Retailers Use AI to Mine Social Data for Back-to-School Trends
Students across the country are returning to the classroom this month — some for the first time in more than a year. While early indications show strong late-summer back-to-school sales, retailers aren’t leaving anything up to chance. Widespread confusion around health policies, safety protocols, and required supplies that can vary by school are leading retailers to rely on social media and artificial intelligence to collect information on emerging themes and trends.
Idomoo Launches Interactive Video Platform
Could highly personalized interactive video become the primary way that businesses communicate with customers in the future? That’s what the team at Idomoo is betting on. The company is launching a fully open, enterprise-grade platform called Living Video that will enable businesses to automatically update videos in real-time based on context and user input.
Why More Brands Are Bringing Data Intelligence In-House
Despite implementing many of the same technology platforms and marketing strategies as they did in early 2020, retail brands today are shifting their approach and bringing more data intelligence solutions in-house. The strategy is part of a larger emphasis on first-party within the brand marketing community, particularly as personalization techniques grow more advanced and privacy changes make targeting harder.
Why Audio Out-Of-Home Is Attracting Brand Marketers
“Between Covid-19 altering consumer buying behaviors and accelerating the growth of e-commerce, specifically in retail media, consumers have higher expectations than ever when it comes to customer experience,” Vibenomics CSO Paul Brenner says. “Implementing AOOH into retail media plans allows retailers to deliver a personalized, one-to-few shopping experience consumers now expect.”
Retailers Implement Hybrid Shopping Experiences to Adapt to Covid Disruption
The so-called “buy and return loop” that stores faced during the height of the pandemic is back, and it’s a major burden for fashion retailers across the country. According to Britt Mills, senior director of customer experience at the digital consultancy Mobiquity, more shoppers are being forced to skip the dressing room due to in-store safety protocols, and since they can’t try on items, that leads to a higher likelihood of returns.
Delta Variant Leads to Shift in Consumer Behavior — Marketers Respond
With Covid-19 Delta variant cases on the rise, social distancing and sanitation have once again become top priorities for consumers. According to new data by Avionos, consumers are growing increasingly wary of shopping in physical stores due to the rise of the Delta variant. Among those consumers who shopped with a new brand during the pandemic, almost one-third cited safe in-store experiences as a top reason for choosing that brand.
6 Omnichannel Ad Buying Platforms for Brands
With much of the $664 billion advertising market in flux, there’s a renewed focus on omnichannel platforms that use integrated workflows to improve efficiencies and reduce redundant work. This next generation of ad buying solutions takes into account disparate channels and audiences, enabling brand marketers to automate and optimize campaigns across ecosystems.
Enriching First-Party Data to Remove Marketing ‘Blind Spots’
More advertisers are taking control of their media spend, and they’re looking for better ways to have direct involvement in the use of first-party data to improve ad performance. Those are just a few of the findings in a new report by Kantar looking at the latest behaviors, attitudes, and trends in the digital advertising space.
6 Retail Tech Solutions for Addressing Labor Shortages
Retail technology platforms that may have been overlooked before the pandemic are now coming into focus as businesses begin to understand their true value. Using a combination of artificial intelligence, machine learning, IoT, and big data, a number of startups have started positioning their platforms as possible solutions to the labor shortages that retailers and restaurants are facing in 2021. Mobile ordering kiosks, autonomous checkout systems, and even machine vision algorithms are all being used to help businesses greet customers, restock shelves, and even clean messy areas with more efficiency.
More Brands Are Rewarding Customers with Digital Currency. Here’s Why
Permission.io CEO Charlie Silver sees blockchain technology as one of the best mechanisms for issuing digital rewards in the form of cryptocurrency, and he says the ability to issue a desirable reward is essential for those brands that want to succeed in the next era of permission-based digital advertising.
5 Startups Offering Blockchain for Loyalty Programs
In a nod to just how mainstream blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Dogecoin have become, 44% of people now say they’d like to receive loyalty rewards in the form of digital assets. By offering digital currencies as an alternative to cash-back rewards, retailers are helping their programs stand out and bringing curious shoppers back into their stores.
Why Are Brands Struggling to Track Influencer Campaigns?
Without accurate ways to measure and monitor the success of influencer campaigns, most brand marketers are left sitting in the dark. And many of the metrics used to track the success of campaigns on traditional advertising channels don’t work with influencer marketing, where context is everything and the volume of brand mentions can be deceiving. The data company Sama thinks it has a solution.
