News and Analysis
The Challenge of Brand Alignment with Social Issues
Increasingly, brands with high public visibility must articulate their positions on issues the public cares about while avoiding the appearance of exploiting public sentiment for purposes of self-promotion. And whether or not a formal statement makes sense on every issue, companies should be prepared for the day when a consumer comes to them to ask a question or offer feedback about a brand’s actions or values, perhaps in the form of a social post that is there for all to see.
GumGum Helps Marketers Reach Gamers with Intrinsic In-Game Ads
A new partnership between the contextual-first digital ad platform GumGum and Frameplay, a company that enables intrinsic in-game advertising, could give multi-location brands a way to reach gamers in select markets while also enhancing the playing experience for those seeking more in-game rewards.
Can Apple’s Room Plan Bring Visual Commerce to Local Businesses?
The AR world’s disappointment about smart glasses in the wake of WWDC has overshadowed the fact that there were notable AR developments at the event. Besides subtle signals throughout, Apple announced a new mobile room-scanning tool known as RoomPlan that could democratize AR creation.
Commentary
Follow the Money: Will Wearables Inflect in 2020?
Apple is far ahead with Watch and Airpods, which may have sold 3 million units since Black Friday. Google meanwhile acquired Fitbit to buttress its wearables play. Amazon and Microsoft launched wearables lines in the past quarter, and smaller players like Bose and Snap are planting seeds for a wearables future.
There’s an underlying driver for this activity that goes back to the perennial analyst exercise of “following the money.” This is all about extrapolating product roadmaps based on tech giants’ motivations. This is often to future-proof their core businesses or diversify revenue in the face of maturing products.
For Luxury Brands, The Possibilities of Programmatic Cannot Be Ignored
For luxury brands, creating customer relationships, and the revenues they bring, is everything. A $25,000 watch or $150,000 vehicle is rarely an impulse buy but instead a purchase achieved after many different points of engagement.
Programmatic advertising is taking an increasingly higher percentage of all ad budgets, and luxury brands and their marketing efforts need to hop on board with this trend. Digital advertising has the power to use contextual targeting and select first-party data to find the right audiences at the right times and in the right places, no matter how high-echelon the product.
LBMA Vidcast: 7-Eleven Launches Mobile Voice Ordering, Adidas Tests AR Instagram
On this week’s Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: 7-Eleven launching mobile voice ordering, Adidas testing AR Instagram in London, Amex launching a mobile restaurant booking app, Augmented Reality wine labeling with Winerytale app, Toys R Us first in Canada to use Snapchats Portal Lens, and Factual introducing predictive & loyalty audiences.
Latest Posts
Simon Data Scores $20 Million for Big Data-Based Campaign Orchestration
Customer data platform Simon Data is announcing this morning $20 million in Series B venture funding. Led by Polaris Partners, the round will help Simon grow as it seeks to convince marketers that it offers solutions no other CDP can.
Cedato Releases Contextual Programmatic Video Targeting Tool For the GDPR Era
The machine learning-based tool, branded as Contextual Lookalike Targeting technology, relies on successful patterns of past video marketing campaigns (hence: contextual lookalike) to deliver future campaigns at ideal times and places based on an advertiser’s preferred KPIs.
Google’s Path to Becoming the Transaction Layer of the Web
“Google is controlling the entire local experience—discovery, presentation, and transaction—and there’s just nowhere for agencies to add value, or make any money from that value,” David Mihm tells Mike Blumenthal in their biweekly column.
LBMA Podcast: Uber, Hyundai & Amazon, Compass
On this week’s Location Based Marketing Association podcast: Compass, Taiwan’s STOMAP, Grocery app Cooklist, Diageo goes AR with Bulleit bourbon, Hyundai + Amazon, Uber’s new features, and HERE teams up with Locomizer.
Google Updates Search to Recommend Local Events Based on User Interests
Google is bringing the personalization zeitgeist to local event recommendations. The company reported on its blog Thursday that it is releasing a series of new features that will make it easier for users to find essential information about events of interest to them right on search engine result pages.
Raise Report: SessionM, Perch, Pointy Secure New Funding
Every two or three weeks, we round up some of the biggest fundraises taking place in hyperlocal marketing, commerce, and tech. This week’s edition includes funding for Mention Me, Standard Cognition, Cogito, and Dialpad.
Hires and Openings at Blis, TruMeasure, and Adzuna
Every two or three weeks, Street Fight rounds up some of the latest hires and new openings in the hyperlocal marketing, tech, and media industries. This week’s edition includes moves and openings at Broadly, Cedato, Magisto, SiteSwan, and New York Magazine.
Street Fight Daily: Google Is Disrupting Local Event Discovery; Amazon Teams with Yext to Empower Local Businesses
TOP STORIES IN LOCAL & DIGITAL MARKETING… Google Updates Search to Recommend Local Events Based on User Interests… Amazon Expands Alexa’s Brain With Yext Business Services… Advertising Helps Push Amazon’s Quarterly Profit to $2.5 Billion…
Street Fight Daily: Facebook Feels the Impact of Its Scandals; GrubHub Acquires LevelUp
TOP STORIES IN DIGITAL MARKETING… At Last, Facebook Feels the Impact of Its Errors… GrubHub Acquires Payments and Loyalty Company LevelUp for $390 Million… Top Lesson for News Sites in SF Innovation Tour: Identify Users and Win Them Over One by One…
After Nearly Two Years in the Hot Seat, Facebook Feels the Burn
In its Q2 earnings report, the social giant reported that growth has stalled in the United States and Canada, its most valuable markets. And its overall user growth for the quarter of just 22 million users is the smallest jump since 2011, indicating that a slowdown in revenue growth will likely prove a long-term challenge in the years ahead.
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