News and Analysis
MULO Brands With Soul: A New Mini-Series
The term “soul” is all relative. Many MULO (multi-location) brands today aim to stay in business and thrive. They incorporate new technologies into their operations, aim to hire and retain competent and loyal employees and ensure they are selling/serving the products/foods/services that today’s consumers want (and that their marketing is well-targeted and cost-effective). So, where […]
BOOM: Retail is Rising!
Shopping center occupancy rates have dropped for the first time in a decade. According to Cushman & Wakefield, the retail vacancy rate is 5.4%, as reported in the New York Times. The article goes on to report on new and expanded shopping centers and malls throughout the U.S. This is consistent with a recent Street Fight […]
Building Brand Trust Is Multi-Dimensional
In this post-truth era, when the public trust has eroded around news sources, government, healthcare institutions, and myriad other pillars of society, trust and authenticity are difficult to establish. Now add a layer of brand verticals. What happens to brand trust? Vevo, MAGNA, and media agency Initiative conducted a survey of 5,000 U.S. consumers this […]
Commentary
Hyperlocal Restaurant Advertising Hits CTV
Roku’s new partnership with DoorDash builds a channel for CTV advertising for local restaurants that already work with DoorDash. The multi-year deal in North America offers DoorDash merchants the ability to buy and deploy interactive and shoppable ads that let users click-to-order food deliveries on the spot.
4 Reasons to Hesitate Before Using AI to Create Content
AI can’t build a differentiated brand. It can’t capture the expertise of your thought leaders. And your customers are discerning enough to tell the difference between automated and human-written content. For all three of these reasons, organizations should at least hesitate before using AI to create content.
Latest Posts
Survey: Despite Data Privacy Fears, Consumers Eagerly Embrace AI to Save Money
Consumers are leery of many things, but artificial intelligence doesn’t appear to be one of them. That’s according to a new survey by UserTesting, which found that despite concerns over data privacy — and a general uneasiness about brands using their personal information without consent — the majority of Americans are eager to embrace AI […]
Yelp Launches Index to Combat Deceptive Reviews
With fraudulent reviews on the rise, Yelp is making a change. Since 2012, Yelp has placed more than 4,900 Compensated Activity Alerts and Suspicious Activity Alerts, but for consumers, it can be difficult — if not impossible — to tell which businesses are bad actors on the platform. Now, in an effort to combat the […]
Locality Says Start Your Election Spending
Election season will be here before you know it, and TV remains the star platform for political campaign media spending. According to AdImpact, political ad spending is projected to reach upwards of $10 billion in media spending, with TV (broadcast, cable, streaming, etc.) on track to rake in half of that number. Locality, a TV-advertising […]
Arity and Tapestri Drive2Earn Partnership to Revolutionize Data Sharing
A strategic partnership between Arity, a leading data and analytics company, and Tapestri, an app that rewards users for sharing their data, has the potential to transform the way millions of drivers perceive and harness the value of their own location data. Together, the two firms are launching Drive2Earn, a new feature available in the […]
BUST: A Hard Landing as Soft Surroundings Files for Bankruptcy
Here we go again…another beloved retailer shutters its brick-and-mortar operations. Soft Surroundings filed for bankruptcy this week. This MULO (multi-location) women’s clothing brand once had 80 locations physical locations (reduced to 44) and is now shuttering all of them. The company, which released its first catalog in 1999, also sold home goods and accessories. However, […]
Captify, Adform Partnership Creates First End-to-End Contextual Activation
A new partnership between the search intelligence firm Captify and Adform, a programmatic platform, is creating an industry-first end-to-end contextual activation that bypasses the need for cookie identifiers. The collaboration between the Captify and Adform enables privacy-first, audience-based programmatic buying for marketers, opening the door to greater scale across inventory pathways, which are often deprioritized […]
Touchdown! How MULO Brands Score During Football Season
Many retailers and restaurants already have their eyes on the December holidays and are filling the shelves with pumpkin spice everything and costumes. We understand that huge MULO (multi-location) chains have planned their inventory and marketing campaigns months in advance. Advertising, licensing deals, and other NFL football properties add a whopping $5B to the U.S. […]
5 Consumer-Permissioned Data Platforms to Watch
The concept of data privacy has taken center stage in 2023. As consumers grow more aware of the value of their personal information — and the potential risks associated with its misuse — a new paradigm that places power back into the hands of individuals is beginning to emerge. Consumer-permissioned data platforms are at the […]
Generative AI is Revolutionizing SMB Marketing, But Creating New Data Privacy Challenges
The AI revolution has just begun, and small business owners are already reaping the rewards. Ninety-one percent of SMBs currently using AI say the technology has made their businesses more successful, but Scorpion Chief Data Scientist Matt Bentley believes the greatest benefit to generative AI is below the surface, and not yet realized by many […]
LOMA Wants to Fund Hyperlocal Marketing
Alex Nocifera is the founder and CEO of LOMA, which launched in market this past July. Backed by top Los Angeles-based venture funds, Wavemaker, Slauson, and Impulsum, LOMA stands for “local marketing” and is an always-on, data-driven platform that has raised more than $2 million in a pre-seed venture-capital round. LOMA’s equity dollars help businesses […]
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