Bank exec honored for rural advocacy
The Arkansas Economic Development Commission on Thursday named Rex Nelson the Rural Advocate of the Year. Nelson is director of corporate community relations for Simmons Bank.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson presented Nelson with the award at the annual Rural Development Conference in Rogers.
"Rex Nelson could not be more deserving of this award," Hutchinson said in a statement. "I cannot imagine anyone who advocates more for rural Arkansas than Rex does. His passion for this state knows no boundaries. He has a heart for public service and has always gone the extra mile to advocate for rural development from the Delta to the Ozarks."
Nelson has received awards from the Historic Preservation Alliance of Arkansas, the Arkansas Municipal League and the Arkansas chapter of the National Football Foundation and the College Hall of Fame.
Nelson writes a weekly column for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
-- Stephanie Lamm
Acxiom unit to work with Google division
LiveRamp, a San Francisco-based marketing services company bought by Acxiom in 2014, is entering a partnership with Google Customer Match.
Through Customer Match, advertisers can use a list of customers' email addresses to conduct custom campaigns using Google's search feature, Gmail or YouTube.
Acxiom collects consumer information from public records, shopping habits and clients to help its customers develop targeted marketing campaigns. LiveRamp helps Acxiom collect offline data for marketing applications.
The email lists used by Google Customer Match must be first-party data -- information given freely by the customer -- and lists must contain at least 1,000 email addresses.
Consumer Match lists may be broad or specific, allowing advertisers the option to target certain consumer bases.
LiveRamp also has partnerships with Google Analytics 360 Suite, Google DoubleClick Digital Marketing Solutions and Google Store Transactions for AdWords and DoubleClick Search.
-- Stephanie Lamm
Index slides 0.16 in subdued trading
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, fell 0.16 to 320.12 Thursday.
"U.S. stocks were mixed during a quiet trading session on Thursday as the markets await Janet Yellen's speech tomorrow afternoon," said John Blackwell, managing director of equity trading at Stephens Inc. "The Arkansas Index moved lower as 11 stocks declined and 7 stocks advanced."
Total volume for the index was 18.8 million shares.
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.
Business on 05/27/2016