News and Analysis

App Science Audiences Deliver Higher Attention Than CTV Averages, Study Finds

App Science Audiences Deliver Higher Attention Than CTV Averages, Study Finds

As connected TV shifts from a reach-first channel to a performance-driven medium, attention … not impressions … is emerging as the metric advertisers care about most. New research from TVision suggests that CTV effectiveness is increasingly shaped by audience strategy, not just premium inventory labels. The study found that campaigns using App Science audience segments […]

Basis and Mediaocean Aim to Automate the Full Media Lifecycle

Basis and Mediaocean Aim to Automate the Full Media Lifecycle

In an advertising ecosystem increasingly defined by fragmentation, operational complexity, and rising pressure for accountability, automation has moved from incremental improvement to strategic necessity. That shift is at the heart of a new integration partnership between Basis and Mediaocean, which together are seeking to automate the entire media lifecycle , from planning and activation through […]

Think National, Speak Local: Why Content Localization Drives Brand Trust

Think National, Speak Local: Why Content Localization Drives Brand Trust

Brands earn attention when they sound like they belong. For national organizations, that sense of belonging doesn’t happen by accident. Content localization is the bridge between a big brand promise and a personal, community-level connection. It’s how a national healthcare message resonates in a small-town clinic, or how a nonprofit mission becomes a topic of […]

Commentary

Streets Ahead: ChatGPT for Search and Google Local Ranking Guidelines

Streets Ahead: ChatGPT for Search and Google Local Ranking Guidelines

In this week’s Streets Ahead update, SOCi discusses ChatGPT becoming a mainstream search tool, Google revising local search ranking guidelines and updating Business Profiles with social links. Adobe Study: 77% of Americans Use ChatGPT for Search The News  A recent Adobe survey of 800 consumers and 200 marketers reveals that ChatGPT is becoming a mainstream […]

What the Rise of AI Shopping Agents Mean for the Future of Marketing Strategy

What the Rise of AI Shopping Means for the Future of Marketing Strategy

A shift is underway in the world of digital commerce and media, and its implications go far beyond channel optimization or creative placement. Publishers and marketers alike are beginning to recognize the transformational potential of AI-powered shopping agents, not just as a user interface, but as a new ecosystem altogether. We are no longer just […]

Franchise Marketing Needs a New Playbook for the Post-Promo Era

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 […]

Latest Posts

B-to-B Takes on Cannes

B-to-B Takes on Cannes

Cannes Lions claims to be the world’s largest gathering of the advertising and creative communications industry. Agencies, CPG brands, and related companies have long made the trip to France to connect, accept awards, party, and (of course) brag on social media that they attended. This year, we saw many B-to-B companies cross the Atlantic to […]

Impact.com & The Rise of Partner-Led Marketing

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, […]

Experian and MEdia.net Amping up real-time contextual search intent

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

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

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 StreetFight

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

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"

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

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!

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 […]