SOCi Acquires Brandify, Melding Location Marketing Strengths
Brandify has been acquired by SOCi, a fast-growing market leader in location and social media management for enterprise brands. Brandify and SOCi will combine their technologies and expertise under the SOCi name to serve more than 700 major national and international brands, accounting for over 3 million total store and office locations worldwide. The acquisition includes Street Fight, which will continue to operate as an editorially independent media outlet.
LBMA: Sam’s Club Tests Scan and Ship Feature in Stores
In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association covers Brookfield Properties partnering with ARIA Network for AR air rights activations, Adtech Realworld lauching QDOOH to make buying billboards easy for local brands, Sams’s Club testing a “scan & ship” feature for in-store shopping, and Coty getting Covid-friendly with perfume sampling.
Media Measurement in the Data Privacy Era
Marketers need to understand how to gather and leverage consumer data on the fly and according to protocol. Gartner forecasts increasing regulations will lead to more than one million organizations appointing a privacy officer by the end of 2022, a signal that now is the time to get serious about media measurement in the privacy era. Let’s explore some strategies that will define the next generation of media measurement.
The Grand Reopening: DOOH Strategies to Capitalize on Lifted Restrictions
DOOH screens can be found in most of the locations that consumers were restricted from over the past year — such as bars, restaurants, malls and movie theaters — as well as essential places that consumers continued to visit, including convenience stores, gas stations, subways, grocery stores, and more. Now that people are returning in droves to these environments, marketers are using a variety of DOOH strategies to reach consumers. Let’s review those tactics.
How to Develop High-Performing Facebook Groups Communities To Fuel Your Brand’s Growth
Facebook Groups are not just for nosy neighbors to tattle-tale on loud parties or podcast fans to debate the latest true crime controversy. When launched correctly, FB groups are a huge opportunity for brands and businesses to build customer loyalty, nurture relationships, and even gain insight from their followers.
LBMA: Yelp’s Audiences Platform
In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association covers Yelp launching their Audiences platform, AirBnB partnering with What3Words for staycations, Billboards in Paris getting brighter for the “Fearless Night” safety campaign, and imageHOLDERS launching touchless kiosks with Ultraleap technology.
6 Retail Tech Solutions for Addressing Labor Shortages
Retail technology platforms that may have been overlooked before the pandemic are now coming into focus as businesses begin to understand their true value. Using a combination of artificial intelligence, machine learning, IoT, and big data, a number of startups have started positioning their platforms as possible solutions to the labor shortages that retailers and restaurants are facing in 2021. Mobile ordering kiosks, autonomous checkout systems, and even machine vision algorithms are all being used to help businesses greet customers, restock shelves, and even clean messy areas with more efficiency.
Fisherman Pioneers the No-Effort Web for Small Businesses
Fisherman is pioneering what CEO and co-founder Ameet Kallarackal calls the “no-effort Web.” Beginning with a focus on restaurants, which still make up about 90% of its customer base, Fisherman is aiming to be the simplest, most automatic option available for small business owners and operators to create websites. The company claims to get the job done in just two minutes and typically has a website ready for a potential customer, often based purely on the business’ name and address, before approaching them.
The Data Balance: How to Deliver Privacy and Personalization
It’s possible for merchants to provide personalization alongside customer data privacy—in fact, it’s a must for businesses that want to retain customer trust and remain viable. In order to balance using data for personalization with respecting customers’ privacy, it’s important to first understand the current consumer data and privacy landscape.
What’s Driving Retailers to Implement Autonomous Checkout
Convenience stores have been the first frontier for autonomous checkout, with grocery to follow. While today, it’s still rare to find autonomous checkout in stores, I think that within two years, people will have at least one store in their neighborhood that offers the technology. And within five years, autonomous checkout will be common and preferred by the majority of shoppers. While Covid may have accelerated the shift, this technology is here to stay.
Expert Roundup: Data-Driven Advertising’s New Playbook
Experts from StitcherAds, AdColony, VRTCAL, ENGINE, and Placements.io weigh in on the future of data-driven advertising as privacy changes accrue. In particular, the crew discusses the resurgence of contextual ads and the intersection between privacy and antitrust issues.