Street Fight’s July Theme: Targeting Location
After huddling with the editorial team about our July theme, we all agreed that it could be time to mix it up a bit. So we’re returning to a meat-and-potatoes theme in our lineup: Targeting Location. This will allow us to talk about something else while acknowledging Covid-19’s still rampant status.
What do we mean by “Targeting Location?” A central issue for location-based media and commerce, this is the moving target of how to pinpoint and optimize strategies around device location. It includes topics like location-targeted ads, building audience profiles, attribution, paid search, and location data strategies.
Heard on the Street, Episode 53: Pioneering Audio Out-of-Home
We’ve all heard of out-of-home advertising: staples such as billboards and subway ads. Audio is one of the oldest forms of advertising, from terrestrial radio to pandora. Shopper marketing has been around for decades to steer in-store shoppers with last-mile messaging.
These are all common staples of local advertising. But combine them, and you may have something interesting. This combination of OOH, audio, and shopper marketing is what Vibenomics calls audio out-of-home. It gives retailers a way to more intelligently monetize the soundwave inventory in their locations through targeted messaging.
Can a Pandemic Inflect Local Commerce Tech?
Could forced adoption of alternative shopping methods like curbside pickup lead to user acclimation? Will millions of shoppers get exposed to the merits of these streamlined options and like what they see? Will new habits be born that sustain throughout normal times?
If so, these technologies — along with virtual-office enablement — could benefit from this period as a blessing in disguise for exposing their value propositions. But who stands to benefit most? We’ve identified five local commerce tech areas to which this could apply.
Heard on the Street, Episode 52: Localizing Print Advertising
Digital gets all the attention these days. And rightly so: it legitimately has more robust capability to do things like target audiences and measure results. But we often forget that print media still holds advantages like premium status and deeper engagement.
The ideal approach in advertising is to cherry-pick the best of both worlds. This is where MNI Targeted Media, with a specialty in premium print channels like magazines coupled with targeting expertise, stakes its claim to relevance. MNI director of planning and strategy, Tommy Shaw, joins us on the latest episode of Heard on the Street (listen above).
Street Fight’s June Theme: Retail Recovery
As the country starts to re-open and recover (some places more quickly than others), we’ll shift our focus to cover specifically how that’s happening. And what better vertical to represent local business recovery than retail? It will be a leading indicator for several other local commerce verticals.
So we introduce our June editorial theme: Retail Recovery. The goal: to chronicle the steps local businesses are taking to reemerge from locked doors and empty streets. Who’s doing what, and what can we learn from them? By “them” we mean businesses and the tech providers that support them.
Heard on the Street, Episode 51: Adding a Third Dimension to Location Data
Bringing new dimension (literally) to location data is the field of “3D location.” This essentially takes typical lat/long coordinates and adds a Z-axis. It brings new meaning in the form of elevation, which comes in handy in places like high-rise buildings and shopping malls.
This is where Polaris Wireless hangs its hat. The company uses several inputs like barometric pressure to pinpoint mobile device locations using all three dimensions. This can have many use cases such as helping emergency responders show up to the correct floor of a building.
Heard on the Street, Episode 50: Reinventing Out-of-Home Advertising
When most people hear the term “out-of-home” advertising (OOH), they think of old-school billboards and bus kiosks. Those are still staples of the category, but its growth and innovation are being defined by other approaches at the intersection of physical media and digital targeting.
“People instantaneously think billboards, but it literally can be wrapping a ferry going to a music festival for a brand and throwing a party on said ferry,” said Quan Media Group Founder & CEO Brian Rappaport on the latest episode of Street Fight’s Heard on the Street podcast (listen above). “If you do out-of-home the right way as a brand, you’re going to hit that audience you’re looking to hit. That’s the challenge for me: finding the right fit for so many of the unique brands I work with because really none are the same.”
Street Fight’s May Theme: Local Commerce’s Recovery Playbook
In our own reporting and analysis (and through the words of our contributors) this month, we’ll define the playbook for local re-entry. As business ramps back up, what will best practices be for local staples such as search marketing and reputation management?
We’ve already covered how businesses are digitizing to adapt to the challenges of commerce in a time of social distancing, embracing curbside pickup, social advertising, pop-up distribution centers, online classes, and retail tech. With an even longer-term view, we’ll examine how this period of uncertainty will shape the future of local commerce.
Heard on the Street, Episode 49: Connecting a Multi-Device World, with Tapad
The mobile advertising world continues to shift dynamically as both public and private sector influences reshape ad targeting and data collection practices. The phasing out of third-party cookies and increased privacy regulations, coupled now with the financial pressure related to Covid-19, make 2020 an especially challenging year for marketing tech.
At the center of all of this is Semcasting, whose CEO and founder Ray Kingman is the latest guest on Street Fight’s Heard on the Street podcast (listen above). Semcasting applies advanced IP targeting known as Smart Zones to validate audiences and make sure that marketers are reaching the right people.
Can Emerging Tech Support Local’s New Normal?
I’ve been looking for discoveries that could be blessings in disguise. Just like remote work, these aren’t new concepts but ones that are now given the chance to shine. For example, I spend lots of time analyzing virtual reality, which could be a valuable virtual event tool.
But more to Street Fight’s main focus, what discoveries or business approaches could benefit local commerce? One of them could in fact be VR’s cousin, augmented reality. Its ability to help people visualize things or facilitate “see what I see” co-presence could help local service pros socially distance.
Heard on the Street, Episode 48: Advancing Audience Targeting with Semcasting
The mobile advertising world continues to shift dynamically as both public and private sector influences reshape ad targeting and data collection practices. The phasing out of third-party cookies and increased privacy regulations, coupled now with the financial pressure related to Covid-19, make 2020 an especially challenging year for marketing tech.
At the center of all of this is Semcasting, whose CEO and founder Ray Kingman is the latest guest on Street Fight’s Heard on the Street podcast (listen above). Semcasting applies advanced IP targeting known as Smart Zones to validate audiences and make sure that marketers are reaching the right people.
Street Fight’s April Theme: Local Commerce in the Time of Coronavirus
We’ll devote coverage this month to the virus’ continued outbreak and its effect on local business. Of course, the airwaves and ether are already filled with pandemic coverage, and we won’t look to compete with that. Rather, we’ll be writing specifically about the crisis’ impact on local commerce, marketing, and related subjects.
In fact, we’ve already gotten started. Our March theme of reputation management barely got off the ground before we and many of our contributors came to the realization that it didn’t really feel right to talk about anything other than Covid-19. Don’t worry, we’ll give reputation management an encore performance later in the year.
Location Leaders Step Up to the Plate
During the Covid-19 outbreak, we’re seeing tech companies step up to the plate in a mixture of altruistic and opportunistic moves. That’s everything from Comcast removing data caps to Amazon removing its paywall for streaming kids shows. But what about local specifically? Again, that’s where businesses are getting hit most.
We’ve seen moves in the local space over the past week from Facebook, Yelp, and Foursquare. Though there are several others, we’ll drill down on this representative sample. We’ll also give a shoutout to Google for its work to free up human and compute resources for local listings updates, covered Monday by Damian Rollison.
Heard on the Street, Episode 47: Header Bidding and Rapid Growth, with Freestar
As ad tech continues to advance and programmatic becomes de rigueur, you’d think managing advertising would be easier for publishers. But in some ways, it’s gotten more difficult for publishers to monetize content and optimize ad placement through complex tech stacks while focusing on their primary function: content.
This is where Freestar comes in. As we heard from company president Kurt Donnell on the latest episode of Street Fight’s Heard on the Street podcast (listen above), Freestar frees up publishers to do what they do best while it takes care of ad monetization, especially through its speciality, header bidding.
Heard on the Street, Episode 46: Improving Road Safety with Your iPhone
Insurance is typically viewed as an old-school industry that’s not very sexy. But Cambridge Mobile Telematics VP Ryan McMahon thinks insurance gets a bad wrap in that respect. As the latest guest on Street Fight’s Heard on the Street podcast, his company is innovating actuarial work and safer roads.
McMahon’s firm accomplishes that by capitalizing on the powerful computer we all carry around (and drive around) in our pockets. Given all its sensors like GPS and accelerometers, the modern smartphone packs ample situational awareness. One of the things it can do is detect signals that indicate driving quality.
Heard on the Street, Episode 45: Building a Local Video Marketplace, with Stringr
Video as a medium continues to gain prevalence given better bandwidth, mobile connectivity, and cultural factors. Creation and distribution tools also continue to democratize “pro-sumer” video like TikTok. But at the professional end of the scale, quality production is still expensive and hard to find.
This is the segment of the video market that Stringr addresses. The company has created a sort of networked marketplace to connect supply and demand for video creation. That includes everything from a library of locally relevant B-roll footage for news stories to specific on-demand assignments.
Heard on the Street, Episode 44: Retargeting in a Multiscreen World, with Tremor Video
Two media consumption trends stick out from the last decade. The first is that video continues to gain prevalence given better bandwidth, mobile connectivity and cultural factors. The second is that our attention is increasingly fragmented between screens and delivery platforms, such as streaming apps.
Tremor Video has positioned itself at the center of that two-way intersection. The company provides a video creation and distribution engine to maximize impact for brand marketers, according to Devin Fallon, VP of Media Insights & Analytics, and the latest guest on our Heard on the Street podcast.
Street Fight’s February Theme: Beyond the Screen
Consumer touchpoints continue to fragment and atomize, disrupting conventional approaches to media and tech. Drivers of this trend include devices from smart speakers to cars. Accordingly, as we roll into February, the Street Fight editorial team is thinking outside the box — that is, beyond the rectangles that frame our typical screen interfaces.
We will provide deep coverage of emerging technologies including voice search, visual search, augmented reality, and 5G. How are tech providers innovating with these modalities? How are users adopting them? And how are local marketers tackling the opportunity?
Can Local Commerce and Tech Work From Home?
I’ve worked from a home office since 2002. Forced into it — and initially opposed due to unfamiliarity — I didn’t like the isolation. But after acclimating, I became more productive, happier, and healthier than in any previous office job. Now, 18 years later, I may never go back.
One question is if that same realization will sink into corporate ranks now forced to #WFH. Could adjusting to working from home be a silver lining for some industries? In being forced to try new ways of doing business, could we discover habits that work better than older conventions? How might this principle play out in local businesses?