News and Analysis

Raising Cane's Adds Dazzle (and Fries) to its Footprint on Times Square

Raising Cane’s Adds Dazzle (and Fries) to its Footprint on Times Square

Times Square in New York City is known as the “Crossroads of the World.” And MULO (multi-location) brand Raising Cane’s is known for its chicken finger meals and sauces. The Texas-based brand hired a local New York (Brooklyn-based) creative agency called Wellcom to create “show-stopping decor” for this 8,000 SF restaurant chain’s location. This restaurant […]

Survey: Walmart Ranked Most Promising Retail Media Network

It pays to be popular. As the retail media space continues to grow, and more retailers launch their own media networks, advertisers are being forced to make tough decisions about how they allocate their budgets. In addition to the heavy-hitters, like Amazon, Target, and Walmart, advertisers are looking at the hundreds, if not thousands, of […]

Sheeva.AI Turns Cars into Truly Mobile Devices

Sheeva.AI Turns Cars into Truly Mobile Devices

Watch out EZ-Pass, Sheeva.AI is coming for you. EZ-Pass is available in 17 states with approximately 35 million users. Sheeva.AI wants them all and more. Evgeny Klochikhin, CEO of Sheeva.AI, pointed out that the EZ-Pass transponders inside cars require state agencies or businesses to install hardware all along highways to enable a transaction at highway […]

Commentary

Sprint to Success with Agile Marketing

Even though agile marketing has been around for a couple of decades, keep in mind that it’s a modern approach for today’s marketers — in keeping with the focus on data. With the right martech to support performance measurement needs (using metrics that are credible outside of marketing), you can sprint to success with agile marketing.

Retailing in the Post Covid-19 World

Throughout the pandemic, lockdowns and safety restrictions have forced retailers to tweak their operations and strategies in accordance with changing circumstances around them. AI has played a key role in helping retailers adapt to the conditions of today and those on the horizon.

With that in mind, here are three key areas where AI is helping retailers cope with the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Contextual Ads and Brand Suitability Are the Future of Targeting

Cookies and blocklists put brands on the back foot. Brand suitability draws on perception and customization to make sure that surrounding content makes sense for the brand’s image and customer base. And, when you combine this with context-informed targeting and human intelligence, brand suitability is the more powerful approach to engage with today’s consumers and customers in a way that also helps to future-proof today’s savvy brands.

Latest Posts

How In-House Agencies Can Provide Value During and After Covid-19

When asked what the most critical resources for producing ads post Covid-19 were, 55% of ANA members said in-house teams, as compared to 42% for other internal teams and 26% for external agencies.

In many respects, Covid just accelerated the already impressive growth of in-housing. Moving forward, these teams’ proximity to the business and growing strategic importance mean they are in a good position to deliver greater value to their organizations in three critical ways.

CCPA’s Impact: Businesses Prepare for Fall Surge in Data Subject Requests

In a customer set with more than 16 million consumer records — with consumer records being defined as a single, individual record associated with a unique email address within a database — DataGrail found that people are largely taking action to control their privacy by exercising rights provided by the CCPA.

Consumers opt-out of their personal information being sold “most” of the time, and deletion requests make up 31% of all data subject requests. Twenty-one percent of consumers have accessed their data thanks to the new regulations.

Here’s Why October Is the Perfect Time to Pressure-Test Holiday Strategies

With consumers still spending – and their evolving shopping preferences and behaviors becoming increasingly clear for Halloween and beyond – October presents a prime opportunity for retailers to pressure-test and refine their holiday 2020 strategies. 

Here are three considerations as we enter one of the most critical quarters in retail’s history.

Location Weekly: BMW Geo-Fencing, Gimbal Acquiring TrueX, Amazon One Payments

In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association covers BMW geo-fencing E-Drive zones, IKEA’s “Buy With Time” campaign in Dubai, Gimbal acquiring TrueX from Disney, and Amazon One letting you pay with a wave of your hand.

Self-Serve Restaurant Ordering in a Post-Covid World

We expect to see a continued rise in touchless retail shopping and contactless transactions à la Amazon Go Stores.

But one of the less-discussed technologies in the Covid-advantaged bucket is self-serve mobile restaurant ordering. The idea is that ordering and paying from your table can reduce server interaction — which has Covid and non-Covid benefits considering it can save diners’ lives and their time.

Putting Context Over Coordinates with New Location Encoding Standard

Context over coordinates. That’s the premise behind a new standard universal location ID called Placekey, which launches publicly today.

By offering a standard for identifying any physical place, the team behind Placekey is betting that advertisers and other data scientists will have an easier time joining disparate datasets and unlocking deeper insights. The platform was developed by SafeGraph, and it’s already been endorsed by heavy-hitters such as Esri, CARTO, Billups, Skyhook, and Nielsen.

How Marketers Should Prepare for an Abnormal Holiday Season

Marketers overuse the word “unique,” but the adjective actually applies to this year’s holiday season. Consumer-facing brands and retailers have not faced such an adverse economic environment for more than a decade, and they have never grappled with a Q4 in which driving customers to their stores came with daily, life-or-death stakes.

I spoke to Michele Marzan, chief strategy officer at MainAd, about these holidays’ unprecedented challenges and unexpected opportunities.

GroundTruth Uses Location Data to Reach ‘Pick-Up Loyalists’

GroundTruth has mapped more than 2,900 Walmart Online Grocery Pick-Up zones within Walmart parking lots, which means brands using GroundTruth’s technology can now build accurate custom audience segments comprised of these specific shoppers.

Expanding on that concept, brands should be able to send different mobile marketing pitches to consumers who are picking up groceries via Walmart+’s curbside program and consumers who are getting out of their cars and shopping in-store. GroundTruth’s technology turns location data on Walmart+ shoppers into useful consumer insights for brands.

How to Turbocharge Social and Email via Cross Promotion

At a time when marketers have limited resources to create new content, social posts and user-generated content can be a welcome addition to email marketing campaigns and newsletters. Email and social media can also be used to cross-promote, creating two sticky channels that drive home important messages. What’s more, while everyone is at home and online more than usual, marketers can get creative with new forms of social engagement over email, too.

Power of Influencers May Be Growing amid Pandemic

As many as 21% of consumers have made their first-ever influencer-driven purchase since the Covid-19 outbreak struck the US, according to new research by martech firm Valassis.

The firm speculates that this apparent increase in the power of influencers may be related to a boost in social media usage among consumers stuck at home.