News and Analysis
The New Face of Local Businesses: A Conversation with Yelp
In the local media and commerce sectors, we continue to see rapid product evolution as well as maturation in the companies that deliver those products. But as that unfolds, we’re also tracking another evolution: that of local businesses themselves. How are they advancing in terms of marketing and operational software adoption?
Brands Test Both Luxury and Accessible Metaverse Marketing Campaigns
Luxury fashion brands like Gucci and sports retailers like Nike are selling digital versions of popular real-world products for thousands of dollars in the metaverse, and the fast-fashion retailer Forever 21 is selling products in Roblox that cost less than $1 each. The high/low approach is just one of many being tested by big name brands.
Commentary
The Largest 2020 Ecommerce Driver is Global Expansion
Ecommerce is now a staple in everyday life, so much so that Americans spent $154.5 billion online in the third quarter of 2019, according to a US Census estimate. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced business for the near future to be almost completely online.
While this transition will take some getting used to, it also affords the opportunity to reach across conventional borders. We’ve moved beyond the novelty of being able to buy something online and receive it quickly. As we look to what the next 25 years have in store, continued success in the ecommerce world depends on superior customer experience — meeting customers where they are and when they need it most.
In Times of Crisis, There’s Still Value in the Gig Economy
The pandemic-driven economic shutdown is also affecting the estimated 57 million Americans who make their living, or supplement their income, as members of the gig economy. While some freelancers and side hustlers may feel secure, full-time gig economy drivers certainly do not. Covid-19 has numerous implications for the gig economy, including some that will last even after all the dust settles. Let’s sort through them.
Navigating Social Media Marketing in a Global Crisis
What is the role of brands in facilitating this connection? A recent report shows that 91% of people believe in social media’s power to connect people, and 78% of consumers want brands to use social media to help people connect with each other. Those numbers send a clear message to companies as they navigate a crisis that is so much bigger than their brands: create connection through relevance.
But the question is how brands can achieve relevance right now. How can you create meaningful connections on social media during a global crisis? Here are a few tips.
Latest Posts
Why Ad Tech Needs to Shift Toward a Managed-Service Model
Alexandra Theriault: The expense of in-housing and the programmatic talent shortage are long-term issues. Currently, in-housing runs contrary to the general trend of reliance on outsourcing and on-demand technologies (like SAAS) that allow businesses to focus on their core competencies instead of wasting resources on peripheral concerns. That’s why, although it might seem like the market is going to a self-service model, for many marketers it’s not the most practical or efficient option.
Brandify, PlaceIQ, Simpli.fi Among 2019 LSA Ad-to-Action Award Finalists
The Local Search Association announced this week a slate of 20 finalists for its annual awards celebrating the best in local and online-to-offline marketing. Among more than 80 submissions, the finalists have been recognized for their outstanding work in such categories as reputation management, SMB software, and local search.
While Sales Growth Rate Slows, Amazon Marketplace, Cloud, and Ad Businesses Point to Long-Term Prosperity
For brands hoping to compete with Amazon (and potentially looking on with relief at a sign of fallibility from their digital rival), the company’s earnings report brings the news that Amazon Marketplace, where third-party sellers can reach customers, is doing more than twice as much in sales as Amazon’s first-party retail platform. Marketplace is troubled by bad practices and fake reviews, and its prosperity suggests the growing challenge for brands to get customers to even go to their sites at a time when Amazon is essentially the homepage of the commerce-oriented Internet.
As Voice Gets Established, Brands Grapple with Implementation
Consumer demand for voice technology has never been greater, and industry heavyweights like Google and Amazon are gearing up for a platform war as they work to integrate voice assistants into virtually every area of the connected consumer’s life. But behind the scenes, many brand marketers are struggling to connect the dots and design campaigns around a technology they don’t fully understand.
Apple Takes Advantage of Facebook’s Foul Play to Make a Privacy Statement
Not only did Facebook’s “Research” app, which paid 13- to 35-year-old users $20/month to access their search history, emails, and private messages, set off every imaginable alarm on the this-will-look-bad-when-the-exposé-comes-out PR radar (one of the world’s most powerful corporations must be lacking one of those), but the app also blatantly violated the terms of Apple’s Enterprise Developer Program, which proscribes distributing apps to consumers. It probably didn’t help that Facebook was searching tweens’ data for dirt on its competitors.
Privacy, Poor Management, and Sex Scandals Can’t Touch the Duopoly’s Ad Growth—Yet
It will likely take a significant downturn in spending or overall economic well-being for Big Tech to feel some major financial pain. And while great for Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple, that’s got to be concerning for industry watchdogs wondering whether these businesses are too entrenched in digital search, advertising, and commerce to be challenged—because the past year was not hot for Silicon Valley, and yet the presses keep printing dollars.
Building the Location Layer: A Conversation with Foursquare
Last week, location technology company Foursquare announced its new Pinpoint audience segments product. Building from its large corpus of data on places, spatial movements and behavioral patterns, Pinpoint represents the latest in Foursquare’s evolution as the “location layer,” for the internet. We got the chance to sit down with Foursquare CEO Jeff Glueck in San Francisco to find out more. Here is the full interview.
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