Facebook-owned Instagram did just announce they would remove “inauthentic” likes, follows and comments from accounts that use third party apps to create them. But those were always in violation of Facebook rules, so this just reminds us that Facebook should have blocked them from the start. If you think no one was harmed, bear in mind that advertisers base spending decisions on those measures.
“Slow news day” doesn’t do justice to how slim the news pickings are right now, Dear Reader. We’re reduced to leading off with “sign of the times” news that WPP is merging its fabled Wunderman and J. Walter Thompson agencies into uncreatively-named Wunderman Thompson, which will be “distinctively positioned” as a provider of “end-to-end solutions – through creative, data, commerce, consulting and technology services – at a global scale.” Such combinations have been an industry trend for years. Healthy, yes. Distinctive, not so much.
A significant minority of shoppers care less about deals than the corporate values of their merchants. Publicity agency MWWPR christened this group “CorpSumers” last year and estimates they are 35% of the U.S. population. A recent survey found that 75% of the group say they’ll select holiday gifts based on whether they feel the brand or retailer has values similar to their own. You could also argue this means that three-quarters of shoppers don’t care about corporate values. For an extended discussion, see this blog post at Customer Experience Matrix.
Enterprise AI vendor Uniphore has acquired CDP ActionIQ and cloud data engineering system Infoworks. The combination of products will create a Zero Data AI Cloud that simplifies AI deployments by enabling companies to access data for AI projects without moving it from existing systems. Prices were not announced.