News and Analysis
What Comes Next for Retail Media 2.0?
We all know where retail media has been. The channel has a history that dates back to at least 2012, when Amazon became a pioneer in the space and launched its first retail media network. That set off a chain of events that forever changed adtech as we know it. Walmart followed suit, with the […]
Toys ‘R’ Us is Not Playing Around With its Retail Re-launch
Setting what might be an example of a future retail model, mega toy brand Toys ‘R’ Us is emerging from bankruptcy with a new retail strategy involving airports and cruise ships. Called the “air, land, and sea” initiative, the big box MULO (multi-location) brand is opening up to 24 flagship stores and locations in airports […]
Latest Posts
What Becomes of Brand Identity in a World of Changing IDs?
Branding is in the eye of the beholder. Or, as Al Ries and Jack Trout’s classic marketing text Positioning, the Battle for your Mind puts it, a brand’s positioning is the space it occupies in the mind of the prospect. Decades of the world’s best marketing leaders and agency pros have rallied around this definition. If it’s true, what happens to measuring brand identity and positioning with the dramatic shift in one of the best attribution tools marketers have ever known?
How Human-to-Human Marketing Can Counter the Labor Shortage and Drive Q4 Growth
In times of economic uncertainty, local communities look to support their own, ensuring businesses stay open and neighborhoods stay strong. What most brands miss is that they are a legitimate part of the community fabric and can leverage their place in that fabric as a marketing and sales asset.
Google Local Search Trends III: Socialization
In this third of four installments in my series on recent and ongoing trends in local search, I want to focus on signs that Google’s local platform — comprising Google My Business, Google Maps, and the local component of Google Search — has become, under our noses, a massive social network. Google has achieved this status not through traditional methods of connecting users to each other, but by allowing and encouraging users to share their experiences, questions, and opinions about local businesses in a variety of forms and at a massive scale.
Yelp Introduces Guest Manager, A Front-of-House Operations Tool for Restaurants
Yelp today introduced a new, comprehensive solution for restaurants to manage their front-of-house operations. With online searches for takeout remaining above pre-pandemic levels, the new Yelp Guest Manager is being billed as a comprehensive solution that brings together many of the digital tools restaurants have been using to manage digital ordering, reservations, takeout, guest loyalty, and table management.
Broadening Local: Expert Roundup
A trio of local search experts expound on the latest in the industry. Claire Carlile proposes Google My Business as a CMS and covers how businesses should approach the channel; Miriam Ellis explores the increasingly blurred lines between different categories of sites and businesses; and Damian Rollison delineates the major trends shaping the trajectory of local search, especially on Google.
The Road Ahead: What Autonomous Cars Teach Us About Marketing Automation