Acquisitions, releases help brands gear up for holiday rush

First, the digital ad unit of Cisneros Group, RedMas, is set to acquire online ad hub Kontextua, a leading ad network in Spain and Latin America. The move should strengthen the RedMas and Cisneros digital presence in the markets.

"Latin America's $2.5 billion digital advertising market is growing at an accelerated rate of 15 to 20 percent annually. With Internet penetration at only 35% in the region, this market holds vast potential for RedMas," said Cisneros Group's Chief Digital Officer Victor Kong. "The acquisition will not only contribute revenue to the Cisneros Group's other sites. . .but it will also complement its new business strategy of focusing on digital advertising, e-commerce, and social gaming."

As part of the acquisition, the company will invest $2 million in Kontextua to help expand the reach of the platform. Kontextua has a network of more than 12,000 sites, reaching 60 million unique users each month.

And Tagwhat has launched a toolset to tag physical locations to digital content. Using the platform brands could deliver content to a mobile consumer's, for example, when they enter a neighborhood where the store is located.

Dave Elchoness, founder and CEO of Tagwhat said, "Rather than typing in a search engine query and hoping for the best, location-aware mobile devices now enable a new way to search for and discover Web content based on the context of a user's location and their interests. By making it incredibly easy to geotag Web content, Tagwhat is helping to turn the Web into a massive tour guide with relevant content about the places around you."

Tags can be assigned to written, video and image content across channels including Sports, Food and Art.

Finally, from Monsoon and Ikano, a loyalty app for the fashion inclined. The app is set up to help shoppers find the nearest Monsoon store; existing reward members can turn their mobile device into a reward card.

"As well as being convenient for customers by allowing them to manage their Reward Card on the move, the app will allow them instance access to their Reward Card balance and transactions as well as our latest exclusive offers," said Joe Irons, E-commerce & Multichannel Marketing Director at Monsoon Accessorize. "It means that they will now never be without their Reward Card, as their smartphones will now be their loyalty tokens."

Tags: ad tools, Cisneros, Monsoon, online advertising, Tagwhat