News and Analysis
Lamar Launches $2M Ronald McDonald House DOOH Partnership
As Digital Out of Home (DOOH) continues evolving beyond traditional billboard advertising, media operators are increasingly positioning their networks as flexible, community-connected platforms capable of supporting both brand performance and large-scale public awareness initiatives. This week, Lamar Advertising announced a yearlong partnership with Ronald McDonald House, committing more than $2 million in donated digital Out […]
Dollar General Launches Unified Retail Media Platform
Retail media has expanded rapidly, but for most brands and agencies, it remains fragmented. Onsite retail ads and offsite media campaigns are still planned, executed, and measured in separate systems, leaving marketers to piece together performance after the fact. A new collaboration between Dollar General, Kevel, and The Trade Desk aims to change that by […]
What If You Could Target Mindset, Not Just Location?
As identity signals fade, brands and agencies are being forced to rethink how they target and convert audiences at scale. Seedtag’s NeuroX introduces a new approach, using AI to understand mindset not just location, potentially reshaping how local campaigns drive measurable outcomes. If you are a multi-location brand looking to interact with customers while they’re […]
Commentary
Why AI Describes Locations Differently
Picture two locations of the same quick-service restaurant brand, both in the same metro area, both with solid review scores, both with optimized Google Business Profiles. Yet when you ask ChatGPT to recommend a spot in each of their respective neighborhoods, one location gets highlighted at the beginning of the AI-generated response with specific dish […]
Reviews Are Now a Growth System for Multi-Location Brands
For years, many multi-location brands treated reviews as a reputation issue. Something to monitor. Something to clean up. Something to escalate when a location had a public problem. That framing is outdated. Reviews now sit much closer to performance than many brands still acknowledge. They influence whether a customer trusts a location enough to call, book, […]
AI Won’t Fix Advertising – It May Scale Its Chaotic Nature
Once again, the advertising industry is in the midst of a technological gold rush. The current hype around AI reflects a familiar pattern: sweeping claims, breathless predictions and a rush to declare that it will finally “fix” everything. It won’t. While AI has transformative potential, it isn’t a cure-all to some of advertising’s biggest problems. […]
Latest Posts
Brand Ad Spend Is Moving Into Mobile Apps
Brand advertising is shifting beyond the open web—and mobile apps are emerging as a key destination. LoopMe’s launch of Chartboost Direct reflects that transition, introducing infrastructure designed to connect brand demand directly with in-app inventory at scale. LoopMe announced Chartboost Direct as a solution to help mobile app publishers access brand advertising demand more directly, […]
AI Won’t Fix Advertising – It May Scale Its Chaotic Nature
Once again, the advertising industry is in the midst of a technological gold rush. The current hype around AI reflects a familiar pattern: sweeping claims, breathless predictions and a rush to declare that it will finally “fix” everything. It won’t. While AI has transformative potential, it isn’t a cure-all to some of advertising’s biggest problems. […]
Real-Time Ad Market Intelligence Arrives Built on Verified Spend Data
Advertising market intelligence is shifting toward real-time visibility. Guideline has launched Market Monitor™, a new weekly insights subscription built entirely on verified, transaction-level advertising spend data—giving agencies, brands, and investors a faster, clearer view of global media investment trends. As media buying becomes more dynamic, the move reflects a broader shift toward data-driven decisions grounded […]
Flamel.ai Launches Luna to Fix Franchise Marketing Execution
For years, franchise and multi-location brands have faced a persistent breakdown between strategy and execution. Corporate teams build campaigns designed to scale nationally, but at the local level, those franchise marketing campaigns often fragment—deployed inconsistently, delayed, or not executed at all. This week, Flamel.ai introduced a platform designed to close that gap. The company announced […]
Weather Is Reshaping Marketing – How Brands Are Turning Storms Into Sales
When weather shifts, consumer intent spikes and brands that adapt messaging in real time are capturing the most valuable moments to drive action. Spring is trying to spring in the Northeast but so far, the vibes have been reluctant. But that doesn’t hinder weather-reactive marketing; it presents new opportunities for warm-weather retail activities and products. […]
AI Is Rewriting Media Planning – Basis’ Compass Turns Briefs Into Campaigns in Minutes
Media planning is entering its fastest transformation in decades. What once took days (or weeks) of assembling briefs, analyzing data, and building presentations is now being compressed into minutes as agentic AI in advertising automates the core of AI media planning. That shift is now operational. With Compass, Basis has introduced an AI advertising platform that […]
Meta Is Automating Ads, But Brands Still Face a Bigger Problem
Meta is automating ad execution, but the bigger problem for brands remains unresolved: deciding where to invest across channels to actually drive growth. The era of needing specialist teams to manage campaign execution is ending. Platforms are taking over more of that work, handling campaign construction, delivery optimization, and in-flight management within their own environments. […]
Why Restaurant PR Matters for Local Growth
A great PR campaign can make or break the future of a restaurant location. But in the case of multi-location restaurant brands, this requires strong collaboration between local or franchise leadership and the overall brand to ensure a consistent, coordinated effort. The unique challenges of restaurant PR Running a PR campaign for a restaurant is […]
Your Locations Show Up in AI – But Are They Recommended?
A consumer asks an AI assistant for a local business recommendation near one of your locations. Your brand location appears in the response. By most current measures, that’s a win — and it is. But for MULO marketers managing local search performance for dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of locations, presence in AI-generated responses is […]
Klaviyo’s New AI Agent Builds Full Campaigns From a Single Prompt
AI is rapidly changing how marketing gets done and Klaviyo is pushing that shift further by introducing tools that can generate and execute entire campaigns from a single prompt. With its new Composer feature and expanded AI agents, the company is moving toward a model where marketers define outcomes and software handles the execution. Klaviyo’s […]
Street Fight’s Big 3
Street Fight Columns
Street Fight Categories
AI Is a Multiplier: Why Better Data Drives Better Results