IAR Bits and Bytes

Digitas Shows Off Marketing Automation Product with Intel, SAS

Boston-based interactive shop Digitas , in partnership with Intel Corp. and business software giant SAS, is introducing a new marketing automation product.

In much the same way that firms like Poindexter Systems and CentrPort optimize online ad campaigns to increase marketing effectiveness, Digitas intends its new Multi-Channel Marketing Automation Solution to tweak online and offline advertising and marketing, boosting efficiency. Such solutions analyze and automate ad campaigns to prioritize target audiences and improve return on investment.

At the same time, Digitas also announced a laboratory designed to showcase the power of marketing automation applications. Funded by Intel and located in Digitas’ San Francisco office, the Multi-Channel Marketing Automation Lab will enable companies to test marketing automation solutions before implementing the supporting platform, Digitas said.

“Our focus is marketing results,” said Digitas Chief Technology Officer Bob Tekiela. “The Lab will help our clients achieve quick wins in Marketing Automation while building to scale over time. Our clients will get the tools they need to create personalized, customer-focused, on-demand campaigns, with Digitas providing the marketing and technology expertise and campaign design to help them make the most of their marketing investments.”

ICONOCAST Takes Summer Off

Irreverent online advertising industry newsletter ICONOCAST will be ceasing publication during the summer, mostly.

ICONOCAST’s CEO and publisher, Michael Tchong, made the announcement Thursday.

“ICONOCAST is following Sheryl Crow’s suggestion that we “Soak Up The Sun,” so we’re going to do just that,” he wrote in the newsletter. “We will publish occasionally, as the news merits.”

Tchong, the founding brains behind not only ICONOCAST, but “Take Back the Net Day,” MacWeek magazine and Cyberatlas — the latter of which is now owned by INT Media Group , the publisher of internetnews.com — wrote that the newsletter would return in the fall.

More recently, Tchong has lent his name to several side projects including Prosumer Media’s Dig-iT venture.

Name Changes at Sony-Dentsu unit, Razorfish Japanese JV

Cosmetic tweaks are afoot at Japanese interactive agency Intervision and Intervision-Razorfish, the Tokyo-based joint venture with interactive consultancy Razorfish

As a result, Intervision — a joint venture of ad agency Dentsu and Sony Corp. will be known as Frontage. Intervision-Razorfish becomes Frontage-Razorfish, accordingly.

The name changes follows Dentsu’s February investment in Intervision, which had previously been a subsidiary of Sony. Dentsu owns about 40 percent of Intervision, while Razorfish owns 49 percent of Frontage-Razorfish.