VIOOH Expands U.S. Programmatic DOOH With Adams Outdoor
VIOOH’s partnership with Adams Outdoor brings more than 460 digital billboards across 14 states into its marketplace, expanding access to regional audiences and commuter corridors. VIOOH is expanding its U.S. digital out-of-home (DOOH) footprint through a partnership with Adams Outdoor Advertising, bringing more than 460 digital billboards across 14 states into its programmatic marketplace. The […]
Magnite Expands How Brands Find CTV Audiences
Magnite’s expanded partnership with Proximic by Comscore brings predictive audience targeting into SpringServe. The announcement coincides with its Street Fight LIVE discussion of how marketers can evaluate CTV across the customer journey. Finding relevant connected-TV audiences and understanding their response remain separate challenges for advertisers. Magnite is expanding its targeting capabilities as brand marketers seek […]
McDonald’s Shifts From Borrowed Attention to Owned Engagement
McDonald’s decision to end its FIFA sponsorship reflects a broader U.S. marketing reset. The company is placing greater value on loyalty, customer data and programs that can produce measurable restaurant visits. McDonald’s will end its FIFA World Cup sponsorship after the 2026 tournament, concluding a relationship that began in 1994. The decision follows its largest […]
Placer.ai: Local Shopping Data Guides Retail Media Buying
New Placer.ai research on Kroger, Sam’s Club and CVS highlights how shopping patterns vary across markets and formats. Those differences can help retailers and advertisers make better decisions about placement, timing and creative. A national retail media network can offer advertisers thousands of locations through a single buying relationship. But shoppers arrive at those locations […]
Walmart Is Building the Access Rules for Agentic Commerce
Walmart is opening its ecommerce infrastructure to outside AI shopping agents, but on terms designed to protect customer permissions, transaction data and control of checkout. The strategy offers multi-location brands an early model for treating agentic commerce as a governed channel rather than uncontrolled bot traffic. Opening the Storefront Without Surrendering Control Walmart is preparing […]
Retail Media Growth Depends on Faster Execution
New research from GrowthLoop and Ascend2 shows how slow audience activation and delayed reporting put retail media budgets at risk A retail media campaign can reach the right shoppers and still arrive too late. For a brand coordinating a weekend promotion across hundreds of locations, several days spent waiting for an audience segment can consume […]
Albertsons’ Turnaround Tests the Value of Local Control
Albertsons is trying to become a more efficient national retailer without weakening the regional banners and market knowledge that differentiate its stores. Its turnaround will test whether greater centralization can coexist with local execution while preserving the relevance customers expect from Safeway, Jewel-Osco, ACME and its other grocery brands. Why Albertsons Is Restructuring Albertsons has […]
DOOH Finds New Growth in Existing Screens
Digital screens already operating inside commercial buildings are creating new opportunities for DOOH advertising. Vertical City’s expansion to 10,000 elevator screens shows how existing infrastructure can become a scalable media network and why accessibility and measurement will determine its value to advertisers. Digital screens installed for building operations are becoming a new source of advertising […]
Best Buy and LG Expand Retail Media Into CTV
Best Buy is extending its advertising business into connected television through a new partnership with LG Ad Solutions, bringing its shopper audiences and sales measurement capabilities to television advertising. The agreement makes LG’s premium connected-TV inventory, including its Home Screen, available to U.S. advertisers through Best Buy Ads. The resulting combination gives brands a way […]
Magnite Connects Retail Media’s Push Into CTV
Magnite is strengthening its role in retail media’s expansion into connected TV. Recent announcements from Walmart Connect and Best Buy Ads place its technology behind two arrangements connecting retailer audiences and sales measurement with television advertising inventory. For multi-location brands and agencies, the significance extends beyond another way to buy streaming ads. These connections raise […]
Chick-fil-A Draws a Line on Drive-Thru AI
Fast-food chains are racing to automate one of their most important customer touchpoints. Chick-fil-A is choosing a different route. CEO Andrew Cathy recently said the company does not intend to replace employees taking drive-thru orders with artificial intelligence. While competitors including McDonald’s and Wendy’s are testing or expanding voice-ordering systems, Chick-fil-A considers face-to-face service central […]
Yext Connects Agentic Marketing to Location-Level Decisions
The hardest part of marketing hundreds or thousands of locations isn’t simply doing more work. It’s knowing where the brand is winning, where it is losing and what action makes sense in each market. Two moves from Yext this week aim to connect that location-level intelligence with the people, AI agents and media budgets capable […]
McDonald’s AI Pricing Tests Local Autonomy
McDonald’s is using AI to optimize prices at individual restaurants, while Walmart is drawing a clear line around how algorithms influence what customers pay. McDonald’s is using AI (artificial intelligence) to help determine what a Big Mac should cost at individual restaurants. The technology may produce more precise pricing, but it also raises questions about […]
Home Services Marketing Is Moving Beyond Search
Home services marketing has traditionally been built around capturing consumers when a local need turns into a search. Scorpion brought together OpenAI, TikTok, ServiceTitan and others to reflect on how that acquisition model is expanding as AI discovery, short-form video and operational data reshape the path from awareness to booked job. For home services brands, […]
DOOH Is Becoming a Local Conversion Channel
Digital out-of-home advertising has traditionally benefited from proximity. Put an ad near a restaurant, retailer or dealership and the physical location itself becomes part of the media strategy. Programmatic DOOH is making that relationship more precise. New research from Vistar Media, Omnicom Media and Annalect finds that something as simple as telling consumers where to […]
Sonic Turns Drink Customization Into Traffic Strategy
Restaurant chains are increasingly looking beyond burgers, sandwiches and value meals to create new reasons for customers to visit. Specialty beverages have emerged as one of the industry’s most active battlegrounds, and Sonic Drive-In believes its long history of drink customization gives it an advantage. The trend extends well beyond another seasonal menu cycle. The […]
Programmatic DOOH Still Isn’t Bought Like Digital
Programmatic DOOH (digital out-of-home) has spent years promising to make physical media easier to buy like digital advertising. New global data suggests that transition is well underway, but also shows how far DOOH still has to go before it becomes a routine component of the digital media plan. The World Out of Home Organization’s inaugural […]
Lowe’s Is Merging Marketing With Commerce
Lowe’s has made an organizational change that says more about the future of multi-location marketing than a typical executive promotion. The home-improvement retailer has expanded CMO Jen Wilson’s role to include Lowes.com and its third-party marketplace. Wilson, now executive vice president and chief marketing and digital commerce officer, already oversaw marketing, loyalty, personalization and Lowe’s […]
MULO Brands Are Reinvesting in Human Service
For years, the direction of store and restaurant technology seemed clear: move more transactions into apps, kiosks and self-checkout, and ask employees to do less of the routine work. That investment has made many visits faster. It has also made the human service interactions that remain more consequential. Aritzia, Macy’s and McDonald’s are approaching that […]
Yelp Moves Voice AI From Conversation to Conversion
Yelp and Hatch are among the first platforms integrating OpenAI’s GPT-Live-1, giving restaurant and service-business callers more natural conversations with AI. The resulting voice AI is connecting conversational models with the location data, business rules and operating systems required to turn a call into a booking. Voice AI is getting better at sounding human. OpenAI’s […]