News and Analysis
MULO Dozen: Fall Brands in Review
Never a dull moment in the MULO (multi-location) brand ecosystem! And this fall has been no exception. From leadership changes to tech innovations, the retail, restaurant, service, and hospitality worlds are ever-changing! Private equity ownership of MULO brands is nothing new. As revealed in a recent press release, Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers has been […]
Halloween 2025 Begins and Results are Not Scary
“Summerween” is a term explored by Retail Next. You’ve probably noticed that Halloween pumpkins rapidly replaced flip-flops as early as July. It’s no wonder. The holiday results in as much as $12B in annual spending, and retailers are looking to get their share of the sales treat bag. A recent study (reported in that RetailNext […]
StreetFight LIVE’25: 12 Trends & Disruptive Ideas To Watch
Street Fight LIVE 2025 attracted the best and the brightest thought leaders from across the MULO (multi-location) ecosystem. We deliberately curated and invited a select, diverse group of dynamic senior executives from retail, restaurant, service, agency, and technology businesses to share their perspectives on the future trends and disruptive ideas for MULO brands in an […]
Commentary
Cookie Loss Didn’t Kill the Web, But AI Overviews Might
The digital advertising industry spent years preparing for the demise of third-party cookies—an event that never fully materialized. But while we were focused on cookies, a much bigger transformation was quietly unfolding: the fundamental shift in how people interact with search engines. AI Overviews. Google’s AI Overviews and AI-driven chatbots are reshaping search behavior in […]
Streets Ahead: Google’s AI Mode and New Full-Width Knowledge Panels
In this week’s Streets Ahead update, SOCi discusses Google CEO, Sundar Pichai’s comments on AI Mode & the future of Google Search as well as the Knowledge Panel /Business Profile redesign. The Future of Google Search – AI Mode The News In a wide-ranging conversation on the Lex Fridman Podcast, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai explored […]
Streets Ahead: Microsoft New Agentic Tools, Apple Maps Recommendations
In this week’s Streets Ahead update, SOCi discusses Microsoft unveiling over 50 new AI agentic web tools and Apple Maps adding curated recommendations. Microsoft Adds New AI Agentic Web Tools The News At its Build 2025 conference, Microsoft outlined a sweeping strategy to lead the evolution of the “open agentic web,” unveiling more than 50 […]
Latest Posts
The Rise of Partner-Led Marketing
Impact.com is a commerce partnership management platform that is increasingly bullish on partner-led marketing, which is the development of communities around brands to drive revenue. Best Buy is a notable success in this endeavor for Impact.com but the platform also welcomed 700 new clients to its customer portfolio, including New Balance, Hydrojug, and Monzo. Globally, […]
New Collaboration Leads to Better Targeting for MULO Brands
Experian and Media.net (one of the world’s largest Supply-Side Platforms (SSPs)) are collaborating to amp up real-time contextual search intent and rich audience data. They believe this collaboration will help solve the problems of growing signal loss and audience fragmentation and enable advertisers to improve their targeting and results. The move goes beyond basic contextual […]
Franchise Marketing Needs a New Playbook for the Post-Promo Era
Okay, we need to talk. Promotional marketing has been the go-to playbook for franchise brands for years. The “20% off” email, the last-minute BOGO social ad, the holiday-themed coupon barrage—we all know the routine. Why? Because it work s… or worked, at least. But here’s the hard truth: short-term wins won’t cut it anymore. Today’s […]
Scorpion and Clio Partner to Deliver End-to-End Visibility for Law Firms
In a move to redefine what law firms should expect from their marketing and software solutions, Scorpion, the leader in digital marketing for law firms, and Clio, the most trusted cloud-based legal technology platform, have announced an exclusive strategic partnership. The alliance directly addresses one of the legal industry’s most persistent challenges: connecting marketing investments […]
Crowd Street Offers a New Type of Investing
If you’ve been honing your “self-directed” stock-trading skills online to the point where you feel pretty confident in your financial acumen, your world just got bigger. Crowd Street is a new trading platform promising access to investment in companies that are not publicly traded. Crowd Street is a private market investment platform that has a […]
MULO Brands With Soul May Pick: Clutch Coffee
We typically profile big multi-location brands in this column, but we were so impressed by this story from Darren Spicer, Co-Founder of Clutch Coffee, that we just had to include it. The brand currently has 20 drive-thru locations in both North Carolina and South Carolina and plans to open five more in the near future. […]
BOOM: Legacy Restaurant Brands Relaunch and Get “Glow-ups”
MULO (multi-location) retailers and restaurants often take their eyes off the ball (or shelves and plates) when planning for the future. We’ve seen many examples of established brands that thrived for decades suddenly closing up shop and declaring bankruptcy. However, we’re also witnessing legacy brands that realize consumer needs are evolving. These brands are coming up […]
Cookie Loss Didn’t Kill the Web, But AI Overviews Might
The digital advertising industry spent years preparing for the demise of third-party cookies—an event that never fully materialized. But while we were focused on cookies, a much bigger transformation was quietly unfolding: the fundamental shift in how people interact with search engines. AI Overviews. Google’s AI Overviews and AI-driven chatbots are reshaping search behavior in […]
What’s New at Walmart? A Creator Studio!
We’ve heard of SWAS or “stores within stores” (like Sephora at Kohl’s) and “pickleball within malls.” However, something new and powerful has now emerged for creators, at a Walmart in Tennessee. It’s a fully equipped creator studio where brand influencers, entertainers, and other Instagram-famous personalities and TikTok stars can capture content. Create-It Studios is described […]
Real American Beer Supports Live Music
Way back in 1974, The Who single “Long Live Rock” contained the sad refrain, “Rock is dead.” Not if WWE icon Hulk Hogan and his Real American Beer brand have anything to say about it: rock music—along with other genres–is being nourished and thriving through its brand sponsorships that support up-and-coming bands across the U.S. […]
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