News and Analysis
MULO Brands With Soul: KINDR
This month, our “brand with soul” is not a MULO brand at all. It’s KindR, an organization committed to making workplaces kinder, which attracts the best talent and ensures retention and growth. The war for talent at MULO (multi-location) restaurant, retail, and service brands does not have to be a bloody battle. In fact, by […]
The MULO Dozen: March in Review
As we closed out March and the first quarter of 2025, here’s what CEOs were searching for: Although these vast critical issues are top-of-mind for business leaders, March as well as the first three months of the year were filled with strategies and decisions in the MULO (multi-location) ecosystem. AI, tariffs, and hiring freezes are […]
The Robot is Carrying Your Pizza: Timothy Tanksley Predicts the Future of MULO Serving
One of the biggest challenges bars and restaurants face today is finding skilled labor. Add to that the cost of overserving expensive cocktail ingredients (both in terms of product expense and product quality). Timothy Tanksley is the Director of Marketing at Richtech Robotics. At the Bar & Restaurant Expo, one of the company’s robots served us a […]
Commentary
To Scale or Not to Scale? 10 Factors for Brands to Consider
Multi-location (MULO) brands are complex and sometimes filled with risks. In the retail sector alone, more than 3,000 stores have closed so far this year. However, establishing a brand in one region and scaling it to multiple geographies (sometimes even global) can be very profitable in the long run. But with that complexity comes a wide […]
Career Moves: Locality, Uberall, Duda, Yext, DevHub, Moz, Vcita and more
In Street Fight’s biweekly roundup of career moves, Kelly Benish looks at new faces at Uberall, Moz, Devhub , Wix and more, anniversaries at ReachDesk, Botify and beyond plus numerous opportunities at companies including TikTok, Snap and Seismic Locality announced the appointment of industry expert John Brohel as their new Chief Financial Officer. Brohel brings […]
Marketing Agency Perspective: Improving the Franchisor-Franchisee Relationship
The relationship between a franchisor and a franchisee is … unique. Given the franchise business model and the fact that a franchisor is in a relationship with hundreds or thousands of franchisees, it’s especially important to nurture a better corporate and franchisee relationship. Here are five ideas to do just that, from a franchise marketing […]
Latest Posts
LOMA Platform Boosts Hyperlocal Marketing for Franchises
If LOMA knows anything, it’s how to support franchise businesses. Since launching last September with a $2 million pre-seed venture capital round, the data-driven platform is ready to take the next step in supporting local marketing efforts. (LOMA stands for “local marketing.”) In recent weeks, LOMA launched the first enterprise software platform for multi-location franchise […]
UNFI and Swiftly Bring State-of-the-Art Retail Marketing to the Grocery World
UNFI (United Natural Foods, Inc.) supplies 30K stores across North America, ranging from small three-store regional brands to huge brands like Whole Foods. The largest wholesale distributor to the U.S. and Canada specializes in groceries, frozen foods, produce, health and beauty products, deli items, and bakery items. But their scope isn’t limited to getting these […]
Placer.ai Releases 100 Retail and Dining Index
Placer.ai, a market intelligence platform, has released its Placer 100 Retail and Dining Index, which it plans to release monthly in order to provide an ongoing understanding of retail’s status, challenges, and potential for brands including Buffalo Wild Wings, Chili’s, Crunch Fitness, Warby Parker and other large retail chains. Location analytics including visit trends, trade […]
The Pause that Refreshes – How Ads During Paused Content Can Refresh in 2024
Imagine this: You’re going through the motions and you take a quick break. You reach for your Coca-Cola and take a sip – it’s exactly what you needed. It was a small pause from your routine that captured and revived you, a pause that refreshes. This was the catchy tagline that encapsulated Coca-Cola as a […]
DIY Franchising: The Platform for Scaling SMBs
Over the past decade, platform and SaaS companies have emerged that enable a wide range of businesses to “plug and play” rather than create from scratch. Although franchise consultants and associations abound, Gregory Ugwi took a page from companies like LegalZoom and offers small businesses a wide range of easy-to-access professional help when they are […]
GroupM, Incremental Partner on Neutral RMN Solutions
Fragmentation and poor measurement create a ton of inefficiencies for clients and agencies trying to plan and optimize retail-media investments. To address this issue, GroupM has expanded its retail (aka commerce) media offering and formed a partnership with Incremental, which provides neutral retail media solutions. The announcement was made on June 17 at the Cannes […]
Leap-ing Into a New Retail Model: An Interview With Amish Tolia
We’ve all seen founders with great ideas and/or products take the big step to brick-and-mortar stores and then crash and burn due to various factors. Amish Tolia is the Co-Founder and CEO of Leap, a company that has disrupted the traditional commercial broker/landlord/tenant model for retail brands. Tolia founded the company about six years ago […]
How to Pick the “Right” Retail Media: A Perspective from Skai
Nich Weinheimer is the EVP of Strategy at Skai, an omnichannel advertising platform focused on walled garden media. These networks (walled garden media) are their own ecosystem and keep their customer data close. As reported recently, major MULO (multi-location) retailers are taking a page from the Google and Amazon playbook and developing their own advertising ecosystems. […]
Retail Media – Enabling Brands to Shift to an Audience-first Mindset
While retail media can trace its history back decades to humble in-store signage, cardboard cutout displays, and sampling tables, the retail media networks of 2024 are some of the most advanced advertising channels ever created. And with this sector forecast to hit a staggering $140bn ad spend worldwide this year, it has yet to fully […]
Placer.ai and TapClicks Partner for Deeper Marketing Analytics
Placer.ai, the leader in location analytics, and TapClicks, the leading provider of Smart Marketing solutions, have partnered to integrate real-time foot traffic data into TapClicks’ omni-channel reporting platform. This collaboration advances the ability for marketers to gain deeper insights into consumer behavior and thereby more conclusively prove the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. In conversation with […]
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