News and Analysis
Facebook to Integrate Technical Infrastructure of WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger
While the move indeed indicates that Facebook’s chief executives are looking to centralize acquired properties that once operated with relative autonomy, the integration also marks a response to growing concerns over user privacy. Under this new technical configuration, all the messaging platforms will be endowed with end-to-end encryption, warding off the possibility that people other than those taking part in conversations will ever read messages sent on the platforms.
How 6 Brands Are Using AR to Drive Experience Marketing
Worldwide spending on AR is expected to reach $215 billion by 2021, as new hardware ships and AR moves further into the mainstream. Acceleration in the AR market is also being boosted by brands’ growing frustration over the limitations in display advertising. With AR, brands can bypass ad blockers and unleash their creativity in a bid to capture the attention of consumers. Let’s take a look at how six top brands are using AR for experience marketing right now.
Latest Posts
Local Papers Unload on Viewability Bad Actors and ‘Garbage Inventory’
Ever since a 2014 Google study documented that 52 percent of ad impressions actually were not seen by users, viewability has been a front-burner issue for marketers and publishers alike. The digital platforms of local newspapers serve up billions of ad impressions monthly, putting these publishers right in the middle of the issue. To find out how they’re responding, Street Fight spoke with Tobias Bennett, the Local Media Consortium’s advertising expert.
#SFSNYC Recap: 5 Key Takeaways from This Year’s Summit
The annual Street Fight Summit assembled more than 350 marketers, solutions providers, technologists, and media executives to discuss pressing issues and developments in the connected local economy. Here are five key takeaways from the day’s keynotes, panel discussions, and fireside chats.
Street Fight Daily: Uber Seeks to Raise Another $1B, Is Amazon Building Its Own Shipping Network?
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Uber Said to Plan Another $1 Billion in Fundraising (New York Times)… Amazon May Be Building a Team That Will Help It Replace FedEx and UPS (Business Insider)… Mobile Payments Will Triple in the U.S. in 2016 (eMarketer)…
Street Culture: Humility and Good Conversations at Instacart
On-demand grocery shopping and delivery service Instacart is make headway at disrupting a multi-billion-dollar industry. Driving that effort is a relentless focus on satisfying customers. “One policy we’ve implemented at Instacart is that every employee, from the engineers up to our CEO, goes out shopping once a quarter to get an understanding of being a shopper and how our service affects the customer. Everybody here does it,” says vice president of people Mathew Caldwell.
Openings and New Hires at Thumbtack, Polar, and Yodle
Every two weeks, Geoff Michener covers some of the latest job changes taking place in this dynamic industry. In this week’s column, Bing loses Duane Forrester, senior product manager in charge of webmaster outreach, newly minted unicorn Thumbtack appoints a CFO and general counsel, Polar hires a Googler as president of international, and Yodle brings on a president for its Brand Networks business.
LBMA Podcast: Pinterest Adds Location to Every Place Pin, Niantic Labs Raises $20M
On the show: Pinterest Place Pins to add automatic location data; Niantic Labs raises $20 million from Google, Pokémon, and Nintendo; Australia’s Westfield malls and CommBank team up for beacon play; Drinkeasy SMS craft spirits delivery service; Onomichi map provides “cat’s-eye view;” MoveLoot does the heavy lifting; RetailNext acquires Pikato. Plus, news from Shoe Carnival and SIM Partners; Tostitos Canada; and Gimbal and Phigital.
Sponsored Content: Hyperlocal Strategy Updates Needed for Two National Drug Store Chains
This month’s Brand Battle, in conjunction with Brandify, compares the local digital marketing footprint of two of the country’s largest pharmacy chains: CVS and Walgreens. The contest was close on several counts, but Walgreens emerged as the winner, edging CVS in five of the six categories evaluated.
The Price of Free Listings
When the Yellow Pages directory came out once a year, if your business’ phone number was printed incorrectly, you were in trouble. It was the same with local business listings on the internet, except that instead of one or two books, there were thousands of websites carrying your bad data. This added up to a serious headache for multi-location brands and a serious opportunity for solutions providers that could bring order to the free business listings chaos. Here’s a look at how listings management has evolved.
5 Programmatic Ad Buying Platforms for SMBs
Programmatic buying has a reputation for being geared toward large-scale advertisers buying high volumes of impressions. But more vendors are developing programmatic solutions aimed directly at the SMB market. Here are five platforms that give smaller advertisers the ability to plan, buy, and target digital ads in real-time.
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Beyond Likes: Win Hearts with Emotional Marketing