Marketing News Roundup: January 18, 2023

Today we feature a round-up of some big events and recent industry happenings.

• Hootsuite announces new CEO
• Earnscliffe acquires Switchboard Public Relations
• New Salesforce for Retail Innovations Help Personalize Every Shopping Moment
• HardBacon Launches Bacon Creative, a New Content Creation Agency Powered by AI
• There's a New Kid on the Block at Middle Child PR

Read more below!

Hootsuite announces new CEO

Hootsuite today announced that the company’s board of directors has appointed Irina Novoselsky as Chief Executive Officer. She will assume leadership of the company, and a position on the board effective immediately. Novoselsky succeeds Tom Keiser who has stepped down from his position as CEO.

“We thank Tom for his leadership and service as he navigated the company through the pandemic and created a strong foundation for Hootsuite’s continued growth,” said Julie Herendeen, Board Chair.

“As social media becomes more critical than ever to businesses, the board welcomes Irina Novoselsky as Hootsuite’s CEO,” said Herendeen. “Irina is a proven, results driven leader with deep experience leading high velocity, high scale businesses, delivering customer-focused innovation and building operationally excellent teams. Her experience together with her drive and passion for the business make Irina the ideal candidate to lead Hootsuite in their next chapter of profitable growth at scale.”

Irina was most recently the CEO at CareerBuilder where she successfully led the global HR technology company through significant transformation, expanding its audience, enhancing the product and user experience, and driving operational excellence to best meet customer needs.

“Hootsuite is the most trusted and recognized brand in social media management with nearly five times the customers of its nearest competitor — I’m honored to lead the company in its next growth chapter,” said Novoselsky. “Social media management is a largely untapped and growing $28 billion global market opportunity. I’m eager to partner with the talented team at Hootsuite to continue to delight our customers and deliver the products and services they need to successfully navigate the world of social.”

Earnscliffe acquires Switchboard Public Relations

Earnscliffe Strategies is proud to announce the acquisition of Switchboard Public Relations, a full-service agency based in Vancouver, Canada.

The acquisition combines the world-class experience, expertise and resources of Earnscliffe, a national leader in strategic communications, government relations and opinion research, with Switchboard’s trailblazing team of connectors, problem-solvers and storytellers. In doing so, it maximizes Earnscliffe’s impact on every stage of client development and growth, and represents an expansion of the firm’s strategic communications offerings across a variety of sectors and industries.

Switchboard’s custom-tailored solutions range from public, stakeholder and media relations to issues management and community intelligence outreach. Much of the agency’s success has been in supporting emerging, fast-scaling and publicly-traded clients in technology and innovation ecosystems spanning cleantech, life sciences/biotech, quantum computing, agtech, fintech, and SAAS (software-as-a-service solutions).

“The Switchboard team is known for first-class execution and a savvy understanding of the technology ecosystem. The addition of Switchboard enables Earnscliffe to strengthen our marketplace position, expand our solution offerings, and accelerate our growth,” said Earnscliffe CEO Craig Robinson.

Switchboard Founder Kathleen Reid and her team of experts will support expanded and integrated public relations services into the overall Earnscliffe approach. “Earnscliffe’s dual focus on client service and team support aligns with Switchboard’s core values and culture,” said Reid. “By joining forces, we are giving our clients access to enhanced national offerings and capabilities that will exceed their expectations and surpass their goals.”

New Salesforce for Retail Innovations Help Personalize Every Shopping Moment

Salesforce, the global leader in CRM, today announced a series of new innovations to help retailers grow and optimize advertising sales, gain a single view of transactions across digital and physical stores, and unlock value from their customer data.

New Salesforce data shows that a disconnected experience is the top frustration customers have with retailers. What’s more, 79% of consumers surveyed plan to reassess their retail spending over the next 12 months. However, 65% will remain loyal to companies that offer a more personalized experience.

“Consumers today expect every moment to be connected, personalized, and seamless, and to succeed now, retailers must deliver on those expectations,” said Jujhar Singh, EVP and GM of Salesforce Industries. “Salesforce for Retail brings together the power and flexibility of Salesforce’s platform with an expansive ecosystem so retailers can leverage real-time data to acquire new customers, deliver personalized experiences, generate advertising revenue, increase margins and drive efficiency.”

Salesforce for Retail Media helps retailers grow and optimize advertising revenue: Retailers navigating recent data privacy changes are looking for new ways to leverage shoppers’ first-party data. New Salesforce for Retail Media innovations help them activate that first-party data, giving them new audience insights, targeting abilities, and the resources to grow advertising revenues.

Commerce Cloud innovations and partnerships create seamless shopping experiences: Retailers need to find new ways to grow revenue and margins while driving efficiency and cutting costs. New Commerce Cloud innovations create frictionless experiences to accelerate time to value, streamline operations, and keep shoppers coming back to retailer’s digital stores.

To learn more about Salesforce for Retail, go here.

HardBacon Launches Bacon Creative, a New Content Creation Agency Powered by AI

Hardbacon, a personal finance app and site reaching more than 250,000 unique visitors per month, has launched a new creative content agency powered by artificial intelligence.

Bacon Creative, Hardbacon's new service agency, aims to provide content creation and keyword research services to businesses that want to increase their market share through search engine optimization (SEO).

The services offered by Bacon Creative are not unique. However, what is new is the use of artificial intelligence to reduce costs and improve quality. Bacon Creative is designed to help businesses grow by using the same recipe that made Hardbacon so successful - “publishing a large volume of relevant content," says Julien Brault, CEO of Hardbacon. “Using AI tools allows our teams to be more productive and creative, but it's human expertise that is the secret to our success."

The content created by Bacon Creative is first and foremost written by experienced writers. However, they use artificial intelligence tools to quickly add definitions of certain concepts, create tables that add context, find relevant headlines or produce original images to illustrate their point.

The launch of Bacon Creative is intended to diversify Hardbacon's offering, which already provides sponsored articles, webinars and lead generation services to its clients in the financial services industry. However, Hardbacon is not in the business of selling services that enable its clients to expand through their own acquisition channels. "The launch of Bacon Creative will allow us to offer complementary services to our existing clients that it would not have made sense to offer through Hardbacon," adds Julien Brault, CEO of Hardbacon.

In addition to its content creation and keyword research offerings, the new agency also offers training in SEO and the use of AI tools in a marketing context.

For more details, you can visit the new agency's website: https://baconcreative.ai

There's a New Kid on the Block at Middle Child PR

Effective today, vice president and member of the Middle Child executive leadership team, Sean Citrigno, will be taking on the role of agency leader as the newly appointed Managing Director of Middle Child.

This change follows the announcement that Amanda Shuchat, managing director at Middle Child, and Katie Muir, SVP and interim managing director, have both made the difficult decision to depart Middle Child, with their last day being today: Friday, January 13th.

At Middle Child, it is firmly believed that exemplary leadership is critical and sets the tone. So, when thinking of new leadership, it was essential the new leader embody the spirit, creativity and imagination that their award-winning clients and the industry have come to expect from the agency.

Sean has dedicatedly worked within Plus Company for the past 13 years. He began at sister agency, Citizen, and has more recently been an integral member of Middle Child’s executive leadership team for the past 3 years. His reputation for creative and imaginative client work precedes him, alongside his dedication to establishing close relationships and fostering a sense of community with his teams, clients and within the industry. He is excited to lead the agency into its new era, and to continue taking the PR world by storm with the industry-leading team at Middle Child. Outside of work, Sean is passionate about uplifting his LGBTQ+ community, spending time with his french bulldog, and traveling the world - seeing and tasting all that it has to offer.

Compiled by Emma Whiten, Former Editor of Marketing News Canada