News and Analysis
8 MULO Ad Trends 2025
The 2025 advertising season kicks off annually with the Super Bowl. Brands spend millions and attempt to out-do each other with cinematic artistry and celebrity appearances. Savvy brands take those trends and enhance them throughout their digital footprints, ensuring that visitors to TikTok, Instagram, and brick-and-mortar stores will notice and, ultimately, pull out their wallets (physical or […]
Seedtag’s Contextual AI Seeks to Understand Multi-screen Content
Is multi-screen contextual targeting at a granular level even possible? With Contextual AI, Seedtag aims to make it a reality sooner rather than later. The global contextual advertising company specializes in serving ads across the open web and CTV, which is rapidly expanding its reach but struggles with precision audience targeting. Targeting to broad genre […]
Vistar Media and Western Union Partner Up for DOOH Ecosystem
Vistar Media, the leading global provider of technology solutions for out-of-home (OOH) media, just announced an agreement with Western Union to manage and monetize its growing network of more than 2,200 digital out-of-home (DOOH) screens across the United States, Canada, and Brazil. The global out-of-home (OOH) advertising market is projected to reach $42B billion in […]
Commentary
Mother’s Day: A $32B Holiday and How to Prepare
Mother’s Day falls on May 14th this year, and shoppers will spend upwards of $30B on flowers, gifts, cards, and meals. Spending has been increasing on this holiday, and retailers and restaurants can still take steps now and afterward to optimize the shopper experience and boost sales volume. Both in-store and online, multi-location brands must […]
Celebrities Who Help Turn Multi-Location Food Brands Into Stars
Celebrities, including actors and athletes, have long invested in businesses that will help guarantee them a nest egg after their fame has waned. Many now even have their own investment firms. Some, like Mark Wahlberg and Michael Jordan, developed branded concepts, while others invested in multi-location brand franchises. Among the multi-location food brands with celebrity investors […]
The C-Store of the Future: Beyond Gas & Gum
Although the industry has consolidated in recent years, close to 150K convenience stores (C-store) exist in the U.S. We may take them for granted, but they are a staple of modern life. The C-store is a solution whether we need pain relief, diapers at 2 AM, or a much-needed rest stop and re-fuel (physically or […]
Latest Posts
Marketing Innovator Hummingbirds Raises $3.3m
Des Moines, Iowa-based Hummingbirds has successfully raised $3.3 million in a recent venture round, just a year after its initial $1 million funding. CEO Emily Steele, along with COO Charise Flynn, founded Hummingbirds in 2022 with a unique approach to hyperlocal influencer marketing. Unlike traditional influencer marketing platforms, Hummingbirds connects brands with local individuals in […]
Advertisers Can Learn from Political Marketers
Political advertising can be viewed as the north star for B2B and B2C marketers. In politics, voter outreach and paid advertising campaigns are building towards the ultimate one-day sale event – Election Day. From crafting campaigns around tentpole events and timely big moments, to planning ahead from a budgeting perspective, political marketers know how to […]
Adomni, TikTok, and Screen Power
Jonathan Gudai is the co-founder and CEO of Adomni, which has developed a state-of-the-art platform that enables digital marketers at brands and agencies to make smarter and faster media buys on screens in the real world. Adomni has connected 37 screen types ranging from large format digital billboards to digital screens in retail locations, gyms, bars/restaurants, and more. […]
Enhancing Customer Engagement: Vericast and MessageGears Collaborate
Vericast NXTDRIVE and MessageGears have strategically collaborated to redefine customer engagement, promising a seamless solution that delivers scalability, speed, and efficiency. Set to launch early next year, NXTDRIVE represents a customer data marketing platform (CDMP) designed to elevate brand communications through personalized messaging across various channels, including email, short message service (SMS), and push notifications. […]
Sheeva.ai and Visa To Enable In-Vehicle Payments
Visa has joined the in-vehicle payment revolution. The brand’s heritage is in plastic credit cards, but for quite some time, it’s been a sophisticated global digital-payments platform. Its Visa Acceptance Solutions division has entered a partnership with Sheeva.ai, which enables digital payments using network tokens activated from the dashboards inside vehicles. “Network tokens are the […]
Sneak Preview: Holiday Season 2023 Retail Sales
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are behind us. A lot of shopping and feasting still remains. But Street Fight wants to glimpse what retail sales have seen so far and what you might expect in the shopping and eating days until the end of 2023. What’s especially interesting is that in-person shopping seemed to take […]
The MULO Dozen: November Brands in Review
As we wind down 2023 and head into the holidays, here are some of the latest happenings among MULO (multi-location) brands. Because consumer sentiment and social media buzz can have a huge impact on brand reputation and sales, we’ve added a new section this month — consumer voices. If you have any news to add […]
AxleHire CEO Goes Deep into Delivery Experience
If you think the retail industry is overwhelmed at this time of the year, when the holidays take center stage, try working in the shipping industry. Raj Ramanan is CEO of AxleHire, a last-mile shipping service for e-commerce retailers, touts its “Amazon-like” service experience of next-day and same-day delivery as desired. And satisfaction goes right […]
What Content Marketers Can Expect in 2024
Productsup is a P2C (product-to-consumer) platform that processes the flow of content about more than two trillion items a month across upwards of 2,500 marketing and retail channels for enterprise customers around the world, including IKEA, ALDI, and Sephora. Its goal is to help companies overcome commerce complexity to deliver consistent product information and a […]
How Retailers are Keeping the Grinch from Stealing This Holiday Season
Sadly, it’s not just the Grinch ruining the holidays for many retailers. It’s thievery. Last year, about $112B was lost to various types of retail crime, including shoplifting, flash mobs, and organized crime. Technologies, including AI-based video at point-of-sale, sensory heat maps, cash automation technology, and autonomous security robots, are helping retailers prevent, spot, and […]
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