News From Talkwalker, AppNexus, LANE, and Google UK
Talkwalker Raises Funding for AI Powered Internet Analytics for PR and Marketing
Talkwalker, a top social media analytics firm, is headquartered in Luxembourg and has another office in New York. They just secured funding from Dutch investor Main Mezzanine Capital to push forward with social media listening platform development to expand their team. Much of the funding will be focused on increasing their AI capabilities. The firm has experienced rapid growth over the last several years.
Their platform can look at visuals and text for analysis in nearly 190 languages, providing solutions regarding users and use cases as well as ensuring data integrity. Their clients benefit from KPI-driven analytics from all media channels in real-time. The platform is already used by some of the largest PR firms including Weber Shandwick, Publicis, Edelman, Peppercomm, and Ogilvy.
Breitbart Sets Record Straight About New York Times “Fake News” “Expert”
On January 8th The New York Times (NYT) published an op-ed asking advertisers to stop supporting Breitbart and citing a disinterested and authoritative “business” source as their reason for claiming Breitbart is guilty of “fake news” reports. The NYT is an interesting one to point the finger as it was only a month or so ago that they made a public apology effectively for “fake news.” Their source is the VP of corporate communications at AppNexus, Joshua Zeitz. Zeitz is as far from being disinterested and authoritative as one can imagine by all accounts.
In 2011, he was laid off after being strongly tied to a huge scandal at MF Global where the brokerage used approximately $1 billion of client funds to offset their corporate debts in 2009. The day after being laid off, he was employed by MWWPR, and then he later went to AppNexus. He also worked for former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine. Breitbart labels him a Democratic hack. Zeitz claims he has pushed for banning ads on Breitbart because of hate speech, but could not show any links to articles where Breitbart did anything of the kind.
LANE’s Food and Beverage Insights for 2017
LANE is a Finn Partners entity and has specialized in PR for the food and beverage industry for at least 25 years. They discover consumer preferences across the country and document trends – all related to food and drinks. Using consumer circles, media, and influencers, they build larger-than-life creative strategies for restaurants, events, and stores with social and traditional media.
Trends they see for 2017 include foods from Korea, Morocco, Central America, and India. They also mention “genuine” and “pure” foods, bold flavors, more veggies, bitter tastes, Peruvian-Chinese fusion, savory foods, and south of the border flavors. They recommend people try a number of different foods and restaurants, but here’s one that sounds fun: Steaz Cactus Water with cucumber and green tea to drink.
Google UK Looking for PR firm to Highlight their Products
Google UK may be saying goodbye to Portland, the PR firm currently dealing with their internal press office, since they recently put their PR business out to pitch. Their products include Gmail, their new smartphone — Pixel —YouTube, and others. Google says they are always talking with different agencies but had no other information to report on the matter.
That being said, Google has had several creds meeting with PR agencies already and pitches are expected to begin near the end of this month. Google’s 2015 revenues equaled nearly $75 billion. Their work with Ogilvy PR on projects does not seem to be affected by their current search.
