News and Analysis
6 Retail Tech Solutions for Addressing Labor Shortages
Retail technology platforms that may have been overlooked before the pandemic are now coming into focus as businesses begin to understand their true value. Using a combination of artificial intelligence, machine learning, IoT, and big data, a number of startups have started positioning their platforms as possible solutions to the labor shortages that retailers and restaurants are facing in 2021. Mobile ordering kiosks, autonomous checkout systems, and even machine vision algorithms are all being used to help businesses greet customers, restock shelves, and even clean messy areas with more efficiency.
Fisherman Pioneers the No-Effort Web for Small Businesses
Fisherman is pioneering what CEO and co-founder Ameet Kallarackal calls the “no-effort Web.” Beginning with a focus on restaurants, which still make up about 90% of its customer base, Fisherman is aiming to be the simplest, most automatic option available for small business owners and operators to create websites. The company claims to get the job done in just two minutes and typically has a website ready for a potential customer, often based purely on the business’ name and address, before approaching them.
Commentary
Consumers Are Realizing the Value of Their Data. Here’s How Online Marketers Should Respond
It’s critical for marketers to invest in the right tools and technologies to abide by data-acquisition best practices that are not only compliant with regulations but also ensure consumer trust. At Blis, we conducted a study that digs into what extent consumers are starting to see their own behaviors, and predilections, as a currency. What we found is that marketers have a prime opportunity this year to rebuild trust and transparency with consumers.
The Ethical Stakes of Data Collection and Ad Targeting
With politicians and everyday political partisans on both the Left and Right peeved at Big Tech (the Left for tech’s role in economic inequality and election hacking, the Right for perceived anti-conservative bias, and thinkers across the spectrum for privacy concerns), it is time for Zuckerberg and his peers to get smarter about the arguments for and against data-driven ad targeting and the business models that rely on it. Facile paeans to relevance are not going to cut it—not with the scrutiny Facebook and the rest of the tech industry are now receiving. Tech executives should be as clear-eyed as their fiercest critics about the ethical underpinnings of their businesses. Only then can innovative, far-reaching conversations about the future of advertising, data collection, privacy, and Big Tech begin.
Interactive Marketing 2019: 4 Ways to Grow Your Audience with Innovation
There’s no denying that viewers today are fed up with plain advertising. It takes control of their digital activity and keeps them as passive witnesses to whatever is happening on the screen. Today, people expect a certain level of gamification from ads. Otherwise, the unit is typically shut down shortly after the ad begins or gets skipped quickly to the end. Enter interactive marketing.
Latest Posts
How to Visualize Cause and Effect in Local Brand Marketing
Mark Stouse, CEO and co-founder of Proof Analytics, says there are ways for chief marketing officers to gird themselves in case of market downturns by using data to support their value to the businesses they serve. This is especially critical, he says given the growing control over tech spending that CMOs now command.
Street Fight Daily: Location to Power Local Google Search, Square Turns to Large Businesses
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google to Use Location Data as Primary Factor for Local Search Results… Square Announces the Register, a $999 POS Device for Larger Businesses… Why Selling Higher-End Brands Gives Walmart a Fighting Chance Against Amazon…
On the Various Challenges Facing European Publishers (and Some Solutions)
“As audiences age out, the number of print subscribers will plummet, and as older small business owners retire, old ways of doing business … retire with them as well,” David Mihm writes to Mike Blumenthal. “Legacy media companies that don’t evolve rapidly are going to be left with no audience and no customers.”
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