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
Amazon Takes a Page from the TikTok Playbook
Social commerce provides the promise of an additional revenue stream for social platforms that have largely relied on advertising for monetization. The giants are copying each other to get there, and Amazon has taken a page from the TikTok playbook to spur its latest advance.
Consumer Trust and Green Shopping Lead the Way in 2023
With almost every business continuing to evolve, 2023 is going to build on the success of this year. In fact, next year will present new opportunities to build trust, innovate digital marketing tactics, and advance our industry’s effort to reduce our industry’s climate impact.
Elevating Subscriptions: Turning Transactions into Deeper Customer Relationships
What brands need to do to maximize the value of subscriptions is deliver—and differentiate themselves—on exceptional customer experiences (CX). This includes real-time support and service to meet high demand while furthering customer relationships.
Latest Posts
Forecasting Frenzy: Inside the Strategies Retailers Are Using to Predict Holiday Trends in 2023
Holiday forecasting is presenting a challenge for retailers in 2023, with multiple layers of economic uncertainty. After years of supply chain woes and logistics challenges, followed by a 2022 holiday season marked by the effects of inflation, retailers are looking at the 2023 holidays as an intricate puzzle. Behind the scenes, many retail executives say […]
It’s Time to Plan for Data Signal Sustainability
If you’re a publisher or advertiser, and especially if you’re operating in the mobile space, you’re probably getting a little tired of being told about new forthcoming privacy changes that are sure to upend your monetization and marketing plans. The simple fact is that change is the only constant in today’s digital landscape; if you’re […]
Audio Advertisers Sidestep Privacy Issues by Targeting Segments, Rather Than Individuals
One of the oldest broadcasting mediums is finding new life in the digital era — and advertisers are taking notice. More than a hundred years after the voices of radio personalities like Orson Welles became household names, and decades after transistor radios made audio content portable and widely-accessible for the first time, audio news is […]
Shuttered Forever or Transformed? 12 Storefront Businesses That Went Poof!
Is this about nostalgia or a MULO (multi-location) business lesson? Probably a bit of both. In our ongoing BOOM and BUST series, we talk about MULO retailers, restaurants, and service businesses that declared bankruptcy or became obsolete because of management issues or blindness to consumer trends and technologies. Let’s walk down memory lane and reflect […]
As DMPs Face Extinction, It’s Time for Marketers to Adapt to the New Advertising Landscape
There’s a seismic shift happening in the advertising landscape as privacy takes center stage and the era of cookies slowly fades away. Yet, somehow, there are still those who cling to cookies as their primary means of audience targeting and measurement in online advertising. Despite roughly 60% of industry leaders foreseeing the consequences of losing […]
BOOM: Green is Good as MULO Salad Brands Abound
Salads and salad brands are no longer a side dish. At the same time as multi-location (MULO) sweets and snack brands emerge and proliferate, greens-based companies are opening and scaling. Among the places consumers can find their favorite salad fixings are: Saladworks: One of the first entrants to the market (founded in 1986), the franchise […]
The Real Story Behind Sprout Social’s Newest Acquisition — And What It Means for the Future of Social Insights
Sprout Social announced earlier this month that it was acquiring Tagger Media, one of the most well-known influencer marketing and social intelligence platforms on the market. The $140 million deal positions Sprout to become a leader in influencer marketing management — but that’s not the part of the story most people are talking about. The […]
Quotient Launches DOOH Retail Network
Out-of-home and omnichannel. That’s how Quotient worked with OTC pain-relief brand Tylenol to increase brand awareness among shoppers with certain health conditions while much of the world was deep into pandemic lockdown. Quotient is a digital promotions and media technology company that helps brands and agencies develop omnichannel media and promotions strategies to drive sales. […]
Bombora VP: Digital Marketers Still Struggle with B2B2C
You’ve heard of B2B. You’ve heard of B2C. But if you’re like many digital marketers, you might still be unsure about what B2B2C is or how it factors into the way brands today are reaching professional targets with relevant content. A recent partnership between Gravy Analytics, a provider of enterprise location intelligence, and Bombora, a […]
Why Did the Chicken Expand Beyond Guatemala?
You may not have heard of Pollo Campero (yet) in the United States. But this family-founded brand started in 1971 and has passed down its fried chicken recipe since then. The brand is now investing in U.S. expansion and plans to grow from 90 units to at least 250 over the next five years. Pollo […]
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