News and Analysis
Innovation Brief: Instagram, Rockets, and Drones
M7 Innovations’ Matt Maher discusses Instagram’s creator economy, commercial space travel, and drone delivery.
6 Buy Now, Pay Later Solutions for Retailers
Retailers that don’t start offering flexible payment options on their checkout pages soon risk losing shoppers who prefer the unconventional approach to financing, especially for more expensive items. Flexible payment solutions tout bigger carts, customization, and faster transactions among their benefits.
Retailers Turn to AI to Assist with Forecasting Challenges
With machine learning and AI, retailers have been able to navigate the continued imbalance between supply and demand. This is especially true for digital-first retailers and on-demand businesses. The number of online grocery shoppers increased by 35 million during the pandemic. That opened the door to new opportunities, but it also opened the door to certain logistical challenges that grocers never experienced previously. For example, online grocery shoppers expect the items in their mobile apps to be in-stock and available for delivery immediately, which is different from a shopper who casually browses store aisles to see what’s available at a brick-and-mortar location.
Commentary
What Will AR Mean for Consumer Brands?
What’s driving AR today? And what does it mean for big consumer brands? Our lead analyst Mike Boland tackles these questions in this week’s Road Map column, which delves into the tech giants’ investments in AR and what they mean for the future of XR-driven brand advertising.
Google’s Backdoor Shift to a Social Network
Mike Blumenthal and David Mihm: In the case of Q&A, reviews, and the coming sports commenting feature, Google is looking to gain a better understanding of the entity, and in the case of the sharing buttons and the new ability to follow a business, Google is looking to better understand the individual so that it can improve the search experience now and in the future. That would be a very Googly social network.
LBMA Podcast: Standard Cognition, Amazon’s Holiday Catalogue
On this week’s edition of the Location-Based Marketing Association show: Standard Cognition, GOAT sneakers, NomadX at Plaza Singapura, Amazon’s Holiday Catalogue, Nike’s futuristic store, H&M testing blockchain.
Latest Posts
Amazon’s Prime Day Brought Buyers to Other Brand Retailers As Well
In the afterglow of the annual shopping event, Amazon announced that Prime Day “grew by more than 60 percent compared to the same 30 hours last year.” But rival retailers also seized the opportunity to market competing offers and discounts during the event to consumers.
Raise Report: New Funding for Upserve, Brandless, OnboardIQ
Every two weeks, we round up some of the biggest fundraises taking place in hyperlocal marketing, commerce, and tech. This week’s edition includes funding for Josh.ai, Datatron, Sendence, and ZeroFox.
LBMA Podcast: Patron + Foursquare, Snap’s Map, Verve Acquires Matchinguu
This Week in Location Based Marketing is a weekly video podcast from the Location Based Marketing Association with Asif Khan and Aubriana Lopez. On the show: FlyBuy app, Nomadic VR, IKEA teams with Apple. And Special Guest: Rob Woodbridge.
Street Fight Daily: Instagram Steals Snap’s Business, Google Wades Further into Local
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Publishers Are Switching Affections from Snapchat to Instagram… Google Expands Reserve with Google, Adding Salon and Spa Bookings… Moz Founder Rand Fishkin to Step Away from Day-to-Day Operations, Will Remain Chairman…
Accidental Ad-Blocking: The Brand-Safety Snag that Advertisers Can Fix
When it comes to ads that brands want to publish on the web as well as in-app, there’s a brand-safety technology snag that many advertisers don’t know about — and it’s costing them in-app impressions. Think of it as accidental ad-blocking.
Ex-Patcher Uses ‘Local Language’ to Succeed in Crowded Suburban Market
Mike Dinan founded NewCanaanite.com in suburban Connecticut in 2014 after his job as regional editor at Patch disappeared. In this interview, Dinan tells how, despite a crowded local media market, he’s made New Canaanite succeed as a community force and independent business.
Street Fight Daily: Brands Navigate Snapchat, Amazon Tightens Grip on the Smart-Home Future
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… How Brands Get Around Low Discoverability on Snapchat… This Year’s Prime Day Echo Sales Could Mark a Tipping Point for Amazon’s Product… Uber Offers a Thankless Job, and The Applications Roll In…
Cutting Through the Crowds at Festivals: How Brands Can Reach Summer Groupies
When fans use their mobile phones to travel to or around a festival, or when contacting their friends on-site, they’re giving brands valuable information about where they are and what they like. And if advertisers know how to capitalize on this data, they’ll be able to identify and reach their ideal audiences.
Structuring a Team and Creating Transparency in the Midst of Company Chaos
Neil Sweeney has lots of opinions about how to run a company, especially a newer, smaller one. The founder and CEO of beacon network company Freckle IoT, says that it’s about putting the right people in the right places.
Street Fight Daily: Uber Grows Despite Scandals, Facebook Expands Messenger Ads
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Uber Sees Financial Growth and Possible Waymo Settlement… Facebook Globally Tests Injecting Display Ads into Messenger Inboxes… Ikea’s Back-to-School Campaign Uses Influencers on Snapchat to Target Millenials…
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AI Won’t Fix Advertising – It May Scale Its Chaotic Nature