Street Fight Daily: Target Uses Data to Boost Brands, ProPublica Aims to Fill Local News Void

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…

Target Capitalizes on Shopper Data, Collaborates with In-House Brands On Programmatic (Digiday)
With a trove of shopper data, the retail chain has developed an in-house data management platform and formed direct relationships with demand-side vendors. And now, it offers a private marketplace to supplier brands who want to run programmatic in the same fashion.

How To Foster Culture At Early Startups? Stylu Founder Says, Just ‘Be Yourself’ (Street Fight)
“Startup culture is very unique,” says Stylu’s CEO Justin Colombo. “There’s no such thing as rules. It’s good to have structure, but we’re very open-minded. We’re just moving forward naturally according to our culture and our style.”

Attempting To Fill A Local News Void, ProPublica Launches Illinois Unit (Columbia Journalism Review)
As local and regional newspapers have grappled with the collapse of an antiquated business model, funding for investigative units and accountability journalism has shrunk drastically. ProPublica hopes to fill that void — at least partially — with a series of regional operations for which the Illinois unit, to start early next year, will serve as a trial balloon.

Major Retailer Leverages Social To Score During Holiday Season (AdWeek)
This year, Macy’s is running three campaigns with different messaging across Facebook and Instagram, which started during the 90th Macy’s Day Parade with a 90-second spot dubbed “Old Friends” on Facebook.

Thanx, Card-Linked Loyalty Provider, Announces $17.1 Million Round (Local Onliner)
Thanx, a four-year-old, pure-breed customer loyalty solution for national-local retailers has just secured a massive $17.1 million “B” round led by Icon Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Javelin Venture Partners. The new money is another validation of the card-linked space, and will enable Thanx to triple its sales and engineering teams in 2017.

How Pairing Creative and Programmatic Improves Consumer Targeting (eMarketer)
Marketers are cracking the code of making advertising creative and programmatic work together to target consumers, according to Nick Welch, UK business development director at ADmantX, a first-party data provider for programmatic advertising. eMarketer’s Sean Creamer spoke with Welch about how it is done. 

Google Opens Its Digital Assistant to Developers In Race Against Alexa (Bloomberg)
Two months after rolling out its digital assistant, Google is opening its doors to outside developers to help the company chase rivals, particularly Amazon.com Inc., in a critical technology race. 

LBMA Podcast: Adquick, Spotify, McDonald’s, and Blippar (Street Fight)
This Week in Location Based Marketing is a weekly video podcast from the Location Based Marketing Association with Asif Khan and Aubriana Lopez. On the show: Hormel, Talians app, Tree Elves and King of Pops, Commerce Signals, PlaceIQ, Broadsign, Here Maps and Twitter, and Apple Maps.

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