News and Analysis
What I Saw in 2024: 10 MULO Trends and Predictions
As a journalist, I’m used to telling the stories that others pitch to me. (BTW…keep sending me your stats and news throughout 2025! You can reach me at [email protected].) Indulge me for a few minutes while I offer my perspectives on the year of MULO (multi-location) brands based on everything I’ve gathered. Here are my predictions […]
2025 Social Media Playbook: Authenticity, Originality, and Community-Driven Engagement
The era of trend-chasing is over. According to the newly released 2025 Sprout Social Index™, consumers are reshaping their expectations for brand behavior on social media. The verdict? Authenticity, originality, and personalized connections are no longer optional—they’re essential. This shift is more than a passing phase. As Rachael Goulet, Director of Social Media at Sprout […]
Walmart Credits In-Person Retail for Its Growth, and It’s Not Alone
Walmart’s Q3 earnings call revealed something interesting: Walmart places much of its recent revenue growth and success on in-person shopping. “In-store volumes grew, pickup from store grew faster, and delivery from store grew even faster than that,” the company wrote about its U.S. locations. The growth of in-store shopping in an era of e-commerce accessibility […]
Commentary
5 Martech Trends That Will Define 2023
As the US follows in the EU’s footsteps, privacy regulations will only play a larger role in marketing in 2023. While the GDPR is still the strongest privacy regulation to date, we will see an increasing number of regulations in the U.S. The best marketers are agile and should be using the coming year to make preparations for the loss of third-party cookies. One thing is clear: decisions must be strategic, privacy-centric, and backed by data.
Latest Posts
The MULO Dozen: October Brands in Review
Last month, we launched this new section, recapping some of the highlights across MULO (multi-location) brands — retailers, restaurants, c-stores, service businesses, and any other establishment that have multiple locations (or aspires to scale to that level), as well as the agencies that help them flourish. We cover: INNOVATION: Here are the brands that are […]
Study Reveals What Drives Attention From CTV Ads
We know that attention is a critical metric for advertising, especially on channels like connected TV (CTV), where advertisers are not only trying to reach their target audiences, but also to engage them to drive real business outcomes. We also know that it’s incredibly difficult to determine what, exactly, drives more attention from CTV ads. […]
Madison Avenue Needs to Think About a .1 Mile Radius
Madison Avenue has long been code for the advertising industry. But, as we know, most agencies are no longer located on that iconic street. In fact, some agencies don’t even have physical offices these days. That doesn’t mean agencies no longer need to think about location! Actually, it’s quite the opposite. Locations are more important […]
Local Advertisers Navigate Looming Surge in Political Ads Pricing
As the global economy braces itself for the possibility of a recession, some sectors are standing out with surprising resilience. Driven largely by the anticipation of enormous spending on political ads in the coming year, local advertising in the U.S. is expected to increase by 8.6%. That puts anticipated revenue across all media in the […]
tvScientific CEO: Netflix Could Learn from Google+ and Facebook
Netflix’s Q3 earnings are in, along with a rise in subscribers since July, price hikes for all types of them, and a jump in share price. Now, it remains to be seen whether the streaming service can scale its ad-supported ambitions. Jason Fairchild, co-founder and CEO of tvScientific, thinks the company still has work to do […]
Digital Disinformation Reaches a Fever Pitch, Social Media Execs Weigh In
Less than a week has passed since Meta and TikTok were ordered by the European Commission to provide details on the steps each company has taken to prevent the spread of misinformation during the Israel-Hamas conflict, and rather than simmering down, the debate over disinformation on social media is only getting hotter. X—the platform formerly […]
5 Generative AI Tools for SMB Marketing
Staying ahead of the curve in SMB marketing is more than just a competitive advantage; it can be the key to survival. As the martech landscape evolves, more business owners are finding themselves dealing with the challenge of producing engaging, relevant, and unique content that can cut through the noise and capture the attention of […]
OAAA CEO Anna Bager on the Pace of OOH Innovation
Advertising Week 2023 in New York, and one of the sessions held on Oct. 17 focused on the advantages and the challenges involved in OOH (out-of-home) advertising. “What Keeps You Up at Night? A Wake-Up Call for Brands Facing Fraud and Fatigue,” (available on replay) saw Anna Bager, President and CEO of the OAAA (Out […]
Product to MULO Brand? An Interview with Melissa Tavss
Boozy ice cream? Cheers! Say no more! Melissa Tavss is the Founder and CEO of Tipsy Scoop, liquor-infused ice cream. She is taking her popular product on the road into her branded brick-and-mortar multi-location (MULO) stores. We recently sat down with her to discuss her journey from founder to franchisor. How and when did you get the […]
Report: Advertisers Lean-In on Retail Data
Retail data is changing the game for U.S. advertisers, presenting an incredible opportunity for those interested in closing the loop between digital ad exposures and actual sales. That’s according to a new report by The Trade Desk, an independent platform for digital advertising, which found that 91% of U.S. advertisers plan to maintain or increase […]
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