News and Analysis

MULO Brands With Soul November Picks: The Holiday Season of Giving Street Fight

MULO Brands With Soul November Picks: The Season of Giving

Rather than single out one brand this month, we will focus on how several MULO (multi-location) brands are leaning into giving this holiday season with tie-ins to philanthropic efforts. Aligning a brand with a specific charitable effort can be risky, so doing due diligence before selecting a cause is imperative today. You certainly don’t want […]

Does Holiday Ad Spend Pay Off? (And Early Indicators from Skai) Street Fight

Does Holiday Ad Spend Pay Off? (And Early Indicators from Skai)

As we publish this, Black Friday is less than 48 hours away. Although data shows that people are now taking advantage of year-round sale days, the next week is still considered a “big boost” time for many MULO (multi-location) brands and the agencies that buy their media. According to up-to-the-minute ad buying data from advertising […]

Raptive Survey Cleaning Is a Top Holiday Stressor Street Fight

Raptive Survey: Cleaning Is a Top Holiday Stressor

There is no rest for weary creators during the holiday season, but opportunities for brands abound.  Raptive, a media platform that works with enterprise publishers and more than 5,000 creators, conducted a survey recently of more than 300 creators and more than 600 consumers about various topics related to the holiday season. Publishing verticals included […]

Commentary

How Post-Pandemic Shopping Habits Affect Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Consumers aren’t holding off on gift purchases until the day after Thanksgiving. Retailers who’ve always counted on Black Friday in particular and the Cyber Five (Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday) in general to push them into profitability for the year need to develop new strategies based on data.

Ad Tech and Privacy

Why Omnichannel Advertising Is Essential in the Current Economy

Faced with economic uncertainties from inflation and recession to war and prolonged supply-chain disruption, marketers more than ever need to lean into omnichannel advertising.

Is TikTok Getting into the Fulfillment Business?

It seems TikTok wants to beef up its e-commerce operations in TikTok Shop. Getting into the fulfillment business could help the company drive commerce.

Latest Posts

Simon Says "Your Product is In-Stock!" The Rise of Product Search Today and How MULO Brands Should Respond

Simon Says “Your Product is In-Stock!” The Rise of Product Search Today and How Brands Should Respond

Simon Property Group recently expanded its Simon Search technology, enabling mall-goers to determine if the brands they want are in-store,  before they head out to shop and spend. Product search before visiting a multi-location (or other) business is nothing new. Google reports that 74 percent of brick-and-mortar shoppers will do some online sleuthing before they […]

How Audio Advertising Became a Blindspot for U.S. Brands

How Audio Advertising Became a Blindspot for U.S. Brands

With the state of the U.S. economy still unclear, more advertisers are tightening their belts and re-evaluating their media mix. In a recent study by WARC, 96% of retail and CPG marketers said they’re evolving their advertising approach and tapping into digital audio advertising as a way to ensure a smooth path-to-purchase. According to Paul […]

Getting Your Local, Foreign ‘Phrase’ Just Right

Getting Your Local, Foreign ‘Phrase’ Just Right

Phrase is a global leader in enterprise localization software. The Phrase Localization Suite powers the entire localization ecosystem for global businesses, connecting, automating  and managing  high-quality localized content at speed and scale. The Phrase software can handle more than 500 languages, supporting 50+ file types and processing 2B+ words monthly. It has 200K global users. […]

We All Scream for Ice Cream (and retailers reply)

BOOM: We All Scream for Ice Cream (and retailers reply)

The summer is upon us, and many people are seeking ways to cool down. Although the old-fashioned neighborhood ice cream truck is a rarity, multi-location (MULO) ice cream and frozen dessert retailers show no sign of melting. Although the category has declined slightly from time to time, it still represents $5.5B in revenue in the […]

Ad-Media Companies Show Increased Interest in Data Privacy

Ad-Media Companies Show Increased Interest in Data Privacy

Move over, Metaverse. Take a nap, AI. Businesses in the ad-media marketing industry are taking an increasing interest in data privacy, according to the Bombora Upswell Report, which delves into the latest trends and developments across eight industries. According to the report, the interest in data privacy rose 70 percent among companies in the ad-media […]

Why Are Multi-Location Brands Ghosting Their Customers?

Why Are Multi-Location Brands Ghosting Their Customers?

You may have heard of ghosting in the dating or job application world. It’s when someone communicates with you and then vanishes suddenly and without a trace. Your messages go unanswered. Here today…ghost tomorrow! Multi-location brands (MULO) are ghosting their customers and prospects. A recent study by SOCI, “The High Cost of Invisibility for Multi-Location […]

On GDPR’s 5th Anniversary, Fragmentation Remains Biggest Privacy Challenge

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  Although the privacy landscape is quite different in 2023 than it was five years ago, when the European Union’s GDPR went into effect in May of 2018, the adtech industry in the U.S. remains in a state of flux, struggling to deal with fragmentation caused […]

5 Franchise Tips to Ease Friction

Franchise businesses account for a whopping 10.5% of all companies with paid employees. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, they account for $1.3 trillion in sales across various industries. Franchising enables brands to grow and quickly open multiple locations. People who buy into franchises have the ability to fulfill their entrepreneurial dreams without shouldering the […]

Acoustic Gets to the ‘Why’ of the Customer Journey

Acoustic Gets to the ‘Why’ of the Customer Journey

Acoustic is a global SaaS subscription company that provides customer-engagement tools for B2C brands. It has worked with brands including Pura, PayPal, Scientific American, and Ticketmaster. In 2022, Acoustic helped clients manage over 120 billion personalized interactions by focusing on the customer journey. John Riewerts, SVP of Engineering at Acoustic, explains the company’s newest offering […]

Emodo COO: AI Is Where We’re Continuing to Focus

As the mobile adtech division of the telecom giant Ericsson, Emodo is placing a major emphasis on AI-driven performance and personalization in programmatic advertising this year. The company is also doubling down on innovations around optimization, especially as it relates to targeting, innovative formats, and unique inventory. At the head of all these initiatives is […]