News and Analysis
Grocers Grapple with Reaching Middle-Market Shoppers
Of all the categories of retail shoppers, one stands out as being particularly difficult to reach — the middle-market shopper. Neither price sensitive nor premium, middle-market shoppers are unpersuaded by the availability of cheaper or more sustainable options. To engage this elusive group, one-to-one marketing is the only reliable option.
Commentary
Blocking Third-Party Cookies Will Not Mean the End of Marketing Attribution
The demise of third-party cookies will not mean the end of digital advertising and the ability to assign proper attribution to individuals engaging in various touchpoints along the buyer journey. Several entities are currently hashing out other methodologies brands can leverage to retrieve audience analytics.
Marketing attribution providers will continue to provide reliable data to enterprise marketers on consumers and their customer journeys through the sales funnel. Attribution providers worth their salt will not only make sure they are compliant with the tightened rules around cookies but also ensure their clients are following the letter of the law.
Ditch the Department Store: How DTC Brands Take Back Control
We are anticipating monumental online sales volume for brands with the approaching holiday season. To capitalize on this transition to online shopping, DTC (direct-to-consumer) brands must take back control of their sales channels. DTC brands can’t control whether big-box retailers open their storefronts or the number of consumers they allow inside. They also can’t manage the customer experience with the brand, especially given the many variables Covid-19 has thrown at brick-and-mortar retail.
The one thing brands can control is their online sales channel.
Location Weekly: Burger King and Wawa Innovate for Covid Era
In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association covers Wawa launching drive-through-only convenience stores, Waze launching contactless gas payments at Shell and Exxon Mobil, Burger King printing customer orders on face masks, and Heineken launching its “Star of the Summer” campaign at Tesco UK.
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Heard on the Street, Episode 34: ‘Drive-to-Store’ Marketing, with Teemo
Location intelligence has become an important but crowded sub-sector of local media and commerce. When it comes to value for retail brands, marketing tactics are all about driving (and measuring) foot traffic. This is where Paris-based location marketing and analytics company Teemo continues to innovate.
As we discussed with CEO Benoit Grouchko on the latest episode of Heard on the Street, the company works with multi-location brands like JoAnn Stores to boost return on ad spend by growing physical foot traffic.
Constant Contact Expands Beyond Email, Adds Website Builder for SMBs
Constant Contact, known for its email marketing platform, is expanding to offer an AI-driven website builder as well as tools for branding, productivity, and e-commerce. It’s the first major expansion for Constant Contact since its acquisition by Endurance International Group.
The company’s new website builder is specifically designed for SMB owners and operators without the time or expertise typically required to build an effective site from scratch. Constant Contact claims sites can be created in minutes.
Is Consent Enough to Make Audio Recordings Safe for Human Processing?
Recently, a number of high-profile tech firms have been uncovered permitting human employees to access private conversations consumers believed were only processed by AI.
Google Assistant, Siri, Cortana, and Amazon’s Alexa have all been placed in the limelight, and now Facebook has also come under fire for letting human employees access sensitive personal conversations for transcription purposes.
In the case of AI assistants, private conversations are primarily harvested from consumers who own and use their devices directly. However, there is an emerging body of evidence that these technologies are also harvesting secondary persons’ conversations — completely unknown to those individuals.
Shift in Gift-Giving Culture Speaks to Changes in Digital Commerce
At the heart of the shift in gift-giving culture is the rise of online shopping. While previous generations would take to their local shops or markets to find the perfect gifts, today the process is infinitely simpler thanks to online retail giants like Amazon. At the click of a button, Internet users can purchase a present to be sent directly to their (or, even better, the recipient’s) door. Indeed, this is how the majority of people appear to be approaching gift giving today; approximately three quarters of consumers in the UK say they now buy more than half of their Christmas presents online.
Captivate and Hivestack Partner to Expand Programmatic DOOH Ads
Location-based digital video network Captivate and location-based mar tech company Hivestack are teaming up to expand access to programmatic digital out-of-home ads, the companies announced.
Hivestack’s marketplace and ad exchange will allow customers to buy video inventory on Captivate, which will bring engaging video ads to offices across North America. Captivate offers a professional audience of particularly high interest to marketers.
Google Accelerating Its Path to the Transaction Layer of the Internet
Mihm to Blumenthal: Our mutual friend and Local U speaker Cindy Krum has long highlighted Google’s ambition to become the “presentation layer of the internet.”
It’s been apparent for the last four years that they want to take that one step further and become the “transaction layer of the internet,” as we’ve discussed in this space before.
A little birdie told me that you’re seeing that ambition accelerate.
How Retailers Use AI, Mapping to Boost ROI on Store Remodels
Walmart, Walgreens, and Sephora are all using artificial intelligence technology to improve the retail experience. While the majority of use cases for AI in retail have focused on enhancing the shopping experience for customers, forward-thinking analytics firms are innovating and developing new uses for their existing AI technology.
The analytics firm Fractal Analytics is pushing forward in the retail space with its own solution that relies on AI to forecast the cost of retail store remodels, as well as determine the ROI from large-scale renovation projects. Although Fractal works solely with Fortune 500 companies, the solutions it is developing could be adopted more broadly throughout the retail space.
Google Hit With Another $500+ Million Fine
Google is in the news for the wrong reasons again. The search giant agreed to pay a 500 million euro fine (about $550 million) to settle a French fiscal fraud probe after investigators in the country accused it of dodging taxes, Reuters reported.
Google’s headquarters are in Dublin, Ireland, where it settles all sales contracts to avoid paying higher taxes in the rest of Europe. Alphabet isn’t the only company to take advantage of tax loopholes to avoid paying its fair share; Apple and Facebook also have large operations there.
Uber Pledges to Fight California Contractor Bill
Uber and Lyft are already losing billions of dollars, and long-term concerns about whether they will ever hit profitability have endured, making for relatively weak runs on the public market. If the companies cannot come close to profitability with cheap labor forces without benefits, having to treat drivers as employees could pose an existential threat. At the very least, it may require Uber and Lyft to slow down expansion and rein in their ambitions, suggesting that the heyday (or hallucinatory days) of Web 2.0 could be coming to a close.
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