Faculty and students working alongside company using AI to automate marketing platform, data collection and analysis

Oshawa, Ont. – Durham College’s (DC) Hub for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence for Business Solutions (the AI Hub) is pleased to announce it has partnered with marketing services & analytics company MobileXCo on a project focused on using AI and machine learning to help automate Tether™, its web-based experience marketing platform.

In a time when consumers are driven by experiences, brands are looking to engage them in interactive and memorable ways. However, it can be difficult to measure which parts of a company’s marketing initiatives are delivering true value. Enter MobileXCo and Tether™, which helps companies close the gap between their promotion-type marketing activities and understanding how they contribute to sales by linking campaign participation and activity to transactions at retail.

By taking a transaction-centric approach to consumer participation in contests and gift-with-purchase reward programs, MobileXCo directly links specific consumer activity to a purchase. In the process they collect valuable data related to the participants and their transactions and analyze it to surface valuable insights.

In partnership with Durham College, the objective is to automate as much of the receipt data extraction, organization and analysis as possible. The end result will be a more streamlined and less labour intensive solution that inherently delivers incremental value based on data.

“As a company going through a critical transformation in the way we do business, the impact of this project will be profound,” said Andy Bruce, CEO, MobileXCo. “We see our commitment to building a data-centric, AI-powered approach to shopper marketing as a strategic move to help propel MobileXCo into the future and the DC team is playing a key role in making that happen. Our initial excitement and optimism for the project has been validated and continues to strengthen as we move through the project phases. We’re feeling great about our investment in this partnership.”

Over the course of four phases, DC faculty and student-research assistants from the college’s Computer Programming Analyst and Data Analytics for Business Decision making Program are working directly with MobileXCo, providing them with an opportunity to not only learn about advanced AI technologies but also hands-on industry experience developing a real, functional solution for a client.

“Our partnership with MobileXCo is a perfect example of the value of the AI Hub,” said Joey Lees, principal investigator for the project. “Not only are we supporting a local business in integrating AI into their operations, we are also giving students a chance to take their learning from class and into the real world. The AI Hub is not about conducting research for research’s sake, it’s about providing resources, expertise and ultimately solutions for our clients.”

Work with MobileXCo is scheduled to be completed early in January 2019. The project is one of several research initiatives being undertaken by the AI Hub, which will be further enhancing its capacity following the approval of $2 million in funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), through the council’s College and Community Innovation Program.

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About Durham College

At Durham College (DC), the student experience comes first. With campuses in Oshawa and Whitby and a learning site in Pickering, the college offers more than 13,600 full-time post-secondary and apprenticeship students access to more than 140 full-time and eight apprenticeship programs in a number of different disciplines, enabling them to develop the skills required to meet the demands of today’s job market. The college has also launched its first four-year degree program, the Honours Bachelor of Health Care Technology Management, in September 2018.

The Oshawa campus features the state-of-the art Student Services building and the Centre for Collaborative Education, a legacy project tied to DC’s 50th anniversary in 2017. The newly-opened facility brings together local, Indigenous and global communities, providing a new home for several of the college’s most innovative and ground-breaking programs.

The Whitby campus features the award-winning W. Galen Weston Centre for Food, which includes Bistro ’67, a full-service, teaching-inspired restaurant, and Pantry, a retail store featuring food prepared by students in the college’s culinary programs.

For more information, visit www.durhamcollege.ca or call 905.721.2000.

About MobileXCo

MobileXCo is a marketing services and software company that specializes in providing B2C brand organizations with expertise and tools to run digital promotions that are designed to engage consumers, measure results and uncover valuable insights through data collection and analysis.

Tether™, MobileXCo’s Experience Marketing software product, is a web-based experience management and measurement application. It is available to marketers for the purpose of monitoring promotion results in real-time, building consumer databases, logging engagement activity, and managing consumer support tickets and communications via email and mobile message services (SMS & Facebook Messenger).

Utilizing the power of technology, MobileXCo takes the guesswork out of marketing.

Visit mobilexco.com for more information, or email us at hello@mobilexco.com

Media contacts:

Meghan Ney
Communications and Marketing
Durham College

meghan.ney@durhamcollege.ca

Katrina Wotten
Marketing & Project Manager
MobileXCo
katrina@mobilexco.com