News and Analysis

‘A Buyer’s Market’: Why OOH Is in Demand During the Pandemic

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During a time when many other types of advertising have faltered, out-of-home (OOH) advertising is having a moment. Despite a nationwide pandemic, OOH activations are on the rise. Political spending on OOH media is up 75% compared to the same period in 2018, and direct-to-consumer brands are seeing increases in both aided and unaided brand awareness.

What’s driving the push? According to Quan CEO Brian Rappaport, there’s been a distinct change in consumer traffic patterns since the pandemic began. Brands that are capitalizing on those changes are reaching targeted groups of consumers at “firesale” prices.

Local Businesses Face Negative Reviews Due to Coronavirus Safety Requirements

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Google has taken several important measures to assist businesses during the pandemic, but none so far can prevent customers angry about coronavirus-related restrictions from lashing out at businesses attempting to follow public health best practices or the letter of the local law. “The review space has never been harder than right now,” wrote GatherUp co-founder and reputation management expert Mike Blumenthal.

But there are also possible strategies for survival.

With Walmart+, Retailer Combines Digital Subscription Service and Physical Stores

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Regardless of which retailer comes out on top, there’s no doubt that many will see Walmart’s decision to launch a digital-first membership program as a turning point in brick-and-mortar retail and a concession on Walmart’s part that e-commerce is the way of the future, displacing rather than complementing old-school retail.

Marcel Hollerbach contends that Walmart’s decision to launch a membership program points to just how well positioned retailers with physical locations are in the current climate, with the ability to quickly facilitate things like in-store returns and same-day deliveries of items that take much longer to ship by mail.

Commentary

GateHouse Media’s Kirk Davis Argues Chain Is Becoming a ‘Leader in Community Engagement’

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Cost-cutting equity funds have hollowed out scores of daily newspapers, turning their communities into “news deserts,” the critics say. But Kirk Davis, CEO of GateHouse Media, counters that the equity-funded conglomerate is transforming its 144 dailies into tribunes of the people. He makes his case in this Q&A.

Customer Feedback: Authenticity as the Final Frontier

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Coherent feedback cuts the distance between a company and its audience. But all that is compromised when paid reviews and rigged ratings enter the scene. Authenticity therefore remains the final frontier for marketing and client-oriented strategies.

How Not to Respond to Reviews: 10 Common Pitfalls

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Contrary to the popular saying, all publicity isn’t good publicity. It’s quite possible to go about review response in a way that does more harm than good. Listed below are 10 common practices that won’t do your business any favors and are arguably worse than no response at all.

Latest Posts

Swirl Launches Direct Facebook Integration for Online-to-Offline Attribution

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Retailers using Swirl’s platform can now connect “verified” real world store visits to Facebook ad impressions and more accurately measure the direct impact that Facebook ad campaigns are having on the way consumers move around inside their stores.

Newspapers Have High Level of Trust, but Will They Capitalize on It?

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The key will be not how Facebook shares its revenues or tinkers with its news-feed algorithm. How successful newspapers are in achieving sustainability will depend on the richness of the connections they build with their audiences.

Street Fight Daily: Square Launches POS App for Retailers, GrubHub’s Sales Surge

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Square Launches Dedicated Point-of-Sale App And Service for Retail Merchants… Grubhub’s Sales Surge… The Washington Post Rolls Out Customizable Content Ad Unit…

7 Fresh Ways SMBs Are Using Social Media for Marketing

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In order for business owners to maximize the impact of their expanded social media budgets, they need to think outside the box and try new tactics for reaching consumers online. Here are seven examples of fresh new ways that small and mid-size businesses can use social media for marketing in 2017.

Mobile Marketing and the YouTube Cookie Shift

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Google recently announced that YouTube will turn to logged-in user data to verify views and ensure that relevant advertising reaches the right consumers. This will allow publishers, brands, and marketing to draw on all the highly contextual demographic and behavioral data that Google gathers from mobile consumers.

Street Fight Daily: Target’s Data-Driven Strategy, MarTech Focus Shifting From Platforms to Data

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How Target is Leveraging First-Party Data to Survive a World Hostile to Brick-and-Mortar (AdExchanger)… Marketing Tech Shift: It’s Data, Not Platforms (eMarketer)… Retale Acquires Shopping List App Out of Milk (VentureBeat)…

BUST: A Hard Landing as Soft Surroundings Files for Bankruptcy

Foursquare Analysis Shows Where Customers Go When Retailers Close

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Using both explicit and passive location data from its Foursquare City Guide and Foursquare Swarm apps and websites, the company analyzed consumer visits at Macy’s and Kmart locations that closed in 2016. Foursquare also looked at foot traffic at competing retail stores around the same time period.

Google Analytics for Brick-and-Mortar? Spatially Targets Where to Set Up Shop

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Hillit Meidar-Alfi, the company’s founder and CEO says the service “is building the most powerful platform for location search and analytics with applications for small and medium businesses, marketing technologies, ecommerce, real estate, and more. Businesses using location analytics will have a significant competitive advantage over those that do not.”

Street Fight Daily: Google Updates AMP, Facebook Leverages AI for Advertising

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Now Lets You View and Share a Publisher’s Own Links on AMP… Facebook Leverages AI to Improve Advertising… Micro-targeting, Measurement Can Help Unlock In-App Brand Dollars…

The AI Wars in Local Have Already Begun

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This AI-centric battle is being waged by heavier contenders than any before it, including Apple (Siri), Amazon (Alexa), and Google (Assistant). They’re each basing battle plans on their current positioning and biggest assets, and the winner will sway the next era of local commerce.