News and Analysis
Reveal Mobile Launches OOH Measurement Platform
The location intelligence and geofencing marketing software company Reveal Mobile launched a self-service out of home measurement platform this morning. The platform delivers insights for “traditional, digital, place-based, programmatic, and moving OOH ad campaigns,” according to the company.
GumGum Partners with Xandr on Transparent Ad Solution
With growing demand for cookieless targeting solutions, the contextual-first global digital advertising platform GumGum announced a partnership with Xandr on an accredited cookieless solution for advertisers. Xandr now becomes the first major DSP to offer GumGum’s contextual intelligence technology, Verity, to allow brands to ensure their ads are placed in contextually relevant environments.
How Local Human-Driven Outreach is Helping Multi-Location Restaurants Grow Sales
Seeing first-hand the challenges that restaurants are facing as the founder and CEO of the digital marketing startup Field Day, Alex Nocifera recently rolled out a local subscription service that uses human-to-human connections to help restaurant brands manage local sales opportunities for catering. The program is primarily aimed at local franchise operators, offering last-mile marketing outreach to drive demand.
Commentary
The Ghost in the Machine: Google Gamifies Machine Learning
David Mihm to Mike Blumenthal: As for our Halloween topic, a spooky good SEO, Scott Hendison, tweeted a link over the weekend that I found fascinating: https://crowdsource.google.com. Even for those of us who are used to these kinds of initiatives coming from Google, it’s the most brazen public effort we’ve seen to train their machine learning algorithm via user contributions across a whole range of data types.
Mike: It is certainly brazen. There is NO attempt to bury this as an activity within some other program like their Captcha. It’s a gamification of their ML plain and simple, and if I know Google, the reward will be either insignificant or worse: a discount on some “premium product” (i.e., an ad).
From Personal To Individual: Why Engaging Unique Consumers Requires Unique Communication
People everywhere receive “personalized” emails daily from brands greeting them by their first names. For a long time, brands have assumed this conveys genuine care for each customer. It’s certainly not the case anymore. Technology has evolved, and consumer expectations have risen to such a level that marketers must do much more. It’s no longer about saying, “We know you,” but rather, “We understand you.” To do this requires a major shift from personalization to individualization.
It may sound relatively straightforward, but what this shift entails and how companies can incorporate individualization in their everyday communications presents a whole new set of challenges.
The Art of Making a Retail Holiday
From Black Friday and Cyber Monday to back-to-school sales, retail holidays may be arbitrary, but they have become a core component of successful sales and marketing strategies. As a result of their success, these holidays are becoming expected, fixtures of the retail industry embedded in its collective psyche. Companies must innovate to keep them fresh. Brands need to monitor competitors to see what works and what doesn’t work and tweak their strategies appropriately.
Data on successful “holiday” campaigns reveal how to make the most of holidays, whether long-established or freshly innovated.
Latest Posts
Facebook’s Perennial ‘Potential’ in Local
“In Facebook’s pivot to focusing on person-to-person communications and its strong emphasis on messaging, is there an implicit concession that the company will not make Facebook itself the center of its local effort?” Mike Blumenthal asks in this week’s biweekly column with David Mihm.
Gauging the Opportunity to Replace Local Merchants’ Websites
We asked respondents what they used their sites for, and, considering the functions they deemed most important, whether they could replace them with a list of suggested companies and platforms. Facebook’s company pages and Google’s enriched listings topped the list.
Street Fight Daily: Facebook’s Static Local ‘Potential,’ SMBs Assess Options to Replace Websites
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook’s Perennial ‘Potential’ in Local… Gauging the Opportunity to Replace Local Merchants’ Websites… Global Ad Spend Is Set for Monster Growth in 2018…
LBMA Podcast: Walmart, Target, LinkedIN
Featured on this week’s edition of the Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: LEGO + Grand Visual, LinkedIN, Vyking shoes, Walmart, Target, HERE + Decawave, LBMA D/A/CH.
Why Google Decided Phone Calls Are the Key to Google Assistant’s Future Success
Among all the new AI-driven capabilities Google could’ve bestowed on its powerful Assistant, the company decided to focus on one capability in particular: a phone call.
Parking Startup’s Solution Keeps Shoppers In-Store Longer
Retailers have spent millions strategizing about which location-based marketing and cross-channel personalization tactics are most successful in increasing dwell times, but a startup based out of Miami thinks the answer retailers are looking for is actually right outside their front doors.
Street Fight Daily: Foursquare’s Machine Learning-Based Attribution, Duopoly’s Damage Control
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Spotify, TGI Friday’s Enlist Foursquare for Machine Learning-Backed Measurement… Facebook Demands Advertisers Have Consent for Email/Phone Targeting… Google Reboots Advertising Tools to Give Users More Control Over Their Data…
As Grocery Shopping Evolves, Supermarkets Partner with Meal Kit Services
By offering meal kit services within their stores, brick-and-mortar chains are disrupting the traditional supermarket model and giving themselves a better chance at competing with giants like Amazon.
Listen Up! Voice Makes Itself Heard in Delivery of Local News
“Voice is still in its early innings, but Edison Research data on smart speakers shows that the top things people are calling for is news. That’s enough for me to know that the time to get moving on this is right now,” says Amplifi Media CEO Steve Goldstein.
Street Fight Daily: Voice Disrupts Local News Delivery, Grocers Partner with Meal Kits
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Listen Up! Voice Makes Itself Heard in Delivery of Local News… As Grocery Shopping Evolves, Supermarkets Partner with Meal Kit Services… Apple’s App Store Privacy Crackdown May Hurt Facebook’s Onavo…
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Meta Is Automating Ads, But Brands Still Face a Bigger Problem