News and Analysis
Retailers Use AI to Mine Social Data for Back-to-School Trends
Students across the country are returning to the classroom this month — some for the first time in more than a year. While early indications show strong late-summer back-to-school sales, retailers aren’t leaving anything up to chance. Widespread confusion around health policies, safety protocols, and required supplies that can vary by school are leading retailers to rely on social media and artificial intelligence to collect information on emerging themes and trends.
Commentary
LBMA Vidcast: Square Adds DoorDash and Postmates
On this week’s Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: AppNexus rebrands to Xandr Invest with AT&T data, Cerebro Platform hyperlocal DOOH, Welcome travel itinerary app, McDonald’s McNugget experience in the UK, Square adds DoorDash & Postmates, iOS 13 to be much more location-sharing friendly.
Why Startups Should Aim to Partner with Larger Companies
If not to scale up quickly and earn unicorn status, what should startups be aiming to achieve? In essence, the answer is sustainable growth, and in recent years we have seen founders look to corporate partnerships as a viable way of achieving this. Corporate-startup partnerships are collaborations where an established company enters into a mutually beneficial relationship with an agile startup.
Brand Safety is a Brand Authenticity Problem
Marketers know that in a world of globalized competition, consumers are one click away from choosing a different product or service. Taking a stand can help brands appear righteous and earn consumer loyalty, which is why brand safety scandals necessitate a massive and speedy PR response. However, responding to or apologizing for such scandals can only be perceived as authentic the first time around—not the second time, and definitely not the third. The endless cycle of brand safety scandals reveals one of two things about today’s brands—they’re either lemmings, or they don’t really care about brand values.
Latest Posts
#SFSW18: Closing the Location Attribution Loop
Cameron Peebles, CMO of InMarket, emphasized that data should not just be used for attribution — to prove past ad placements have worked — but also to predict future consumer patterns and increase long-term marketing success. “Consumers don’t live their lives in points; they live their lives in patterns,” Peebles said.
Out of Its Rocky Recent Past, Philly.com Seeks to Be ‘Indispensable’
Philadelphia Media Network is building its future around a reorganized and united news operation that aims to produce more engaging editorial content with fewer editors and reporters and sell the package to readers of Philly.com for $2.99 a week after 10 free views. We recently caught up with PMN Editor and VP Gabriel Escobar to discuss this strategy.
Street Fight Daily: Mobile/Social/Video Dominate Ad Spending, Facebook’s Missing Video Metrics
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Trifecta of Mobile, Social, and Video Thrives While Print Declines… How Do We Measure Facebook’s Video Biz? It Still Hasn’t Told Us… For Third Oldest American Retailer, More Data and Business Hasn’t Meant More Advertising…
What Alignable’s New Trust Ratings Mean for Loyalty Vendors
Based on the results in Alignable’s 2018 Q1 Small Business Trust Index, the three least trusted categories of vendors include legal, hiring and people management, and loyalty and rewards. Alignable’s findings were based on Net Promoter Score ranges and averages for each products and services category.
Q&A: Does Google’s Latest Product Mean Death by a Thousand Cuts for Brands
Google really left businesses hanging with the Q&A release, Mike BLumenthal tells David Mihm in their biweekly column: “We had enough engineering cycles that we could “step into the breach” of what is obviously a big brand problem. Whether it is long term or not depends on what Google can parse from the questions in terms of improving results. “
Selling to Multi-Location Brands: Sizing Up the Prospects
Multi-location brands have been a little slower to embrace digital technologies in support of their local marketing and advertising than SMBs, but that’s changing pretty fast. The biggest of those companies still tend to be a little conservative, but they’re shifting digital spending towards local and adopting a broader variety of tactics.
Street Fight Daily: Google Tests DIY Local-News App, Twitter Adds New Ad Tactic for Brands
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Is Testing a New App That Would Let Anyone Publish Local News Stories… Twitter Now Lets Advertisers Sponsor Publishers’ Moments… Morgan Stanley Says Amazon’s Red-Hot Ad Biz Not a Threat to Duopoly…
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