Vitaly Kotvinsky: Employee Spotlight

Tell us a bit about yourself?

I was born in Eastern Ukraine, in a town called Stakhanov, but when moved with my family to Makiyivka, most famous as a coal mining and metallurgical centre. Before entering on a career in engineering, I attended the Univerity of Donetsk, where I studied Applied Mathematics.

Why did you decide to join LoopMe?

Having worked for several software companies including Ciklum, a digital solutions Fortune 500 company with expertise in IoT, Chatbot Development and Big Data & Analytics, I wanted to use the skills I’ve acquired in an emerging and innovative industry.

When I first met with the senior management team I was extremely impressed with how their vision and I wanted to be a part of it.

What’s your job role and day to day responsibilities?

LoopMe has a team of extremely talented and enthusiastic developers. My role as VP of Engineering is to guide them so they’re working on the right projects and with the right priorities. I make sure that our products are in line with business needs, that the capacity of our servers is scalable and so we’re constantly innovating and working with new technology.

What’s been the best moment at LoopMe?

To highlight a single moment is really hard, If I had to choose one in recent memory it’s definitely when we closed out the latest investment round.

Tell us a fun fact about yourself.

When I was working as a game developer most of my relatives thought all I did was play games. They still hope that I’ll stop playing with computers and find a “real” job one day.

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We’re hiring! Check out our open roles and apply here.

Closing The Loop Report Released

Today LoopMe launches our report Closing the Loop, an analysis of our PurchaseLoop campaigns which have run in H1 2018. Since its launch in 2016, PurchaseLoop has helped the world’s biggest brands including Microsoft, Audi and Norwegian Air close the loop on brand advertising.

The report gives an in-depth analysis of average uplift by vertical, format and brand KPI’s, as well as detailed case studies from a range of brands. There are also top tips on how to get the most from your PurchaseLoop campaign to ensure maximum uplift.

This year PurchaseLoop has been awarded Best Video Marketing Platform at the Digiday Video awards, Bronze for Best Commercial Use of Data at the British Media Awards and was shortlisted for ‘Best Video Marketing & Advertising’ platform at the Digiday Technology Awards.

Download to learn more.

LoopMe place at no.42 in The Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100

We’re delighted to announce that LoopMe has been placed at #42 in the Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100.

This is the second time we’ve placed in the Tech Track.  Now in its 18th year, The Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100 league table ranks Britain’s private technology, media and telecoms (TMT) companies with the fastest-growing sales. Previous alumni include currency transfer provider TransferWise, employee engagement service Perkbox and Wonderbly who create personalised children books.

Steve McGerr, Head of Direct Commercial at Hiscox Insurance UK, commented: “Tech businesses in Britain are thriving thanks to the fearlessness and determination of those that run them. We have great admiration for the talented entrepreneurs that make up the companies on this year’s Tech Track 100”.

LoopMe’s tech offers brands solutions that close the loop on their advertising. This year we launched PurchaseLoop Sales Optimization and Audience Intelligence to expand our PurchaseLoop offering, solutions which have been rapidly adopted by the market.

Stephen Upstone, LoopMe CEO and Co-Founder commented, “Our product and data science teams have worked hard to provide new solutions for brands and make their advertising attributable, and I’m thrilled to see LoopMe place in the Tech Track 100 alongside Britain’s leading companies.”

Click here to view the full list of the Tech Track 100. Join in the conversation online with #TechTrack100.

If you want to find out how our products can fuel your marketing activations contact your local sales rep or email marketing@loopme.com

LoopMe list at #43 in the Deloitte Fast 50

We were thrilled to attend the Deloitte Fast 50 last night and place at no.43!

The UK Fast 50 is now in its 21st year and acknowledges the 50 fastest-growing technology companies in the UK, based on revenue growth over the last four years. LoopMe’s CTO and Co-Founder, Marco van de Berg and Finance Director, Andrew Small attended to collect the award and meet with other shortlisted companies.

The award follows news that LoopMe has secured a further $17 million investment which will be used to continue the platform’s growth in the US, as well as increasing our existing presence in APAC. Read more about our plans in The Telegraph.

We are extremely proud to receive this accolade and look forward to exciting new developments in 2019!

3 brands with ‘Killer’ Halloween ad campaigns

Halloween is a great way for brands to communicate their message and activations due to its mass appeal, and we know that video is an effective way to communicate this.

To get you in the spooky spirit we’ve identified 3 brands with ‘killer’ advertising campaigns and to get you inspired!

We kick things off by taking a look at this eery ad by Booking.com named ‘Haunted Hotel’. This piece of creative, produced by Wieden + Kennedy follows a woman who is woken by a mysterious noise until the ‘known thing’ enters her room.

 

Next up is Burger Kings well thought out smear ad which trolls their biggest competitor McDonalds and the infamous Ronald McDonald. The ‘Come as a Clown, Eat like a King’ promotes the offer of free Whoppers to the first 500 people who come in store dressed as clowns.

Insurance is usually a topic which can be difficult to make engaging. We think RPA and Farmers Insurance did a great job of using Halloween to grab their audience’s attention.

powering your campaigns with AI and optimizing to brand outcomes, contact marketing@loopme.com or your local sales representative.

 

 

 

5 Things to Know When Crafting Your 2019 Super Bowl Marketing Plan

With the start of football season, there’s one thing in mindThe Super Bowl. Last year 103.4 million people watched the game, and 2 million streamed from the NBC app300,000 more than in 2017. Fans are using their phones now more than ever, which is why targeting them on mobile is key.






Now is the time to gear up those efforts to target fans come game time. Reach your audience and close the loop on your advertising efforts with PurchaseLoop.

Sources: 1: Statista | 2: USA Today  | 3: eMarketer | Forbes

 

Ada Lovelace Day

Today marks Ada Lovelace Day, an international celebration of the achievements of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM).

Ada Lovelace Day (ALD) was founded in 2009 by Suw Charman-Anderson and aims to create new role models to encourage more girls into STEM careers and support those women already working in STEM.

Ada was an English mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage’s proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. She recognised that the machine had applications beyond pure calculation, and created the first algorithms intended to be carried out by such a machine. As a result, she is often regarded as the first to recognise the full potential of a ‘’computing machine’’ and the first computer programmer.

Today we’d like to spotlight some of our female Data Scientists here at LoopMe. Find out about Yarsoslava and Maryna’s roles, responsibilities and why they pursued a career in STEM.

Meet LoopMe’s Data Scientists: Yaroslava Chernopishchenko from LoopMe on Vimeo.

 

Meet LoopMe’s Data Scientists: Irina Evdokimova from LoopMe on Vimeo.

LoopMe Listens – Joseph Olewitz

We are excited to introduce our new blog interview series, LoopMe Listens, where we’ll be interviewing leading professionals in ad tech on relevant topics in the industry. Kicking off our series, we spoke with Joseph Olewitz, founder and CEO of Virtual Chief Revenue Officer, which provides revenue growth support to businesses of all sizes.

We were lucky enough for Joseph to break down the buzzword that is blockchain and it’s counterpart, cryptocurrency. In this blog Joseph will be covering misconceptions of blockchain, how it’s useful for marketers and advertisers, and what’s in store for this technology in 2019.

If you had to describe blockchain in 3 sentences in less, how would you describe it?
A blockchain is a permanent, encrypted record of information and transactions, distributed among a large number of diverse devices which approve and maintain the record by consensus.

Blockchain’s efficiency provides for cost and time savings in a trustable environment that will lead to transformative new ways of doing business and of handling critically important and sensitive aspects of our personal lives.
The technology is useful for storage and transfer of assets and information, it is different from existing systems because it uses algorithms and design to deal with trust instead of relying on external trusted third parties, plus the opportunities provided by the technology, including operational efficiencies and allowing access to underserved parties, are revolutionary.

What is cryptocurrency?
Cryptocurrency is a payment system based on complex mathematical formulas and puzzles designed to hide the solution from anyone who doesn’t have a unique key (cryptography). It works as a medium of exchange in lieu of commonly familiar checks, coins, paper currency and wire transfers.

In 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto, a still unidentified person or persons created the idea of cryptocurrency – a peer-to-peer digital cash system (no paper, no coins) that does not rely on the backing of a central entity like a government and a bank for transaction processing, and he designed it to be built on a blockchain.

Satoshi’s work was published in a relatively easy to digest nine-page white paper. As a result, Bitcoin became the first widely used application of blockchain technology in much the same way that email became the first widely used application of the internet.

How is blockchain useful for marketers and advertisers?
Blockchain will remove the middleman and give marketers direct access to consumers. This decentralization is a transformative event in promotion and advertising.

The ability to accurately track and report viewership, especially of video content, will greatly enhance understanding the ROI received from ad dollars spent. That same ability will empower agencies and application providers to prove ROI they are delivering to marketers, and to prove the targeted market is being reached, thus justifying campaign plans and subsequent results.
Fraud will be massively minimized and, in some cases, totally eradicated. Imagine completely stopping bots and other bad actors who misrepresent viewership in order to derail and redirect ad dollars.

Marketers will be able to build trust with consumers and be able to more accurately target the desired demographic without negative reactions. That will happen by requesting permission and sometimes by making payments directly to consumers for watching promotions (no middleman needed).

The blockchain will allow returning privacy and control of their personal data to consumers who will then be able to determine who gets to see which data about them and for how long. As a result, marketers may generate fewer leads and impressions. However, the ones they do generate will be stronger and of much higher quality.

What are the common misconceptions of blockchain?

  • Blockchain is a panacea to solve all problems – it’s not.
  • You need to understand blockchain to use it – I ask: do you understand how the internet works?
  • Blockchain and Bitcoin are the same thing. Nope. Blockchain is a distributed ledger providing security, privacy and transaction verification. Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency built on top of a blockchain that facilitates secure payment between two parties without an intermediary.
  • Blockchain is ready for primetime now – it’s not! It’s all happening at a dizzying pace but we’re still in the infancy of a new technology, similar to the internet in the 60s and 70s before the world wide web arrived in the 90s.
  • In the future one will need a blockchain to make simple payments to children in college or to a friend for the beer he bought at the bar last night. Not so. There will always be non-blockchain methods for direct payment between two parties when that is appropriate, maybe including fiat currency, IOUs, barter, and much more.

What are you most excited about in 2019 when it comes to this technology?
Disruptive technologies are developing and improving at a much more rapid pace than ever before. I believe that in 2019 we will see blockchain experience a significant leap forward in these arenas:

  • An increase in deployment of Enterprise applications of blockchain.
  • Costs related to blockchain will come down while transaction speed increases.
  • Business and personal life improvements created from the marriage of blockchain and Artificial Intelligence.
  • A reduction in hype and get-rich-quick schemes arising from the broad increase of knowledge and awareness around these new technologies.
  • A broad understanding of the value derived from separating blockchain and AI from cryptocurrency and fintech applications. Those currency and financial applications are extremely valuable and while blockchain is the foundation technology under almost all cryptocurrency applications, blockchain is also hard enough to understand as it is, and we get distracted from the potential business uses when we equate the two.
  • Beginning the establishment of standards that will work across platforms and across industries. Right now, because many blockchain actors are working independently and without standards the technology will not be able to scale.
  • Broad resolution of securities laws and development of practical considerations around ICOs and Token offerings (including liquidity, exchange, taxation, and much more.)
  • Someone developing the blockchain equivalent of the world wide web which in the mid-90s gave developers and consumers a path to easily develop for and use the internet. That development and consumer access allowed an explosion of uses and users of the technology. We need a similar “on-ramp” to demystify blockchain.

3 things to expect at IAB’s Nonference

This November sees IAB UK host its inaugural Nonference event, and LoopMe are proud to be part of it!

Join LoopMe for our session ‘An Englishman, Irishman & Scotsman walk into a bar (And nobody finds it funny)’ where we’ll be exploring unconscious bias in media and marketing and how to tackle it.

Here are other 3 things we think you should expect at IAB’s Nonference.

Turn your out of office on

It’s a whole day event, so make sure you take advantage of it. You’re encouraged to build your own agenda for a day of hands-on learning, whether its designing quizzes with BuzzFeed or how to become the next YouTube sensation.

On your feet

As you can probably tell by the name, Nonference isn’t your typical conference. Instead of the tried and tested structure of speakers taking the lead with PowerPoints, Nonference wants you to get off your seat and participate.

It’s all about collaboration, participation and conversation, with sessions hosted by the industry’s most innovative companies.

Inclusivity

Nonference is for everyone in the industry, whether you’re a grad at an Agency right up to the C-Suite. Expect to see hundreds of people at the Tobacco Docks

Click here to see a full list of sessions, and with more to be announced, sign up today to secure your spot!

 

 

LoopMe shortlist at The Drum’s Digital Trading Awards APAC with Marina Bay Sands

We’re proud to announce that LoopMe are finalists at The Drum’s Digital Trading Awards APAC for Best Mobile Campaign for our work with Marina Bay Sands.

Using a combination of mobile creative and Artificial Intelligence, LoopMe drove a market-first campaign for The Shoppes, which optimized both its Watch & Jewellery campaign and brand KPI, which drove consideration by 11.3%.

The Drum’s Digital Trading Awards celebrates the best work in the industry, judged by industry leaders including Josephine Tan, Global Media Director, McDonald’s, Phil Wade, CMO, Jetstar Airways and GroupM’s Chief Digital Officer, Regan Baillie.

The Campaign

Marina Bay Sands is Singapore’s most iconic building, with the world’s largest rooftop Infinity pool, award-winning dining and a wide range of shopping and entertainment options. The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands looked to increase awareness and consideration of the exclusive range of watch and jewellery offerings at The Shoppes. In the build-up to the Christmas period to promote this, Marina Bay Sands offered shoppers a SGD 150 shopping voucher with every SGD3000 spend.

The Shoppes had two main objectives – to achieve a high Click-Through-Rate (CTR) and brand consideration.

A combination of pre-roll, embedded video and rich media. Video helped drive branding and was used to engage consumers. Those who had engaged with the video or watched to completion were retargeted with further mobile rich media, encouraging them to click through to the campaign landing page. This ensured a high and consistent CTR.

To meet Marina Bay Sands Brand goal of consideration, LoopMe’s award-winning product, PurchaseLoop was deployed. PurchaseLoop’s artificial intelligence learns from consumer feedback to optimize mobile advertising in real time. Through effective creative and PurchaseLoop optimization, consideration increased by 11.3%.

To learn more about PurchaseLoop, check out our video here.

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View the rest of the shortlisted campaigns here. Winners will be announced at the ceremony on October 12th.