Local’s Next Hurdle: The Impressionable Use Fallacy
No matter how good the targeting, creative, and “right person, right place,” the vast majority of our time contains urgencies that render us immune to push-based mobile ads. It’s basically a question of how often we’re actually idle, and therefore impressionable to being rerouted from a deliberate course.
Pokémon Go and Local: Why Now?
The lesson from the phenomenon isn’t for local tech companies to try and build the next Pokémon Go — but rather to build a similarly justifiable value exchange for sharing location. Advertisers and ad networks should likewise work with apps that have that higher likelihood of user opt-in.
Automating Local Commerce: Rise of the Chatbots
Bots could displace apps just as apps displaced search. “Search started with consumers typing into a box,” Pingup’s Ron Braunfeld said recently. “[AI] is all about knowing where you are, time of day, what’s in your refrigerator; and giving you the right information without having to search.”
Is Apple Quietly Assembling an SMB Trojan Horse?
Apple is co-promoting Square’s NFC reader for SMBs. and selling the readers in Apple Stores. The $49 reader accepts Apple Pay, which significantly lowers the barrier for SMBs to get in the game. The move should boost Apple Pay, but there also may be much bigger ambitions to lock in market share in new areas.
How the Rise of Virtual Reality Could Impact Local Marketing
With each passing tech revolution, response time diminishes while opportunity cost grows. Local media companies that were late to the consumer internet or the smartphone revolution already know this pain. With VR and AR, local startups will be more agile to experiment than larger incumbents.
Ad Blockers: One Big Distraction from the Real Issue
In a year of overblown topics, the grand prize goes to mobile ad blockers. The backlash is not only disproportionate to real impact but also has fueled the wrong conversation. Instead of fighting ad blockers — or fueling them in the case of biased reports — the ad industry should ask itself how it got in this position to begin with.
Retail, Restaurants, and Roofers: Where Does On-Demand Work (and Not)?
A year into the on-demand revolution, the question persists: Where’s it going next? So far, it’s gone into nearly every local vertical, but there are still areas with the right conditions for on-demand models to take root, some of which remain underdeveloped. These include higher-end professional services like lawyers and doctors, project-based work like design and writing, and, of course, SMBs, especially when it comes to local marketing and advertising.
Can Facebook Win Local?
Facebook is known universally for its social networking features, but the company has quietly but consistently been rolling out a set of tools to make it the go-to platform for SMBs. From social buy buttons, call functionality, and Pages to messaging and free beacons, Facebook is staking its claim to online, offline, and online-to-offline marketing and commerce for SMBs.
Did Apple Just Solve Deep Linking?
One of the coolest things to come out Apple’s September product event was 3D Touch, which lets users indicate levels of intent based on how hard they press apps and links. Beyond the gadgetry of 3D Touch, one thing hasn’t been said: This is essentially deep linking, an area that will be a key battleground in local. 3D Touch could preempt the deep linking dilemma by peeking deep within other apps — a lighter and more elegant solution I’m calling “deep previewing.”
Local’s Next Battleground: In-Car Media
A few recent moves have begun to triangulate how Uber might build out auxiliary revenue channels. It will be all about enhancing your ride, then, down the road, an ad model. And it won’t involve in-car signage or digital displays.