Street Fight Daily: Snap Doubles Down on Location, A Grocery Mega-Merger?

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…

Location May Be the X Factor for Snap’s Appeal to Advertisers (AdWeek)
After a rough first year as a public company, Snapchat is looking for ways to differentiate itself from other social platforms, and it’s possibly found one way: location.

Openings and New Hires at Mono Solutions and Twitter (Street Fight)
Every two weeks, Geoff Michener covers some of the latest openings and new hires in this dynamic industry. This week’s edition includes moves and new openings at Emerging Insider Communications and MoviePass.

As Amazon Applies Pressure, Target and Kroger Mull a Merger (Fast Company)
Target and Kroger are discussing a possible merger, several people with knowledge of the matter tell Fast Company. The talks come as the grocery industry grapples with Amazon’s increasing hold on the market.

Raise Report: Pilot, Airtable, AdStage Secure New Funding (Street Fight)
Every two or three weeks, we round up some of the biggest fundraises taking place in hyperlocal marketing, commerce, and tech. This week’s edition includes funding for RapidAPI, Chargebee, Made.com, and TheSkimm.

Where and When AI Can Make a Difference in Marketing (AdExchanger)
Dana Hayes: For AI or any new technology to make an impact, it should be able to solve a key pain point. I see a few particular areas where AI can improve performance and reach goals.

Marketers Should Prioritize Relevance Before Loyalty (HBR)
If your customer retention strategy relies on “buying” loyalty with rewards, rebates, or discounts, it is coming at a high cost. And these days, it could also mean that you’re giving up something priceless: your relevance.

Facebook and Cambridge Analytica: What Happened (Recode)
Public trust in Facebook has taken several beatings in the past 18 months, and the social networking giant was done no favors by the recent revelation that a political data firm called Cambridge Analytica had smuggled millions of users’ data out of the site, exploiting a loophole in Facebook’s platform.

AR Is Finally Arriving in a Big Way (MediaPost)
Millions of consumers of all ages discovering it through Pokémon Go a while back was a start, at least for people seeing what AR actually is, even if they didn’t know what to call it. Now, however, augmented reality is moving more into what consumers do day to day.

LBMA Podcast: GroundTruth, General Motors, Zara, Ikea (Street Fight)
On the show this week: Milestone Pages, GroudTruth, 180byTwo, Tesla’s drive-in, 7-Eleven facial rec., IKEA goes full TaskRabbit, GM launches peer-to-peer sharing, Zara tries AR on.

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