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IBM Watson Cloud Computing Marketing

Soon-to-rebrand IBM Watson Marketing to ‘disrupt’ marketing cloud rivals as an indie

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By John McCarthy, Opinion Editor

July 1, 2019 | 3 min read

IBM Watson Marketing, freshly purchased from IBM by Centerbridge Partners, is poised to chase the customerbase of Salesforce, Adobe and Oracle under the leadership of Mark Simpson, a former IBM exec.

IBM Marketing Cloud

IBM Marketing Cloud to rename and rebrand

Following the sale earlier this year for an undisclosed sum, the newly independent marketing cloud platform is looking to attract customers to its suite of AI-powered solutions ahead of a rebrand and rename later this month.

Chief executive Mark Simpson on the new independent market entrant, said: “The marketing cloud industry is ripe for disruption, and we are in a unique position to better support customers through the power of scaled resources and a start-up mindset.

“Marketers and advertisers are eager to break away from general purpose technology that is not adaptable to their needs. Our open platform and purpose-built solutions have helped marketers make sense of their data by getting deeper insights from technology since the earliest days of AI and using data to drive actionable insights across silos. As an independent company with Centerbridge’s partnership and investment commitment, we will further ignite innovation and enhance our ability to help our customers find new ways to resonate with their stakeholders.”

IBM Watson Marketing claims to be the largest independent marketing cloud in the world. Furthermore, its pitch states that this independent structure and renewed investment will help it accelerate innovation and product roadmaps "with more focus on the marketer".

In a blog post, Simpson said: “Marketers and advertisers are burdened with mediocre technology and disappointed that most of the promises martech and adtech companies make aren’t kept.”

Tara Thurston, chief financial officer, Brent Whitaker, senior vice president of customer support and services, Matt Marriott of sales, Jay Henderson, senior vice president of product management and Doug Geiger, senior vice president of engineering will continue in their current roles.

Additionally, Centerbridge has established a board of directors to run the company from New York. It is a private investment management firm that manages around $28bn in capital.

IBM Marketing Cloud has more than 1,000 members of staff.

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