There is much talk about beacons this holiday as another big department store, Lord & Taylor, officially announced that beacons will be rolled out in their retail locations in time for Holiday.
These are clearly early days for beacons, and it remains to be seen how effective they will be at driving sales in the fourth quarter. The beacons enable offers to be pushed to shoppers while in the store. Continue reading
Does anyone remember URL targeting, in which through a “normal” media buy, an advertiser was able to hijack a person trying to go to one site and navigate them to another? This was legal, as was Gator — another popular ad-supported media machine that eventually went away for similar, deceptive reasons.
There is some tremendously illegal and egregious internet activity in 2014 that deserves the attention of the serious security people trying to catch it and shut it down. Not nearly as serious but annoying nonetheless is the legal, albeit black hat activity, that happens occasionally with online retail. Continue reading
Most retailers rely on media to support store openings and store events as well as for lifting sales of struggling retail locations. Drive-to-retail marketing plans have typically consisted of radio, print and TV in order to build awareness, but more recently, digital has become an increasingly important component of the media mix.
What makes digital unique relative to traditional forms of media is the level of targeting and sophistication that the others can’t provide. Continue reading
