News and Analysis
Marketers Are Changing How They Think About OOH — Here’s Why
Location data is increasingly being used to help retailers target outdoor ads to specific groups of consumers, while the ability to combine artificial intelligence with advanced techniques like travel pattern analysis is giving brands an even better understanding of customer routes.
Commentary
Brand Safety During Rapidly Changing Times
Our country has gone through several critical moments in recent history, navigating our way through a pandemic and undergoing a racial and cultural revolution. We’re seeing support from individuals and organizations large and small, but we’re also starting to see some tone-deaf content or misaligned messages as well. With everything going on, brand marketers need to be present and smart in regard to where their messages go and what they’re saying.
Personalized Marketing is a Must Right Now
Today, marketers have the luxury of being able to see consumers through the entire advertising funnel, enabling them to target consumers based on where they are in the buying process — from introduction of a product all the way to purchase intent. Brands have the ability, either in-house or via third-party vendors, to create and target ads that scale cross-device and cross-channel, reducing repetition, eliminating ad fatigue, and enhancing consumer experience throughout the funnel.
They can, and should, A/B test different messages, offers, and calls to action in real time to determine what resonates with each consumer down to the color of the button that generates more engagement. Marketers can do all of this across programmatic display, video, social, on YouTube and over-the-top (OTT) TV. So, why aren’t they?
Latest Posts
Texting Allows Marketers to Reach Customers Where They Spend the Most Time
Seventy-six percent of consumers are already receiving texts from businesses, and a majority of consumers across all age groups would prefer that more businesses take up texting as a mode of communication, a new report from business text messaging platform ZipWhip indicates.
A whopping 83% of Gen-Z respondents and 82% of millennials said they “wish more businesses” would use texting. Even for older generations, that number made up a more than slight majority, including 76% of Gen-Xers and 64% of Baby Boomers.
The Retailpocalypse Doesn’t Have to Be Scary for Local Businesses
Headlines about retail closures suggest it’s Amazon’s world and we’re all just living in it, but there’s more to the story. For local businesses, in particular, there’s ample reason to be optimistic that the retail apocalypse doesn’t have to spell end times. In fact, exactly the opposite could be true. Let’s walk through a few of the reasons for optimism.
Alexa, Podcasts, and the Role of Voice in Today’s Marketing
The increasing popularity of smart speakers, digital assistants, and podcasts means we need to begin thinking differently about voice and marketing. That includes tailoring online content to users and how they engage with it, making voice functionality a part of the sales funnel, and creating podcasts or partnering with influencers to reach audiences in a new way. With the right approach, a creative brand could get a considerable head start in this new but quickly developing marketing landscape.
5 Consent Management Platforms for Brands and Publishers
For brands and publishers that work with multiple ad tech partners, the process of obtaining user consent for data processing is overwhelming. To simplify the workflow, publishers have started using consent management platforms (CMPs). Not only have CMPs been designed to help brands and publishers obtain and manage user consent, but they also help with monetizing users, even when users haven’t opted-in to sharing data.
CMPs were largely developed in response to the GDPR — most are built on the IAB’s transparency and consent framework — which means the systems themselves are still relatively young. Nonetheless, the popularity of this type of platform has led to a spring of new players entering the space. Here are five examples of CMPs on the market right now.
Google’s Fake Listings Problem Gets More Attention—and May Spur Regulation
Blumenthal to Mihm: It seems to me that Google could take the fake listings issue off the table by seriously investing in cleaning up the fake listing and fake review issue. I just don’t think that they think that way.
At a minimum, as the company that has the monopoly in the local space, Google faces the expectation and responsibility to provide a service that truly serves the public and businesses. And they seem to forget that.
Cannes Roundup: A Triad of Innovation is Capturing Advertisers’ Attention and Spend Right Now
This year, we saw the rise of three elements of technology-driven outcomes that, I’d suggest, represent a triad of innovation — and those elements are agility, speed, and the product-development capabilities to allow early-adopting brands to actually access emerging marketplaces (such as audio, as we saw this year). The first two terms are interconnected, and each fuels the drive for innovative products that big-name brands are beta-testing already.
Report: Fake Google Maps Listings Ensnare Consumers, Harm Legitimate Businesses
“Chronic” local listings fraud on Google Maps, where con artists pose as handymen and other local service providers, sometimes stealing the names of legitimate operations, is endangering consumers and sucking business away from viable local businesses, the Wall Street Journal reported.
As Google seeks to prop up its lucrative but “cresting” search business and consolidate its lead in local, the tech giant is struggling to address the fraud issue and perhaps even to care about it.
LBMA Vidcast: Square Adds DoorDash and Postmates
On this week’s Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: AppNexus rebrands to Xandr Invest with AT&T data, Cerebro Platform hyperlocal DOOH, Welcome travel itinerary app, McDonald’s McNugget experience in the UK, Square adds DoorDash & Postmates, iOS 13 to be much more location-sharing friendly.
OOH Emerges as Strong Digital Channel for CPGs
Consumer-packaged goods shoppers trust out-of-home advertisements more than those delivered on any other channel, a new report on CPGs and advertising from Vistar Media and MFour indicates. Fifty-three percent of consumers say they trust the content in OOH ads, more than any other single medium.
Why Startups Should Aim to Partner with Larger Companies
If not to scale up quickly and earn unicorn status, what should startups be aiming to achieve? In essence, the answer is sustainable growth, and in recent years we have seen founders look to corporate partnerships as a viable way of achieving this. Corporate-startup partnerships are collaborations where an established company enters into a mutually beneficial relationship with an agile startup.
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