MDC Partners Enters Into Strategic Partnership with Ditto Labs

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Jun 15, 2015, 02:00 ET

Relationship Part of MDC Dream Ventures' Continued Investments in Early-Stage Technology Companies

NEW YORK, June 15, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- MDC Partners Inc. (NASDAQ: MDCA; TSX: MDZ.A) announced today that it has made a strategic investment in Ditto Labs, an image recognition technology company based in Boston, MA. Ditto Labs is the leading provider of photo analytics for brands via its proprietary computer vision technology, which allows identification of the brands that appear in the daily torrent of photos shared across public social media.

The new investment is being made through MDC Dream Ventures, as part of MDC Partners' strategy of bringing innovative technologies to its partners and clients by investing in early-stage companies, particularly in the areas of advertising technology, big data, and content marketing.

"Our investment in Ditto Labs follows our mission to provide MDC's clients with the unique, cutting-edge solutions that will continue to drive their business," said Michael Bassik, Managing Director, President, Global Digital Operations of MDC Partners. "A natural fit with MDC's technology-forward approach, our partnership gives our partners and clients the ability to uncover, in real-time, new insights, trends and engagement opportunities in what is increasingly becoming an image-centric marketplace."

Ditto's logo-detection technology complements existing text analytics tools, enabling marketers and brands for the first time to detect, measure and engage with relevant images posted on social platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr. Through the context of image-centric conversations, Ditto helps marketers better understand consumers' brand affinities, usage occasions, and sentiment, to more effectively engage with current consumers and to attract new ones. In May, Ditto was awarded PWC's Promise Award, which recognizes "start-up companies whose innovative technology solutions show promise to make a significant business impact."

"With 1.8 billion images shared every day on social platforms, images have continued to dominate social media over the past several years, yet until now, social listening tools have only analyzed text-based posts, rendering images without brand-relevant text as a data blind spot for marketers," said David Rose, Co-Founder and CEO of Ditto Labs. "Brands without photo analytics can't fully understand their audience, engage with prospects, or measure the success of their campaigns. We're thrilled to partner with MDC Partners to help marketers and media buyers better understand and make the most of the visual web."

About MDC Partners Inc.

MDC Partners is one of the world's largest Business Transformation Organizations that utilizes technology, marketing communications, data analytics, insights and strategic consulting solutions to drive meaningful returns on Marketing and Communications Investments for multinational clients in the United States, Canada, and worldwide.

MDC Partners' durable competitive advantage is to 'Empower the Most Talented Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders to Drive Business Success to new levels of Achievement, for both our Clients and our Shareholders, reinforcing MDC Partners' reputation as "The Place Where Great Talent Lives."'

MDC Partners' Class A shares are publicly traded on NASDAQ under the symbol "MDCA" and on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "MDZ.A".

Please visit us: www.mdc-partners.com
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About Ditto Labs

Social media is increasingly visual with 1.8 Billion photos shared daily. But 85% of the photos Ditto finds that contain a brand don't reference that brand in accompanying text and less 2% of those posting currently follow the brand.

Innovative marketers leverage proprietary computer vision and machine learning from industry pioneer Ditto Labs to complement text listening for customer insights and engagement. Visit Ditto.us.com to learn more and request a demo for your brand.