The Shopping Mall Is Becoming a Media Platform
The shopping mall has spent years evolving beyond a collection of stores. Dining, entertainment, events and other experiences have increasingly turned major shopping centers into places designed to give consumers more reasons to visit and stay. Now that evolution is moving into advertising. Simon Property Group has launched Simon Media Network, a commerce media platform […]
Ace Hardware Makes Retail Media More Local
Ace Hardware is expanding its retail media network around weather, store proximity, customer intent, and local inventory. Ace’s approach is showing how physical context can give retailers an advantage that audience targeting alone cannot. Retail media networks have generally been built around first-party customer data and proximity to a transaction. Ace Hardware is adding the […]
When Falling Store Traffic Isn’t a Marketing Problem
Lululemon plans to increase marketing as sales weaken across stores and ecommerce. Its challenge is determining which parts of the customer journey need fixing before applying the same response across an 825-location network. Lululemon plans to increase its marketing investment as it attempts to reverse declining sales and weakening brand sentiment. But before spending more […]
Yext Pushes AI Visibility From Measurement to Action
AI visibility is creating a new scale problem for multi-location brands: individual locations need to remain accurate, active and relevant across more digital surfaces than ever. Yext’s latest expansion reflects a broader shift from monitoring AI discovery to actively managing it. Knowing whether a brand appears in ChatGPT, Gemini or other AI-driven discovery experiences is […]
OOH Growth Signals Opportunity for Brands
World Cup-fueled revenue surge is highlighting how OOH has evolved beyond broad awareness. Digital inventory, localized activation and improved measurement are making the channel more flexible, relevant and accountable. Out-of-home advertising entered the summer with strong momentum as major events, digital-first advertisers and more flexible buying options helped drive increased spending. U.S. OOH revenue rose […]
AI Hallucinations: The Risk for Multi-Location Brands
AI search is quickly becoming a default research step before a customer visits a store, books a service, or calls a support line. For multi-location and enterprise brands, that often means AI-generated answers are shaping decisions across hundreds or thousands of locations, and those answers aren’t always accurate. When AI is asked about a brand, […]
Modern Media Planning Requires More Than Better Technology
Marketers have never had more data or more sophisticated technology at their disposal. AI can optimize campaigns in real time, while modern media planning tools can model thousands of budget scenarios in minutes. Yet many brands still struggle to turn those capabilities into better marketing performance. The problem isn’t necessarily the technology. It’s that the […]
DOOH Makes Its Case for More Digital Ad Dollars
Digital out-of-home advertising (DOOH) has spent years adding screens, data and programmatic buying capabilities. A series of recent developments suggests the next phase will be less about adding inventory and more about making that inventory easier to buy, measure and verify. Two announcements this week illustrate that shift. VIOOH has partnered with Screenverse to make […]
Samsung Turning Commercial Screens Into Ad Inventory
The digital screens already operating inside restaurants, retailers, hotels, gyms, and other commercial properties are increasingly becoming more than signage. They are becoming media inventory. Samsung Electronics America and Smartify Media are accelerating that transition through a partnership connecting Samsung commercial displays to Smartify’s digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising network. Samsung VXT Ads, Powered by Smartify, […]
Where CTV Fits in the Media Mix
CTV is becoming more measurable, but the bigger shift may be how that measurement influences media allocation. New Lifesight research suggests CTV can affect search, social and second-screen behavior. Connected TV has steadily moved beyond its traditional role as an upper-funnel awareness channel. As marketers gain more ways to connect CTV exposure with digital activity […]
How CKE Is Scaling Local Marketing
CKE Restaurants is building a more centralized local marketing infrastructure across Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s while moving parts of its marketing closer to individual regions and locations. For multi-location brands, the strategy shows how automation can make enterprise scale and local relevance increasingly complementary. For a restaurant company operating thousands of locations, the local marketing […]
Scorpion Pushes MULO Advertising Earlier in the Journey
Scorpion is expanding its Google Ads offering with Demand Gen, giving multi-location brands another way to reach consumers before they actively search for a nearby service provider. Paid search has long been a cornerstone of local customer acquisition. A consumer searches for a nearby home-services provider, attorney, pest-control company, or other service, and brands compete […]
Arrivalist, Digital Remedy Push Attribution Toward Real-World Spend
Digital Remedy and Arrivalist are connecting media exposure with GPS-verified visitation and consumer spending, giving travel marketers a clearer view of what happens after an ad is served. Clicks, impressions, and website visits can tell marketers whether advertising generated digital activity, but they are considerably less useful for answering the question that matters to businesses […]
How MULOs Can Win Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) at Scale
Managing local SEO across dozens or hundreds of locations was already a heavy lift before generative AI entered the picture. Keeping Google Business Profiles current, review volume steady, and NAP data consistent across a large brand footprint takes real infrastructure, not to mention time. Generative AI search experiences have added more weight on top of […]
Independent Agencies Get a New Buying-Power Benchmark
Agency scale has traditionally been associated with greater media buying leverage. A new partnership between Guideline and Tinuiti is putting that independent agencies assumption to the test, using verified market intelligence to compare negotiated media costs against broader benchmarks. For brands evaluating media agencies, buying power has long been one of the arguments favoring the […]
OAAA Heatstroke Campaign Shows OOH’s Local Power
A national heatstroke-prevention campaign from OAAA and the Ad Council shows how OOH (out-of-home) can combine broad reach with geographic concentration and contextual relevance. Summer may be winding down, but a national campaign warning drivers about the dangers of leaving children unattended in vehicles is designed to remain visible well beyond the hottest months of […]
Yelp Moves Local Discovery Closer to Conversion in ChatGPT
AI-powered local discovery is moving beyond the recommendation and closer to the transaction. Yelp’s expanded integration with ChatGPT brings new capabilities into the conversational experience, potentially shortening the path between discovering a location and becoming a customer. For multi-location brands, appearing in an AI recommendation is quickly becoming only part of the challenge. The next […]
The Marketing Funnel Isn’t Evolving. It’s Dead.
What if one of the biggest line items in your marketing budget is funding a strategy that’s already dead? AI is rewriting how customers are discovered, targeted, and converted, leaving the traditional marketing funnel behind. Most franchise brands are still budgeting for a customer journey that stopped existing years ago. For decades, performance marketing ran […]
SOCi Links Restaurant Growth to AI Visibility
Restaurant expansion and contraction are often explained by consumer demand, labor costs, menu innovation, or access to capital. New research from SOCi suggests another metric deserves attention: local AI visibility. Analyzing eight restaurant chains expanding in 2026 alongside eight brands reducing their footprints, SOCi found a consistent performance gap across every major local discovery channel. […]
AI Is Changing the Ad Fraud Fight
Ad fraud isn’t new to anyone running acquisition budgets across dozens or hundreds of locations. Multi-location marketers and agencies have dealt with click farms, bot traffic, and inflated app installs for years. What’s changing is the machinery behind the fraud. AI-driven ad fraud can now manufacture outcomes that mimic campaign success at a scale and level […]