BUST: The Party is Over for Party City
Although we’d love to keep things festive and bright this holiday season and report just on future trends and greatest hits of 2024, the sad reality is that some retailers can’t keep the lights on. According to CNN, Party City is the latest retailer to announce that it is closing all its stores and going […]
ARound Uses AR To Bring Live Events to Life
Imagine sitting in a stadium, watching your favorite sports team compete when suddenly the whole place is transformed into an Alaskan wilderness. That actually happened during a Rams game in SoFi Stadium earlier in the fall when ARound created one of its shared experiences. The augmented reality company owned by Stagwell, combines broadcast and mobile […]
MULO + HYLOMOS = Local Search Grows Up
Street Fight coined two terms, MULO and HYLOMOS, that will significantly impact the retail, restaurant, service, and other industries in 2025 and beyond. MULO stands for multi-location. They could be brands with thousands of storefronts worldwide, home services businesses like those managed by Neighborly, or even a small one-location company with franchise plans. HYLOMOS is […]
Identify Relevant News Outlets and Publications
When brands engage with PR, they typically look for more than just media exposure. Their goal is to secure meaningful media exposure that boosts their brand authority. PR is only valuable if it gets a brand’s story in outlets and publications that connect with its target audience. To help their clients reach that goal, publicists […]
Sick of MFA sites? Protect Your Brand and Ad Dollars
Ever since the ANA put real numbers around the scope of the problem with “made-for-advertising” or MFA sites, advertisers have been up in arms—and understandably so. The idea that these essentially worthless ad placements represent 21 percent of impressions and 15 percent of overall ad spend is unacceptable. And yet our industry has accepted it—and […]
Spend Wisely in 2025! Perspectives from Four MULO Leaders
MULO (multi-location) brands have more marketing investment options than ever. Conventional versus digital, national versus local, influencers versus professional content creators, OOH versus everything else—the list goes on and on. The old-school media buyer has been replaced by AI-powered analytics, which enable marketers to shift spending at the blink of an eye or the click […]
Social Media: The Missing Puzzle Piece for Performance Media Success
Brand loyalty has evolved into a cornerstone of sustained success, rooted in emotional connections, trust and shared values rather than just prices or products. Loyal customers do more than return—they advocate, creating ripple effects that amplify a brand’s reach and resonance. In the commerce media, social media has become a pivotal tool for addressing gaps […]
Streets Ahead: Tiktok Ban Looming, Trial Reels
In this week’s Streets Ahead update, SOCi discusses the looming TikTok ban and the Instagram roll out of Trial Reels. TikTok Ban Looming The News The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled on Friday in favor of the government, affirming that TikTok must divest from its parent company, ByteDance, by January […]
LoopMe Acquires Chartboost from Zynga, Driving AI-Powered Brand Advertising
LoopMe, a leader in AI-driven brand advertising, announced the acquisition of Chartboost, a prominent mobile advertising and monetization platform, from Zynga Inc., a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive Software (NASDAQ: TTWO). This strategic move cements the company’s position in leveraging artificial intelligence to deliver measurable outcomes for brands while expanding its influence in mobile app and […]
Grubhub Uses Donuts To Entice Local Sign-ups
When Grubhub wanted to let people know how its partnership with Amazon will work, it chose to activate in a pop-up event in Pioneer Park section of Chicago last month. Using a 12-foot inflatable donut to attract attention, the event was in support of Grubhub’s Delivery’s Other Half campaign in which Amazon Prime members do […]
The Humans Behind the Data at Placer Discover
Year-end can be a challenging time to bring a group of business professionals together for one final conference. Seasonal obligations, meeting fatigue, and EOY pressures are convenient excuses to skip that trip to New York. Unless, of course, the event organizer is Placer.ai. Location analytics hardly seems like a merry topic, but the organizing team behind Placer […]
Why MULO Brands Should Consider a Neighborhood-Level Marketing Strategy
Enhanced digital marketing tools are making it easier to connect with local audiences at scale. One of the most effective ways to leverage these tools is through a neighborhood-level marketing strategy, a highly focused approach to targeting specific neighborhoods instead of broader, more generalized areas. Particularly for multi-location businesses, embracing local methods can help engage […]
What’s Shwell in Attracting Hourly Workers?
No, that’s not a typo. MULO (multi-location) convenience store (C-store) brand Sheetz is opening a massive “Shwellness Center” across the street from one of its major locations in Pennsylvania. This center will offer some of the lifestyle benefits of its current Shwellness center (see below), as well as routine medical appointments, physical therapy, and behavior […]
Know Your Client’s Target Audience
Maximizing the impact of your communications — whether in marketing, public relations, or any other approach used to share a brand story — requires paying close attention to context. Without considering context, brands risk coming across as irrelevant or untrustworthy, even when they have a solid solution to a consumer problem. When context is properly […]
The Freezer Beyond the Grocery & C-Store
Cryotherapy is one of the latest categories to scale in the health, wellness, and longevity space. In this column, we’ve detailed how brick-and-mortar businesses have expanded far beyond the typical gym as the population ages and become more concerned about staying healthy longer. Highly specialized brands and franchises are offering body-related services like IVs. I […]
The Future Role of Agencies: Redefining Success with AI, Software, and Automation
The agency landscape is undergoing a seismic shift, driven by the growing reliance on AI, automated software, and modular technology stacks. Traditional models—built on labor-intensive execution and service-heavy financial structures—are rapidly evolving as agencies step into roles that blend technology, strategy, and consulting. This evolution represents an opportunity for agencies to lead with innovation, leveraging […]
Early Spending Results are In! MULO BOOMs this Holiday Season
As of this writing, Black Friday and Cyber Monday (now seemingly extended to Cyber Week) are behind us. MULO (multi-location) pundits and agencies involved in retail and restaurant analyses and predictions are starting to call the winners and losers in the holiday Street Fight, which now involves battles between brands, products, SMBs, and MULO chains, […]
Street Fight LIVE Insights: Stopping at C-Stores with Mike Templeton
Some people collect snow globes or stickers on road trips. Others boast that they’ve seen all the National Parks. Still others have a thing for selfies in front of weird vintage structures. But Mike Templeton, one of the speakers at Street Fight LIVE stops at and collects insights from convenience stores (C-stores), the unsung heroes […]
The MULO Dozen: November in Review
As November and 2024 draws to a close, news from MULO (multi-location) brands has hardly slowed down! In fact, this season is a make-or-break for retailers, restaurants, C-stores, and service businesses as consumers travel near and far to eat, shop, and squeeze in those errands before the year ends. Of course, the biggest news of […]
Streets Ahead: Tiktok to Supreme Court, ChatGPT Search Sources
In this week’s Streets Ahead update, SOCi discusses TikTok taking its battle to the Supreme Court and the sources that support ChatGPT in the search landscape TikTok Appeals to Supreme Court in Fight Against Ban The News TikTok is taking its battle to the Supreme Court following the passage of a U.S. law requiring its […]