News and Analysis
MoviePass Wants Cinephiles to ‘Dream Bigger’
“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep,” Shakespeare wrote in The Tempest. The line was appropriated in the 1941 film, The Maltese Falcon, whose titular object was much coveted amongst a group of underworld types, including fictional detective Sam Spade, played by Humphrey Bogart. Any […]
Night Market and Keen Join Forces to Transform Marketing for Brand Advertisers
At CES 2025, Night Market, the commerce agency affiliate of Horizon Media, and Keen Decision Systems introduced a strategic partnership designed to tackle pressing challenges in modern marketing. This collaboration brings together Night Market’s NEON platform—an AI-powered retail media and storefront optimization solution—and Keen’s adaptive marketing mix modeling software to deliver a unified, next-generation approach […]
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 […]
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
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 […]
How 3 Brands Have Modernized Their Loyalty Programs in 2023
Virtually every top retail brand today has a mobile app designed to build loyalty, but the majority of those apps aren’t delivering the kind of return on investment that their creators expect. With so many branded apps and loyalty programs vying for consumers’ attention, companies are learning that they have to lean into personalized experiences […]
The Branding Implications of SEO: Why Franchise Brands are Embracing CMS
In the dynamic world of brand marketing, the digital experience is paramount. Historically, the speed of a website’s load time was not just a technical metric, but a reflection of franchise brands promises to consumers. Today, with the advent of Core Web Vitals (CWV), the narrative has evolved. It’s no longer just about speed; it’s […]
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