News and Analysis
The Franchise of the Future
The franchise MULO (multi-location) business model has been around since 1731 and boomed in the U.S. in 1960, with the formation of the International Franchise Association (or IFA). The IFA now represents 1,300 franchisors, 10,000 franchisees, and more than 600 professionals and suppliers to the industry, according to its website (which also features a robust […]
BOOM: This MULO Diner Chain is Roaring
The diner as a concept seems to be timeless. Back in 1913, the first stationary diner was established and ultimately grew to 6,000 privately owned locations nationally. That’s a giant MULO (multi-location) venture! Fast forward to today. Although foodies have a wide range of options for where to eat — from single-unit locations to specific […]
BOOM: Retail Media According to Skai
We often use “BOOM” to identify a category or store brand that’s thriving. But BOOMing can also apply to trends in media buying and creative. So, for 2024 we’ve expanded the term to cover that as well, so MULO (multi-location) brands and the agencies that work with them can identify how to better reach consumers […]
Commentary
Holiday Marketing Amid Current Supply Chain Disruptions
By using marketing to communicate transparently about potential shortages while at the same time helping shoppers either locate hard-to-find items or come up with alternative gift ideas, companies can overcome the current challenges and actually deepen their relationship with consumers, leaving them well-positioned for when the supply chain does return to something resembling normal.
How Personalized Packaging Can Drive Loyalty and Conversions
The key word here is experience. Opening a box full of bubble wrap or (get the vacuum ready) packing peanuts does not lend itself to compelling video content. What cements a product in the viewer’s mind is the branded experience. This could be personalized tissue paper, a thematic wrap element, clever inlay design, or custom selected product samples, to name a few.
How Retailers Can Scale their Workforces for the Holidays and Beyond
How can operations and HR leaders in retail organizations overcome a significant worker shortage, both now and in the future?
Latest Posts
The 4 Ad Tech Trends Mobile Marketers Need to Understand In 2022
2022 will be a year for the mobile advertising industry to find its footing again — and an opportunity for fast-moving players to stake new claims. The momentum these trends — contextual advertising, machine learning, consolidation, and bidding in lieu of the waterfall — have accrued over the past few months suggests there are ways to prepare yourself for what’s coming, whatever that may be.
Report: Retail Lags in Omnichannel Customer Service
Retailers around the globe learned to adapt during the pandemic, quickly pivoting to offer curbside pickup, mobile payments, and online storefronts. Despite making strides in digital adoption, a new report finds that many retailers are still missing the mark on omnichannel customer service.
How Will the Metavearth Materialize?
Back to the metaverse’s meaning, concrete definitions are elusive … mostly because they don’t exist yet. But broadly speaking, there are two metaverse tracks. One involves virtual and synchronous worlds. The other adds digital dimension and context to the physical world. Both will take years to materialize.
Location-Based Marketing Association: Vendasta Acquires MatchCraft
In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association discusses Catalina partnering with Place IQ, Japanese dating agency Matching Advisor Press using vending machines to find matches, Seattle launching an NFT Museum, and Here Technologies launching Indoor Map as a service.
Here’s What Happens When Brands Start Micro-Communities for Digital Engagement
“[Micro-communities] foster a collaborative relationship between brands and customers. So instead of spying on consumers through cookies, brands can simply ask consumers for feedback and offer them recommendations based on their likes and dislikes,” says Philip Smolin, chief platform officer at 100.co, an AI-powered consumer brand group that works in the CPG space.
5 Tips for Maximizing Your Performance CTV Strategy
From an advertising standpoint, OTT has some inherent advantages, especially for performance marketers. In the linear world, advertisers have to find programs or channels that over-index against the desired audience. On OTT, this audience filtering is done pre-bid. That means if you want to reach audiences who are in-market for a product or service, you can use real data to reach that exact audience with very little waste because of the dynamic ad insertion.
Evocalize Banks $12 Million to Scale its Local Digital Marketing Platform
Seattle-based collaborative marketing startup Evocalize has grabbed $12 million in Series A funding for its data-driven digital marketing solution designed for local businesses and the real estate industry.
Valid Consent: Building Trust and Demonstrating Compliance
Let’s explore how marketers, privacy professionals, and data managers can work together to obtain valid proof of consent, and why it’s critical to activate consent, preferences, and first-party data in a way that honors consumer privacy.
Live Commerce Guides Retailers to Success in the Metaverse
Immerss Co-Founder Patrick Jacobs says his company is working with a number of retailers to leverage live commerce as a way to blend the physical and digital worlds. Jacobs says sales rates with live commerce are on par with or better than in-store conversion rates, and that merchants jumping into live commerce now will be better prepared for the metaverse boom in the future.
What’s Next for Personalization and Digitization in E-Commerce
We’ll see the evolution of two major e-commerce trends in 2022. First, e-commerce retailers will work to make their digital homes less of a copy of every other e-commerce site and more of a destination that users want to spend time at. Second, the line between brick-and-mortar and digital is going to become fuzzier and less defined.
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AI Won’t Fix Advertising – It May Scale Its Chaotic Nature