Steve Rockman

Culver's launches its first loyalty program as most fast food and casual dining depend more and more on loyalty programs to drive sales in a slowing business environment.

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Mastercard launches Commerce Media Network for targeted advertising With the launch, Mastercard joins a growing number of other payment platforms offering commerce media opportunities, including Chase Bank, Klarna and PayPal. As agentic commerce advances, Mastercard is partnering with Microsoft with the aim of enabling Mastercard Commerce Media in Copilot Studio to provide a connected experience whether a human or an AI agent is driving it. In May 2025 Mastercard debuted Agent Pay, a tokenized payment technology that can be integrated into agentic AI platforms to facilitate secure payments. Mastercard Commerce Network is planning to enter new distribution channels, including POS and digital wallets. https://lnkd.in/gT9W2Qvz

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Albertsons is leaning into influencer-led retail media, and they picked a pretty great partner to do it with if you ask me 😜 Here's the skinny... 🤝 Linqia and Albertsons Media Collective teamed up to build a custom creator solution 📲 This allows Albertsons and all of their brand partners to develop retail-specific content that integrates directly into AMC's retail media ecosystems 📈 We are already seeing pretty incredible results, with a recent campaign delivering engagement rates more than four times higher on Facebook and triple on Instagram I don't think anyone is surprised to hear that creator content showing faces and telling stories outperforms typical product focused retail media content And now every brand has a dedicated offering to unleash just that as part of their retail media buys. Here's exactly how it works... 👉 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫-𝐋𝐞𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭: Linqia taps an extensive network of creators, tailored by retailer and category such as food and beverage or household essentials, to create retail-specific content 👉 𝐑𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐥 𝐌𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐚 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: Through the partnership with AMC, Linqia runs that creator content natively within Albertsons ad ecosystems 👉 𝐂𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐝-𝐋𝐨𝐨𝐩 𝐌𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭: AMC provides attribution and sales lift data, giving brands a clear picture of ROI Retail media and influencer marketing are possibly the two hottest areas of marketing, and now they are coming together #influencermarketing #socialmedia #creatoreconomy #retailmedia

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If your brand’s Amazon channel is clean, but your Walmart listings are wild, you’re not in control. You’re seeing the symptom, not the source. You’re one seller away from a price war that spills across every channel. Most brands treat marketplaces like separate battles, Amazon gets all the attention, Walmart gets handled “later.” But that’s not control. That’s containment. The truth is, what happens on one platform doesn’t stay there. Amazon sellers pop up on Walmart. Feed syncs spread bad data. Algorithms follow the lowest price, not the right one. If you’re a 1P vendor, that loop can crush your margins fast. In CPG, per-ounce price matching can create weeks of downstream chaos. These are systemic issues. And they only get solved with systemic visibility. Control means consistency. The same truth everywhere your brand shows up. Not just compliance on Amazon, but connected enforcement across every channel. Because when you’re not clean everywhere, you’re just one slip-up away from a mess that hits right before, or right after a promo, when it hurts most. That creates a painful hangover effect... Focusing on one marketplace isn’t control; it’s tunnel vision. Consumers are searching everywhere now: Google, LLMs, and every platform in between. Your brand needs to show up consistently wherever the search starts. Your brand has to show up consistently wherever the search starts. Because channel control isn’t about managing a single marketplace...it’s about mastering the entire ecosystem of where your brand lives. #ThornCrest #BrandProtection #ChannelControl

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Despite a massive body of loyalty research over the years, there are still many unsolved puzzles, according to top researcher Dr. Yuping Liu-Thompkins, whose Loyalty Science Lab is dedicated to helping marketers find the answers they need. https://lnkd.in/gtRzAvXf

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I concur with James Heimers, who spoke to The Independent last week. When things go wrong (and in travel, they inevitably do) access to a human isn’t a “premium feature” it’s table stakes. Charging for basic problem-solving creates a two-tier experience that erodes trust fast. AI should remove friction, not add it…otherwise it’s brand damage waiting to happen. RAPP UK RAPP Omnicom Precision Marketing Omnicom

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Still buzzing from this morning’s Creator Rooftop session at Cannes Lions! Thank you to everyone who joined us—and to my powerhouse co-panelists Val DiFebo and Diana Hong-Elsey—for helping unpack the future of creator-led innovation. The truth is: creators aren’t just making content—they’re shaping culture, strategy, and business outcomes. And if brands want to survive in this attention economy, they need creators at the core, not the edges. I broke it all down in the Creator Darwinism Field Guide—a no-fluff resource I wrote to help creators (and the people who hire them) navigate the shift from content to command. 📥 Download it here and hit the ground running: https://lnkd.in/etaN_U6C Let’s build something better—together. #CreatorDarwinism #CannesLions2025 #SociStudio #DNY #CreatorEconomy #FieldGuide #CannesLions #CreativeLeadership

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