Emodo COO: AI Is Where We’re Continuing to Focus
As the mobile adtech division of the telecom giant Ericsson, Emodo is placing a major emphasis on AI-driven performance and personalization in programmatic advertising this year. The company is also doubling down on innovations around optimization, especially as it relates to targeting, innovative formats, and unique inventory. At the head of all these initiatives is […]
How LiveRamp Helps Brands Manage First-Party Data
Is the juice worth the squeeze? That’s what SaaS company LiveRamp wants clients to ask themselves when they opt for the relative ease of scaling ad campaigns in walled gardens like Facebook. Consumer perceptions and privacy regulations are continuing to evolve, and personally identifiable information (PII) via first-party data is a brand’s most valuable asset. […]
The Top 7 Challenges Multi-Location (MULO) Brands Face Today
Whether a multi-location brand has 10 storefronts or >1,000, the challenges faced today are similar. Over the past five years, cosmic shifts in how people work, live, travel, and shop have surfaced a new range of consumer trends. “Near me” is a common part of search behavior today. And the distance someone is willing to […]
Survey Reveals Why Customers Delete Branded Apps
The number one reason consumers delete branded apps is to free up phone storage space. According to a survey from Airship and Sapio Research, 32% percent of respondents cited space as the top reason. In-app ads, if multitudinous, were cited as the second highest reason people deleted branded apps (30% of respondents). Sapio Research and […]
GroundTruth CMO: ‘Most Brand Marketers Struggle with Marketing Vanity Metrics’
The role of a marketer changed drastically in 2023. Rather than being centered on brand, advertising, and digital marketing, brand marketers today are focusing more heavily on strategic areas, like marketing analytics, revenue growth, innovation, and market entry strategy. Surveys show that while firms are slowing their investments in customer relationship management systems, brand building, […]
Hair Care Today…$41B Tomorrow: The Growth of a Category
Hair care is a rapidly-growing category for multi-location brands. As part of our future-forward series, we’ll cover categories that are on the upswing in the MULO (multi-location) ecosystem, along with trends that will impact individual brands’ survival and growth. Intellectual capital has value, but what’s ON our heads can be as lucrative as what’s in […]
Social Marketing Gets Redefined in the Era of AI
In an era where everyone is trying to get more done in less time, generative AI has become a valuable tool for social marketing professionals. According to a new survey from Sprout Social, conducted by the digital insights firm Cint, 71% of social media marketers have already started using AI and machine learning tools, and […]
The Taco War Rages On
Publicity stunt or legal battle? Or, perhaps, a little of both. In case you’ve been too busy over the past week to track the battle antics. Here’s a brief summary. Taco John’s trademarked the term “Taco Tuesday” back in 1989. Taco Bell is now taking legal action to invalidate the trademark so all taco-selling brands […]
Billionaire Steve Kuhn Finds New Use for Empty Retail Spaces
What’s that new use? You guessed it…pickleball! But financier and Major League Pickleball founder Steve Kuhn called his new multi-location brand Picklemall. Taking full advantage of large empty spaces in shopping malls, the company will launch its first indoor pickleball concept in Arizona Mills in Tempe in July 2023. It expects to open 50 locations […]
Amperity Getting Ahead of Cookieless Targeting
Google’s plan to eradicate the third-party cookie is still on track for 2024, but it is starting slowly, turning off just 1% of these tracking pieces of code in Chrome in Q1. Other companies are already taking similar steps to wean their measurement systems to prepare for cookieless targeting, and Amperity is no exception. The […]
The Power of DOOH in an Omnichannel Media Strategy
To the layperson, out-of-home advertising means nothing but billboards that litter the landscape and ads on taxi tops or elsewhere that their eyes randomly scan. Even some sectors of the marketing industry do not give much thought to DOOH advertising or digital-out-of-home advertising. But these media channels are much more strategic and powerful than many […]
Why One Version of the Truth Is Vital to a Retailer’s Success
When walking into a Walmart, customers know exactly what to expect, as the brand provides a consistent experience from merchandise to employee interactions, no matter the location. With over 10,500 stores, Walmart employs 2.1 million associates. From a managerial standpoint, that number can seem daunting. Providing a consistent experience across all store locations can be […]
A Dozen Predictions for Multi-Location Brands
Over the past few years, we’ve seen cosmic shifts in consumer shopping and dining behaviors. Our lives have been forever changed by the pandemic and the proliferation of a wide range of technologies (not to mention supply chain challenges). Our focus on multi-location brands qualifies us as futurists, so here are some of our observations […]
Brand Marketers Strike a Balance Between Personalization, Privacy
Individualized marketing is a powerful tool for brands looking to engage with customers on a deeper level, but with one wrong step, personalization can quickly become creepy. Although 62% of consumers today say they expect personalization from their favorite brands, just 40% say they actually trust brands to use their data responsibly and keep it […]
The Paddy Box: For the Irish People in Your Life
Not many people know the origins of the word “paddy,” as it relates to Irish heritage, and its use has a complicated history. In Ireland, “Paddy” is a nickname for Patrick (Ireland’s patron saint). The Irish name for Patrick is Pádraic or Pádraig, hence why you wish someone a happy St. Paddy’s day (not St. […]
Boutique Health & Wellness: The Birth and Expansion of Stretch Zone
As the population ages and becomes more health-conscious, a new retail category is emerging — specialty storefront wellness. We’ll cover other multi-location brands in high-growth industries and category creators in the months ahead. Wellness is a $450B category and is rapidly accelerating. Multi-location retailers are picking up on that and launching products and brands that […]
Report: Higher Income Adults Drive Podcasting Growth
What makes podcast listeners so loyal to the brands that advertise on their favorite shows, and how does that sense of loyalty translate to real world sales? Those were just a few of the questions asked by the customer experience platform DISQO in its new report, released last week. As the podcast landscape evolves, brands and […]
Vericast Launches Contextual Advertising Solution
The marketing technology firm Vericast is changing its approach to contextual advertising by launching a privacy-centric solution meant to help brands reach relevant consumers in the moments when they’re most likely to be receptive. The proprietary solution bolsters Vericast’s in-house targeting capabilities. It matches ads to the content from consumers’ view or search, and it’s […]
Fire Sale: How Multi-Location Businesses Should Handle Downturns and Fails
This year alone, more than 2,000 retail locations have closed. The major casualties include Party City, Jenny Craig, and Bed Bath & Beyond. Some multi-location restaurants are also slimming down, shuttering locations in markets that aren’t performing well. That doesn’t necessarily mean the beginning of the end for the brands. They may simply reduce expenses to […]
What’s New at the Drive-Thru?
We spend the equivalent of 4.3 years of our lives in our cars. Multi-location restaurants and retailers have known this for quite some time and introduced the drive-thru decades ago. Although the exact date of the first-ever drive-up window is fiercely debated, sources indicate that banks introduced the concept in the early 1920s. The drive-thru […]