Thanks to The Drum for the opportunity to share more about what makes Kroger excited about the new partnership with Google and why every brand should be building strategy playbooks that anchor on real outcomes vs proxy media metrics.

A potential brand partner said this to me recently (PART 1): "We all have playbooks, but that doesn't mean we're following them." He's so right. Most brands I work with don't have a strategy problem. They have an execution problem. Those that are crushing the LSM game are doing the following: -Turning strategy into measurable action -Connecting local activations to actual performance -Giving operators clarity on what's actually working (and what's not) And that's where LOMA comes in. Our brand partners are not guessing. They are measuring, adjusting, and actually running the playbook. #localstoremarketing #brandpartners #lsm

BREAKING: TikTok Shop US × Emersoft - Official Partnership BookTok is driving demand faster than most bookstores can capture it. Emersoft is now a TikTok Shop Partner - giving bookstores, authors and creators the infrastructure to turn that demand into actual sales. When a video hits, your store keeps up: • Every book available to sell instantly • Orders fulfilled automatically • Your catalog grows as fast as your content Some stores are already seeing 2–3× growth from BookTok-driven sales. Now we’re breaking down exactly how to do it 👇 LIVE WEBINAR BookTok Is Exploding. Here’s How Bookstores Capture the Sales Monday, April 13 4:00 PM EST More info about registration can be found on @emersoftai #booktok #books #independentbooksellers #tiktokshop

🟢 If you missed it: What happens when decades of shop-floor expertise walk out the door? Discover how digital playbooks can capture that knowledge and deliver it as real-time guidance—accelerating training, improving quality, and future-proofing operations. ▶️ Start watching and see how it works: https://hubs.li/Q046yWTT0 #SystemsIntegration #Playbook

🟢 If you missed it: What happens when decades of shop-floor expertise walk out the door? Discover how digital playbooks can capture that knowledge and deliver it as real-time guidance—accelerating training, improving quality, and future-proofing operations. ▶️ Start watching and see how it works: https://hubs.li/Q046z1hQ0 #SystemsIntegration #Playbook

We’ve seen this model play out before in cable. Once you paid for a bundle, your access kept expanding with more channels, then on‑demand, then streaming layered on top. The strategy was simple: secure the relationship, then over‑deliver on how you let customers consume the same content across formats. Now look at books. When I buy a hard copy, I’m not just buying paper; I’m buying rights to an idea. Yet if I want the digital edition, in most cases I’m effectively asked to pay again, despite the underlying content being identical. If we apply the cable playbook, a different model emerges: print should be the gateway to a multi‑format access bundle, not a standalone SKU. Buy the physical book, and you automatically unlock (or nearly‑free) digital: e‑reading for commuting, audio for the gym, print for deep, distraction‑free reading. Ownership becomes less about a single format and more about flexible access to an IP you value. For publishers and platforms, this is a strategic lever: higher perceived value, stronger loyalty, richer data, and more touchpoints to build habit, all without creating any new content. In a world where attention is scarce and switching costs are low, the real edge may come from who designs the smartest access bundles around the same ideas. If you could buy a book once and get all formats as a bundle, would it change how many books you purchase and from whom? #FutureOfReading #PublishingIndustry #BookIndustry #MediaandEntertainment

The Bentonville X Tracks Licensing Summit is a one-day executive conference bringing together leaders from the worlds of licensing, entertainment, consumer brands, and retail to explore how intellectual property becomes successful products on store shelves. Held on Thursday, June 18, 2026 in Bentonville, Arkansas, the summit takes place during the week of the Bentonville Film Festival, which attracts thousands of creators and industry professionals each year. Bentonville—home to the global headquarters of Walmart and one of the most important retail ecosystems in the world—is the ideal setting to examine how entertainment, pop culture, and digital creators translate into retail success. Throughout the day, attendees will hear from industry executives, brand owners, and licensing experts discussing topics such as: Retail licensing strategy Turning pop culture and entertainment IP into consumer products Creator brands moving from social media to retail Speed-to-market and “shelf-ready” product strategies The Bentonville X Tracks Licensing Summit is designed for brand owners, licensing professionals, retailers, manufacturers, and investors looking to understand how licensed products drive commerce in today’s retail marketplace. Space is limited to 200 attendees. Tickets https://lnkd.in/e-cF7tXA

The pressure is real: move faster, reduce risk, deliver outsized impact. So brands are defaulting to all-too-familiar playbooks—line extensions, M&As, and more. But speed and scale aren't the same as sustainable growth ... Our recent collaboration with Kearney shows that innovation-driven brands are 2x more likely to grow overall sales. The bet on the familiar might be the riskiest one of all. → Read our analysis now: https://lnkd.in/di7kQiNp

What are you still carrying that no longer applies? That's the question Josh Grant posed to ten operators, and the answers are worth sitting with. Our CEO Uzair Dada was one of them. His unlearning: that more content and more paid spend equals more results, and that the old funnel still holds. The shift he's focused on is simpler and harder at the same time—helping marketers Get Discovered and Get Chosen in a world that's changed faster than most playbooks have. The full piece features nine other leaders doing the same kind of honest questioning, covering traffic metrics, org structure, attribution, delegation, and what actually drives growth right now. Well worth a read. Link in comments.

Keyword-first used to be enough. Now everyone is bidding on the same terms, using the same playbooks, and wondering why things feel harder. The shift is happening toward audience-led strategy, how people actually shop, how they move through the funnel, what signals matter before they ever search. Destaney Wishon got into this in a recent webinar and it’s one of those topics that changes how you think about everything after. If you’ve felt performance getting harder to scale, this is probably why. Link to watch full webinar in the comments ⬇️