Merkle Wins at Greater Good Awards

Merkle, dentsu’s leading technology-enabled, data-driven customer experience management company, has triumphed in the Greater Good Awards for its work with human trafficking prevention charity, Stop The Traffik, to help combat the rapidly growing global social issue.

Presented by Digiday, Glossy, Modern Retail and WorkLife – the Greater Good Awards recognises companies and organisations who are helping to solve critical challenges within society, adding a sense of purpose and unity to communities struggling across the world.

Merkle won the ‘Anti-Violence’ category for their pioneering advanced analytics Human Trafficking Scenario Tool which enables Stop The Traffik to identify potential victims of human trafficking through a user-friendly dashboard, with no need for technical training.

Combining data collected by Stop The Traffik, from approximately 60,000 global human traffic stories, with intelligence data and Merkle’s advanced analytics skills, the scenario-based tool predicts the most likely outcome based on characteristics of potential victims, using the power of machine learning algorithms.

This means the team at Stop The Traffik can act fast by knowing who may be potential victims and witnesses, the most likely destination country, the trafficking type, and methods of recruitment and control. In a situation where every hour counts, being able to take direct action to reach out to potential victims through hyper-personalised targeting on social media can make all the difference in preventing incidents from occurring.

Sandro Matos, Merkle’s lead, says, “Our pro-bono partnership with Stop The Traffik is something the Merkle team is very passionate about and it’s a huge pleasure that we can dedicate our time using our skills to help such a great charity and cause. We look forward to our continued work with the team and developing enhanced technological solutions to combat this global social challenge”.  

Tina Salvage, Stop the Traffik’s head of data and technology, adds, “Being able to identify where potential victims of Human Trafficking are is a game-changer in our fight to disrupt human trafficking. Every hour counts, and by being able to take direct action to reach out to potential victims can make all the difference. The work with Merkle has been invaluable to us as a charity.”