Distribution, meet creation.
That, in a nutshell, is the rationale behind the news today that Toronto-based content marketing platform ScribbleLive has purchased Visually, a content creation platform that is based in San Francisco. Deal terms were not made public.
ScribbleLive had required that its customers upload existing content, which they obtained elsewhere, and content created on Visually was shown on its platform by the creators but distributed by the clients themselves.
The companies said the new entity combines ScribbleLive’s planning, distribution and analytics with Visually’s network of creative professionals. Both companies will keep their current offices, and Vince Mifsud will remain CEO. Visually CEO Matt Cooper will head up both platforms, and Visually VP of Marketing Ural Cebeci will assume that role for the enlarged firm.
The Visually brand will remain for the time being, as will its standalone platform, but eventually both the brand and the platform will be integrated into ScribbleLive. The companies said “the majority” of Visually employees will join ScribbleLive. Visually’s US presence complements ScribbleLive’s in Canada, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
Mifsud told me via email that “there are lots of narrow products in the marketplace, but increasingly, marketers are becoming skeptical of the costs versus benefits of having a myriad of point solutions.”
The new ScribbleLive, he said, now offers “an all-in-one content marketing platform that combines data science with content workflow which includes planning, creation, distribution and measurement technologies to deliver an easy-to-use solution that significantly increases leads and customer engagement.”
ScribbleLive says its platform is built on patented algorithms that were developed over a decade at Cornell University. It employs data analytics to pinpoint the most effective topics, and then to measure the impact.
The announcement, interestingly, took a swipe at the increasingly popular native ads, which one would think offer a booming opportunity for content marketers.
“Native ads, while popular,” the statement said, “consist mostly of high fructose ‘clickbait’ content, which does not create engagement that drives results.”
Together, the two companies now claim more than 2,000 brand customers, and Visually says about 1,100 creatives are available for projects through its network to create videos, infographics, e-books, presentations and web interactives.
Visually’s clients include Visa, Salesforce, The Huffington Post, Cisco, Dun & Bradstreet and The Guardian, while ScribbleLive has Oracle, RedBull, Bank of America, EMC and Shell.
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