News Briefs

Advertising technology company Infillion is acquiring location intelligence platform Foursquare. 

The deal brings Foursquare's real-world visitation data into the Infillion platform alongside the purchase data of Catalina. This gives advertisers a privacy-safe way to measure whether advertising drove store visits and real-world purchases.

Foursquare's footprint includes more than 100 million points of interest across 200 countries, 16 billion human-verified check-ins, and aggregated coverage of 250 million U.S. devices. It powers location measurement for hundreds of brands across verticals, serves all agency holding companies, and underpins place intelligence for major mobile apps and AI systems.

The location technology of Foursquare helps marketers understand visitation patterns, reach consumers based on the types of places they visit and measure whether advertising drove incremental store visits. 

Several members of Foursquare's leadership team will join Infillion after the transaction closes. It will expand the company's data business unit and bring deep expertise in location intelligence, geospatial technology, and the products and partnerships that have made Foursquare notable. 

Infillion will evaluate the future of Foursquare's consumer applications, Swarm and Superlocal, considering a range of paths including open-source models, strategic partnerships and opportunities that best support their communities.

RRD's marketing solutions arm and Swiftly are teaming up on a single solution to bring print and digital circulars together for retailers.

The companies are combining Iridio by RRD's direct mail channel management and distribution capabilities with Swiftly's AI-powered SmartCircular platform. The move enables a fully integrated advertising circular that runs across print and a personalized digital experience — both with measurable results.

This work seeks to helps retailers that are forced to treat print and digital media as separate competing programs. On the print side, the companies say they can work with regional merchants to target specific local geographies that drive retail business. Retailers can tie their circulars to response data, traffic insights and in-store performance, drawing on decades of promotion measurement heritage. 

On the digital side, retailers can turn their existing circular PDFs into interactive, shoppable experiences. Shoppers can browse deals, zoom in on products and add items directly to a shopping list. Swiftly's AI technology will use engagement signals to personalize the experience for each shopper.

To manage rising living costs, 30% of consumers actively seek out print and/or digital coupons and 76% take action after receiving physical print offers at home, according to Iridio's 2026 State of Grocery & CPG report. Of those who took action, 38% hold onto physical offers as a visual reminder for their next store visit, 27% compare physical mailers against retail apps to lock in savings and 22% report physical offers drive them to plan a specific store trip, according to the report.

Epsilon hired three key executives to accelerate growth, help clients and strengthen its digital media business.

Michael Chock (first from left in photo) joins Epsilon as chief growth officer, leading a newly unified growth organization that aligns sales, marketing and client development. He will focus the full breadth of Epsilon's data, identity, media and technology capabilities to fuel client growth agendas.

Kathleen Dundas (center of photo) was appointed as chief solutions officer, placing her at the center of Epsilon's expanding data transformation capabilities. 

Ant McDonagh (first from right in photo) will serve as general manager of Epsilon Digital. This is a newly created role leading the company's digital and retail media businesses. He will help advance Epsilon's identity-powered innovation across omnichannel media capabilities.

The executives moves follow a handful of recent promotions. Kate Sirkin, former EVP, global data partnerships was named chief data officer; Chris Wissing, former SVP, technology became chief product officer; and former Acxiom COO Shea Heath was named chief client officer.

Experiential marketing agency Retail Sports Marketing rebranded to RSM& and named a CEO.

Steve Nottingham, former global lead, media transformation at Publicis Groupe, will lead the company. He brings more than a decade of global media, transformation and marketing leadership to the organization. 

The "&" in the company name represents its expanded vision for experiential marketing to connect real-world consumer experiences with data, intelligence, commerce and digital amplification. The organization has existed for 30 years and has more than 110,000 retail activations annually.

As CEO, Nottingham will lead the company’s evolution of experiences being a largely one-off tactic into a plannable, buyable and measurable media channel. At the center of that strategy is R.96, a proprietary intelligence platform that connects audience insights with strategy, execution, conversion, amplification and measurement.

The company was acquired by The Barnett Group earlier this year. Chairman Ken Barnett is the founder and former global CEO of Mars United Commerce.

Grocery retailer Chedraui USA is expanding its in-store retail media capabilities through an expanded partnership with Quad that will deploy digital screens across 25 Smart & Final stores this fall.

Quad will provide an integrated solution that includes content, technology, production and store execution, according to the company, and the rollout is expected to help brands reach shoppers through relevant content and engage with them at the point of purchase.

Matt Reeve, SVP of sales, marketing and merchandising at Chedraui USA, said in a statement that the platform will improve the experience for shoppers and vendor partners while supporting the retailer’s longer-term marketing evolution.

“Across our communities, Smart & Final plays an important role in connecting households and businesses with the brands they love most,” he noted.

Based in California, Smart & Final has a value-oriented, warehouse-style store format. The company was acquired by Chedraui USA in 2021.  

Quad also partners with Smart & Final for print and production support for its weekly circular programs.

Target named Mark Weinstein chief marketing and guest experience officer this week.

Weinstein will report directly to CEO Michael Fiddelke. He joins Target from Hilton, where he served as global CMO for all 28 hotel brands and the hospitality company's Hilton Honors loyalty and rewards program, and head of luxury brands.

At Target, Weinstein will play a critical role in the company's growth strategy, elevating how consumers experience and connect with the Target brand.

"Deepening how we know and engage our [shoppers] will be critical to our success," said Fiddelke. "Mark has a proven ability to understand what consumers value and turn those insights into brand connections that feel relevant and personal. His leadership will help us elevate the [shopper] experience across every interaction with Target, deepening existing relationships, welcoming new [shoppers] and driving continued growth."

In his role, Weinstein will work to shape a more connected experience across all the ways people engage with the retailer, from discovery and shopping to how Target shows up in culture and communities. He will also oversee Target's retailer media network Roundel, and Target+, the mass merchant's highly curated marketplace.

"Target is an iconic brand with the rare ability to be both deeply familiar and continually surprising," said Weinstein. "I'm excited to join Michael and the team as Target charts its next chapter and build on that incredible foundation in fresh, distinct and more connected ways. We have an enormous opportunity to bring the brand to life across every interaction with consumers, creating experiences that feel unmistakably Target while giving people new reasons to engage with, choose and prefer us."