Vox

• "We are thrilled to introduce the Vox brand and the first ever crushable style pre-roll to the Canadian market with Vox Popz" said Warren Matzelle, Chief Marketing and Product Officer.
• "The launch of Vox Popz showcases the consumer-focused new, unique, and innovative pipeline Decibel has built and continues to execute against.
• Vox Popz crushable pre-rolls are just the beginning, and we have an exciting lineup of innovative products planned under the Vox brand."
• The initial launch of the Vox Popz line will come in four flavours:
  The Vox brand promises to provide a range of ready-to-consume products, empowering consumers to customize their cannabis experiences to their individual preferences.

• The U.S. Department of Justice filed a similar civil antitrust suit against Google on Jan. 24, 2023.
• The online ad ecosystem is largely built around “programmatic advertising,” a system for placing advertisements from millions of advertisers on millions of websites.
• The system uses computers to automate bidding by advertisers on available ad spaces, often with transactions occurring faster than would be possible manually.

Programmatic advertising, explained

• Rather than each website and advertiser pairing up to run ads together, advertisers work with demand-side platforms – tech companies that let advertisers buy ads.
• Websites work with supply-side platforms – tech companies that pay sites to put ads on their page.
• These companies handle the details of figuring out which websites and users should be matched with specific ads.
• And it allows websites to solicit ads from countless potential advertisers without needing to contact or reach an agreement with any of them.

Screening out bad ads

• This means that online advertising companies have a big responsibility to prevent harmful ads from reaching users, but they sometimes fall short.
• There are some checks against bad ads at multiple levels.
• Ad networks, supply-side platforms and demand-side platforms typically have content policies restricting harmful ads.
• For example, a site could block a particular advertiser that has been running scammy ads on their page, or specific ad networks that have been serving low-quality ads.
• Despite this deception, ads like these may not have violated Google’s content policies for political content, data collection or misrepresentation, or were simply missed in the review process.

Bad ads by design

• Lastly, some examples of “bad” ads are intentionally designed to be misleading and deceptive, by both the website and ad network.
• Studies have shown that this is likely because users have difficulty telling the difference between native ads and the website’s content.
• You may have seen native ads on many news and media websites, including on major sites like CNN, USA Today and Vox.

• QI is the only artificial intelligence (AI)-powered content creation solution that offers an end-to-end personalized content marketing platform using generative AI and natural language processing (NLP) algorithms.
• Revolutionizing AI-powered content creation, QI enables marketers to produce personalized, high-quality content quickly and easily at scale.
• QI’s end-to-end personalized content marketing platform powered by NLP and generative AI understands the context of social conversations and produces personalized content that produces 4x more customer engagement without needing a subject matter expert.
• “NEC X's Venture Studio Program has been an incredible journey for QI and Vox QI.

• Code Advisors co-founders Quincy Smith and Michael Marquez will join Raine’s San Francisco office as a Partner and Special Advisor, respectively.
• “Code Advisors shares that commitment, so we’re thrilled to combine our networks and tap into the incredible energy, expertise and creativity Quincy brings to deal-making.
• I can’t imagine a more complementary partnership as Raine continues to expand its investing and advisory business across the globe.”
  Since its founding in 2009, The Raine Group has emerged as a leader in technology, media and telecom deal-making.
• Marquez will focus on managing Code’s existing investment portfolio while exploring potential new investment initiatives with The Raine Group.