News Briefs

7-Eleven’s annual "Bring Your Own Cup (BYOC) Day" is making its return to stores in August for the second time this year, after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

On Aug. 27, 7Rewards and Speedy Rewards loyalty members are invited to fill up the cup or container of their choice with their favorite Slurpee drink flavor for $1.99 at participating 7-Eleven, Stripes and Speedway locations. 

The return of BYOC Day follows the reactivation of 7-Eleven Day (otherwise known as "Free Slurpee Day"), which is observed annually on July 11, though was also canceled the past two years due to pandemic precautions. BYOC Day also returned earlier this summer for the first time since before the pandemic on May 13 and 14.

To participate in the retailer-designated micro holiday, shoppers must bring their own clean cup (or creative container) that can fit upright within the 10-inch diameter hole in the in-store Slurpee display dispenser.

"We know that Slurpee drinks are a summertime staple for customers, so we're bringing back BYOC Day to celebrate the popular frozen beverage for a second time this summer following a very successful Slurpee Day," said Dennis Phelps, 7-Eleven proprietary beverages senior product director, in a news release.

Slurpee flavors available include blue raspberry, cherry, piña colada or Coca-Cola as well as 7-Eleven’s limited-time mango lemonade flavor.

OneScreen.ai, a marketplace provider for buying and selling out-of-home (OOH) advertising, has launched a comprehensive public directory of OOH advertising inventory with more than 3,200 providers, including media companies, vendors and agencies.

According to a news release announcing the launch, the directory comprises more than 864,000 media listings across a variety of categories, including billboards, taxi toppers, LED trucks, street furniture and transit signage, in 340 different formats.

The rapid rise of OOH advertising has been met with some challenges, including making it difficult for marketers to manage inventory and long sales cycles manually. OneScreen.ai’s directory aims to alleviate some of those pain points by offering searchable listings and a suite of free tools to manage inventory in one place, accelerate sales conversations and increase discoverability by potential buyers.

“Building and deploying this exhaustive directory is the genesis to ensuring everyone can easily and openly buy or sell OOH ads,” said Sam Mallikarjunan, co-founder and CEO of OneScreen.ai, in the release. “While other directories exist in the OOH space, none are democratized — completely open and public, without a third party intermediating to keep sellers from interacting with buyers. Now, that is no longer the case. … Our mission is to continue working collaboratively with industry friends and partners to even further accelerate the success of OOH.”

Media owners can upload, edit and sell their inventory directly from their listing in the directory. Some free tools include campaign building, embeddable maps and invoicing intended to make their inventory more accessible, discoverable and easier for marketers to buy.

From Aug. 1-14, select Best Buy stores will serve as temporary PokeStops as part of Niantic's Pokemon Go, the free augmented reality mobile game that lets players catch and fight digital monsters based on their real-world location.

For two weeks, Pokemon Go trainers can visit more than 800 Best Buy stores turned PokeStops to find and collect essential items, like PokeBalls and Pokemon eggs.

Best Buy is also drawing attention to the latest collection of Pokemon Trading Card Game (TCG) products, which mostly launched in June, including:

• The Pokemon Go Elite trainer box expansion, including 65 card sleeves featuring Mewtwo, 45 Pokemon TCG energy cards and a collector’s box for the cards.
• The Mewtwo V or Melmetal V Pokemon Go V battle decks in multiple styles, including a 60-card deck, three reference cards and one code card to play online.
• The Alolan Exeggutor V Pokemon Go collection, including four booster packs and one code card for Pokemon TCG Live.

INEO Tech Corp., the developer and operator of the INEO Media Network (a digital advertising and analytics solution for retailers), in July entered into a programmatic partnership with Broadsign, a platform provider for digital-out-of-home (DOOH) programmatic advertising. 

With this agreement, advertisers and media buying agencies who utilize Broadsign's Reach platform will gain access and be able to purchase ad space on INEO's Media Network of display screens located at the front entrance of retail stores.

"Teaming with Broadsign allows us to make our inventory more accessible to advertisers looking to reach consumers at the last mile,” said Kyle Hall, CEO of INEO, in a news release. “We're thrilled about the new revenue potential this partnership provides and look forward to continuing to grow the INEO Media Network and increasing our advertising fill rates."

"Connecting with consumers in-store can influence purchasing decisions and help grow brand loyalty when the right messages are put forth. INEO's network is highly desirable to advertisers as interest in reaching retail audiences at the point of purchase continues to grow, and we're excited to onboard this inventory to Reach to benefit media buyers," Broadsign sales director Karim Kanji said in the release.

Surfside Solutions Inc., a data and marketing platform servicing the cannabis industry, made its end-to-end marketing technology generally available to Canadian dispensaries and brands in July.

Surfside combines its first-party customer data platform and a demand side platform to provide an "all-in-one" solution for cannabis businesses. The businesses will be able to activate customer data by advertising to new and existing customers across websites and mobile apps, according to a company news release.

"By giving us the ability to advertise to local cannabis consumers with digital ads and track the results for both e-commerce and in-store sales, Surfside helps make sure that every ad dollar we spend is helping us grow," Will Alexander, head of marketing at Burb, a British Columbia-based dispensary chain and cannabis brand, said in the release.

The Surfside platform enables cannabis businesses to:

• Advertise to cannabis consumers across more than one million websites and mobile apps.
• Reach custom and lookalike audiences based on some-25,000 behavioral attributes.
• Track in-store and e-commerce results from ad campaigns in a performance dashboard.

"We have been building our presence and capabilities in Canada through a series of partnerships and campaigns over the last twelve months and we can't wait to start helping more Canadian clients grow as we invest more heavily into this important market," said Travis Scadron, vice president of business development at Surfside, in the release.

Music, media and technology company Stingray has partnered with Geopath, a nonprofit organization that provides audience metrics for out-of-home advertising, to measure retail-based digital audio out-of-home (AOOH) advertising impressions in the U.S.

Geopath will utilize verified third-party audience measurement data, technology and media research methodologies — using a holistic integrated approach — to provide tools enabling advertisers to quantify this new retail media format as part of the company’s media mix.

Stingray Advertising’s retail-based digital AOOH advertising network connects brands with highly qualified consumers during their in-store shopping journey. This is achieved with contextually relevant audio messages that are digitally ad-served (directly or programmatically) to shoppers. While this category is applicable in various retail sectors, it is currently expanding, particularly in grocery and convenience stores, where brands can have an immediate impact on consumers' decisions.

Stingray’s network includes Ahold Delhaize, Albertsons Cos., Brookshires, CVS Pharmacy, Jean Coutu, Metro, Rite Aid, Southeastern Grocers, Tops Markets, Walmart Canada and Weis Market, with coverage across Canada and every designated market area in the U.S.

"Location-based AOOH cuts through the cacophony of in-store messages, giving the advertiser an undiluted share of the space and access to an unrivaled composition of principal shoppers while they shop," said Ryan Fuss, senior vice president of Stingray Advertising, in a news release. "Brands can share their voice and tailor ads to precise location proximities, conquesting strategies and consumer journeys, all through the power of retail-based digital audio advertising."

Stingray Advertising’s in-store audio advertising network reaches 140 million shoppers each week in over 20,000 grocery retailers, superstores, discount stores and pharmacies in North America, according to the company.

"[Geopath’s] ability to use and combine both mobile data and first-party transactional data gives Stingray the ability to deploy quickly and ensure accurate measurement across our inventory," said Philippe Cote, VP of technologies at Stingray, in the release. "For the first time, advertisers will be able to access Geopath-measured audio inventory directly at the point of purchase while benefiting from Stingray's industry-leading audio ad verification technologies. This is a game changer."