senior leadership—under the guidance and vision of industry veteran Laura Desmond. The company, which holds certified partnerships with media leaders Meta, TikTok and Google, among others, brings dynamic integrations to the digital and social space, successfully “redefining social and creativity,” according to Nikhil Lai, Senior Analyst at Forrester.
Desmond, the former Global CEO of Starcom Mediavest Group and senior executive of Publicis Groupe, has a seasoned track record for creating symbiotic relationships between advertising and technology—influencing opportunities that reshape entire industry categories. As was the case in 2021, where Desmond, a member of DoubleVerify’s Board of Directors and operating partner at Providence Equity, played an integral role in leading its IPO—one of the most successful in the media and technology sector that year.
“When Providence acquired Smartly in 2019 and I became Chair of The Board, the company’s potential was clear from the start. Smartly is uniquely solving real problems that brands and marketers need to have solved: agile creative and media management at the same time; rapid intelligence around performance—what's working and what's not; the ability to execute personalization at scale. The steady updates we’ve been making are unlocking a depth and breadth to the technology that’s affording brands the ability to move across channels as fluidly as the consumers they aim to engage do,” commented Desmond. “Coupled with the additions of Brett Wein as Chief Sales Officer, and Oli Marlow-Thomas as Chief Innovation Officer, I am confident that our vision for Smartly.io will effectively redefine the future of digital advertising for brands and marketers alike.”
Smartly.io’s continuous releases to Workspaces has created a unique full-funnel, multi-channel approach to social advertising, integrating creative, media buying and intelligence at scale, in one platform. Specifically, the company’s creative-focused adtech enables marketers to:
Reach Smartly: Automate campaign workflows across all major platforms, reaching audiences quickly, easily and cost effectively.
Engage Smartly: Create beautiful, cohesive, and effective creative across the funnel that drives action.
Learn Smartly: Extract consolidated actionable insights to respond to audience behaviors in real-time to maximize return on investment (ROI).
"The depth of knowledge [Smartly.io] brings across verticals is really impressive,” said Merry Morud, Lead, Global Creative Optimization for Consumer Products at Uber. “On top of that, they have a fantastic creative team, which is very mobile-first, which is what we, as digital marketers, in a mobile space and mobile-first world look for.” Uber, a longtime client of Smartly.io, has used the company’s platform to execute iterative creative approaches at scale as part of their global media buying practice.
Smartly.io, now managing upwards of $5B in media spend, is unlocking the ability for true multi-platform brand building that exceeds both customer expectations and drives engagement across platforms, at scale. As a result, platform partners like Meta have leveraged Smartly’s Advantage+ Shopping solution to deliver upwards of 150 creative variations across all creative placements, expanding consistent brand reach and personalization in a privacy-safe way.
“Reinvention tends not to come from large scale companies, so we are using our nimble size and strong influence to create real movement in the industry,” said Oli Marlow-Thomas, Chief Innovation Officer, Smartly.io.
ABOUT YOU, one of Europe’s fastest growing fashion platforms, leverages Smartly’s TikTok Shopping Ads across markets. Since implementation, it's seen a near 30% uplift in ROAS for catalog sales, compared to the business-as-usual catalog sales campaigns, and greater than 100% uplift for "add to cart” actions compared to TikTok’s data.
“The Smartly Digital Advertising Platform is the result of years of collaborations, acquisitions and continuous innovation that’s allowing us the ability to really push the limits of what’s been possible, up until now that is. We’re working on some exciting new builds with partners that will hit the market in the coming months, that will take dynamic creative and media optimization to new heights,” continued Marlow-Thomas.
To learn more about the Smartly Digital Advertising Platform and how it’s revolutionizing the industry, please go to https://www.smartly.io.
About Smartly.io
Smartly.io is one of the world’s largest SaaS digital advertising platforms, managing nearly $5B in ad spend with 700+ brands worldwide. Our leading end-to-end technology and outstanding customer service help brands such as Walmart, FanDuel, L’Oreal, Warner Bros. Discovery, Nestle, and Disney/ESPN to better reach audiences, engage creatives and learn what performs best—consistently driving scale for brand and performance across the largest media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Snap, Pinterest, TikTok, and Google. Visit Smartly.io to learn more.
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AD TECH AND MARTECH
GumGum | March 20, 2023
GumGum, a contextual first, global advertising platform, announced that starting immediately, all impressions running on GumGum’s ad exchange will now have enhanced brand safety protection through Verity™, GumGum’s proprietary and accredited contextual intelligence platform.
Verity is already integrated and applied across GumGum’s PMPs and media business. With this upgrade, GumGum becomes the first 100% brand-safe exchange and is the only direct marketplace that incorporates brand safety on every impression.
Advertisers typically add brand safety layers on their own through a pre-bid solution or their own safety filters. However, GumGum believes it is their responsibility to ensure supply-side safety by integrating an additional layer of protection in its exchange with Verity. Verity is the first independent ad tech platform to have been granted content-level accreditation by the Media Rating Council (MRC) for contextual analysis, brand safety, and suitability across the web and CTV. This accreditation was granted due to Verity’s sophistication and ability to analyse all content signals within a digital environment, including text, images, videos, and audio, to ensure ads are not served against extreme and unsafe content.
“We want brands and agencies to know that when they buy from GumGum’s ad exchange, they can always rely on brand safety and suitability protection, whether that’s through our exchange or PMP activity. Buyers can be assured that every ad we serve has been verified by Verity, creating a safe ad environment against extreme content,” said Adam Schenkel, EVP of global platform strategy & operations at GumGum. “Further, we want publishers to feel confident that we are an additional layer of support in ensuring their content is driving the greatest monetisation from our platform while protecting against brand safety violations.”
In addition to standard display and video placements from top publishers, GumGum’s ad exchange quickly unlocks exclusive inventory using standard formats that are cost-efficient and can be easily scaled through GumGum’s DSP partners, such as The Trade Desk, Xandr, and Google Display & Video 360. Any media buyer has the ability to access unique, high-performing inventory that is exclusive to GumGum through a DSP without a managed deal or campaign by GumGum account teams. The exchange is one of the industry's highest concentrations of direct-to-publisher integrations, enabling the company to provide the most direct route to premium, high-quality inventory for media buyers.
“Every brand has its own suitability thresholds but safety is more black and white. If we have the capability to remove unsafe inventory that advertisers don’t want to advertise against from the onset, why wouldn’t we do that?” said Phil Schraeder, CEO of GumGum. “We see a tremendous growth opportunity with our ad exchange and adding Verity to every ad impression is just one of many exciting things we will be doing with the exchange this year.”
This solution offers higher-quality ads and increased scale across thousands of premium publisher sites that are third-party verified. To ensure quality inventory at scale and an efficient supply chain, GumGum has integrated MediaGuard by HUMAN into the exchange to remove nonhuman and fraud traffic. In addition, GumGum is integrated with NewsGuard who deploy real journalists to fact-check news publications to ensure content accuracy, reliability, and access to high-performing inventory. With a focus on inclusivity, the exchange will also allow advertisers to maximise their KPIs by targeting audiences through customised segments such as multicultural and sustainability with standard and nonstandard ad formats.
GumGum will continue to develop partnerships to grow the scale of the exchange in 2023 and beyond. With a new team dedicated to the innovation and growth of the exchange, GumGum continues to commit to evolving the marketplace to suit the needs of the digital advertising industry.
GumGum’s exchange is available now and accessible to agencies, advertisers and publishers across the globe interested in brand-safe and premium ad inventory.
AboutGumGum
GumGum is a contextual-first global digital advertising platform that captures people’s attention, without the use of personal data. We believe that a digital advertising ecosystem based on understanding a consumer’s active frame of mind rather than behaviour builds a more equitable and safer future for consumers, publishers and advertisers alike. Founded in 2008, GumGum is headquartered in Santa Monica, California and operates in 19 markets worldwide.
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