Street Fight Happenings
Meet the SF Awards Judges: True Value, Vitamin Shoppe, Denny’s, Chamberlain Group & WPP | The Store
The circle is complete. We’ve rounded out the full panel of judges for Street Fight’s Innovator awards (Pro tip: today is the last day to apply).
Collectively, they represent:
15,350 business locations
150,986 employees
$25+ billion in annual revenues
But who are they? Here’s the rundown.
Letter From the Editor: Local is Everything
Last month, for example, we zeroed in on the theme of retail transformation.
This month, we extend that discussion with a focus on the connected car. As companies like Tesla continue to innovate the digital experiences in our cars, they’re becoming the ultimate “mobile device.” This will have implications for local media companies and brands that have a local presence.
Meanwhile, last week we closed the application period for the Innovator Awards. The next step is to work with our panel of judges to choose the winners. The awards will be a central part of Street Fight’s plan to continue being an authority on innovation and transformation in the location-based media and advertising worlds.
Theme of the Month: The Connected Car
6 Automotive Data Services Platforms
In order for consumer-facing companies and outside technology firms to take complete advantage of the data that’s being generated by automakers, the data coming from today’s connected vehicles needs to be aggregated and normalized.
Automotive data services platforms are stepping in with technology designed to take connected vehicles to the next level. By ingesting and cleansing data from connected cars, these platforms are helping minimize the development work that’s needed to launch a wide variety of third-party apps and services.
Here are six companies that are innovating in the space.
Waymo Releases Data Set to Catalyze Autonomous Driving Research
Why should local search specialists care about autonomous vehicles? The same way mobile, with its natural on-the-go use cases, has become the hub of “near me” searches that lead consumers into local businesses, cars will become the next mobile device, catalyzing the next wave of “near me” queries. Self-driving cars are not tangential to the future of local; they are central to it.
Immersive Tech’s Next Conquest: Your Car
The real opportunity in VR and connected cars, going back to our primary focus on local commerce, could be to utilize that captive in-car media time with local discovery tools. Ad-supported experiences could be geo-targeted based on where you are or where you’re going. Destination-based discovery tools could be baked in.
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6 Automotive Data Services Platforms
In order for consumer-facing companies and outside technology firms to take complete advantage of the data that’s being generated by automakers, the data coming from today’s connected vehicles needs to be aggregated and normalized.
Automotive data services platforms are stepping in with technology designed to take connected vehicles to the next level. By ingesting and cleansing data from connected cars, these platforms are helping minimize the development work that’s needed to launch a wide variety of third-party apps and services.
Here are six companies that are innovating in the space.
LBMA Vidcast: InMarket Acquires ThinkNear, Google Assistant Upgrade
On this week’s Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: InMarket acquires Thinknear, Google Assistant lets you send reminders to others, Kraken Rum’s dining experience in London, Wirecard launches app in North America, Nike buys Celect for data science, Infiniti teams up with JCDecaux in Russia.
Back-to-School Retailing Is Now All About Using Mobile Data to Help Your Customers
Back to School (BTS) is a $53 billion shopping season that’s entering its final stage as parents and college students take care of school supplies and clothing needs before Labor Day. And as we close out this decade and look to the 2020s, the combination of mobile technology, hyperlocal commerce, and consumer expectations make this a fascinating juncture in BTS history.
Fortunately, these complex market scenarios represent more of a golden opportunity than a paradox due to the promise of mobile. Here are two reasons why national and local brands should leverage data to bridge the online-offline gap and improve their BTS sales.
Waymo Releases Data Set to Catalyze Autonomous Driving Research
Why should local search specialists care about autonomous vehicles? The same way mobile, with its natural on-the-go use cases, has become the hub of “near me” searches that lead consumers into local businesses, cars will become the next mobile device, catalyzing the next wave of “near me” queries. Self-driving cars are not tangential to the future of local; they are central to it.
How the Newest 5 Features from Google will Change the Role of UA Managers
Facebook and Google still haven’t figured out how to automate creative. They can’t really even automate creative testing yet. So, take all the time you used to spend with bids and budgets and media buying and shift it to creative. Odds are, you aren’t spending even 2-3 hours a week monitoring and analyzing your competitors’ ads. Shift from bid edits and go do that. Or even better, spend 4-8 hours a week monitoring and analyzing competitor’s ads, and even ads from outside your industry. This research can result in blockbuster new creative concepts — the type of 100x ads that rocket ROAS.
4 Major Takeaways About Consumer Privacy Concerns
Location data firm Factual commissioned a study conducted by the University of Southern California applied psychology master’s program to take the pulse of consumers on data privacy. Unsurprisingly, not all consumers demographic groups share the same levels and types of concern. Here are four major takeaways from the survey of 1,002 smartphone users aged 18 to 65.
Immersive Tech’s Next Conquest: Your Car
The real opportunity in VR and connected cars, going back to our primary focus on local commerce, could be to utilize that captive in-car media time with local discovery tools. Ad-supported experiences could be geo-targeted based on where you are or where you’re going. Destination-based discovery tools could be baked in.
By Unlocking Vehicle Data, Car Rental Companies Help Build Smarter Cities
As operator of three of the most recognized brands in the industry — Avis, Budget and Zipcar — Avis Budget Group represents a mobility ecosystem of more than 11,000 locations in approximately 180 countries. The company recently partnered with the connected-car data firm Otonomo to manage its connected cars on Otonomo’s automotive data services platform. Otonomo will help ABG derive insights from its large connected vehicle fleet, including anonymizing, standardizing, and delivering data from Toyota, Ford, Peugeot and GM vehicles.
The deal between ABG and Otonomo is expected to generate more than 4 billion road miles of data this year, and 7 billion road miles of data by 2020, with much of that data being used for predictive maintenance, smart city planning, and streamlining of the rental process.
Facebook Emerges as Key Tool for Reputation Management
For franchise businesses, specifically, Facebook is critical. The platform has rolled out a significant number of enhancements to help companies manage all facets of their digital reputation. And in the last year, nothing has been quite so impactful to franchise businesses as the rollout of Locations – the company’s local pages feature, which enables a multi-location business to link, and manage, individual franchise pages to the corporate brand page.
In order to leverage the network as a true reputation management tool, franchise brands must get accustomed to the three features outlined in this piece, which can be used to enhance the online reputation of every location and control public perception of your overall brand.
How Technology Companies Can Establish and Benefit from a User-First Culture
As more and more states pass separate privacy regulations into law, we will likely see an increase of noncompliance and fines across the board. Subsequently, we might see more companies begin advocating for the US to develop its own version of GDPR at the federal level in an effort to simplify compliance for companies nationwide.
To stay ahead of the imminent data privacy regulations, companies need to establish a culture of transparency and compliance. Consumers will be more confident in businesses that offer a clear value exchange when asked to share their data, and marketers and publishers will build stronger relationships with users.
Street Fight’s Big 3
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Back-to-School Retailing Is Now All About Using Mobile Data to Help Your Customers