News and Analysis
Inside the Last-Mile Delivery Crunch
High shipping costs, late deliveries, and lost or stolen packages aren’t uncommon during the busy holiday period, but this year feels different. The so-called shippageddon that retailers are bracing for is creating new worries and new opportunities for creative brands to rise to the top.
What Does the Arrival of Approximate Location Mean for Granular Ad Targeting?
Tucked into Android’s latest privacy update is a change that many marketers didn’t see coming. Smartphone owners with Android 12 or higher now have the option to share “approximate” location instead of precise location, restricting app developers from accessing their exact whereabouts in real-time.
Commentary
Transparency and Brand Purpose Dominated Cannes
The big topic of the week was industry change, driven largely by transparency. Agencies are evaluating opportunities and challenges to their business model as buyers demand more oversight of media, fees, and attribution. Increasing interest in ad tech in-housing has also stoked soul-searching.
Every brand also talked about reflecting an authentic, real world in its marketing—from the people in front of and behind the cameras, to creative and targeting strategies. The campaigns that seemed the most likely to succeed were all “purpose-centric,” with the brand rallying around a specific and common cause.
Studying the Relationship Between Phone Price and Income
The results of our study show that the more expensive your phone is, the more likely you are to come from a higher income bracket. Our model predicts that, for every dollar that the average price for a cell phone in a given zip code increases, the median income for that zip code will also increase by $122.70 — in other words, by a fairly significant amount.
In the Wake of Spam Reports, Google Focuses on Brand and Small Business Engagement
Google’s calculated risk in creating a low bar for verification works out fine in a world where most business owners simply want to gain legitimate access to their own listings, and most businesses do operate within those ethical boundaries. But as we’ve seen elsewhere at this stage in the evolution of social networks, fraud and deceptive manipulation have become a kind of ghost in the machine, dominating darker sectors of the local marketplace and creating an atmosphere of distrust that may eventually prove more broadly contagious.
All of this is only possible when lots of activity is consolidated on a few platforms. Just as fake accounts attempting to engineer the 2016 election thrived in the vast and complex Facebook ecosystem, so too has Google’s dominance in local attracted its own horde of opportunists, drawn like moths to its flame. Indeed, fraud in local listings is just the latest in a long history of attempts, from link farms to keyword spam, to manipulate loopholes in Google’s regulations and algorithms.
Latest Posts
From DNAinfo’s Ashes, Three News Vets Are Launching Their Phoenix in Chicago
The site’s non-billionaire founders aim to succeed with a radically different revenue strategy from their DNAinfo alma mater — their plan for domination does not include advertising. In this Q & A, director of strategy Jen Sabella tells how she and her partners are mapping a new way to make local news work.
Street Fight Daily: How to Spark Engagement on Instagram, DNAinfo Vets Launch New Pub
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… The Guardian’s Instagram Strategy is Winning New Readers… Ad Agencies Expect to Stand By Facebook As It Loses Younger Users… Snap Finally Gives Influencers Data on Their Followers’ Engagement…
Case Study: Crayola Overcomes Facebook Algorithm with Co-Created Content
Partnering with the in-product consumer sharing platform Vivoom, Crayola launched a holiday-focused campaign in the fourth-quarter of 2017. Consumers were encouraged to record videos of themselves, using a Crayola-branded filter, and then share those videos across social media as personalized holiday cards.
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Beyond Search: AI Visibility the New Growth Lever for MULO Brands