Digital Marketing

Menlo Park, Calif. – Facebook has agreed to acquire LiveRail, an advertising technology company that helps companies serve better ads in the videos that appear on their websites and apps. LiveRail, founded in 2007, also provides marketers with access to premium video inventory and data to help decide where to show their ads.

Hershey’s Chocolate World immerses shoppers in all-things Hershey. The two-level, 13.000-sq.-ft. store, which has a 74-ft. high Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bar that visitors can walk through and entrances styled to resemble Hershey’s Kisses, is designed as the ultimate brand experience. Custom chocolate sculptures of the Statue of Liberty, made of almost 800 lbs. of pure Hershey’s Milk Chocolate, and the Empire State Building, made of 1,800 Hershey’s Milk Chocolate bars, make idea photo ops.

New York -- UGG Australia on July 14 will launch an e-commerce site dedicated to its new tween-girls brand, I Heart UGG. The retailer also plans to open two I Heart UGG stores, in Waikiki, Hawaii, and in San Francisco, in early September.

The new line includes footwear, loungewear, accessories and handbags and will be available in the United States, Japan and China.

Overstock.com is offering free Club O loyalty program memberships to active police officers, full-time firefighters, paramedics and certified emergency medical technicians.

In conjunction with its new premium tween brand for girls called I Heart UGG, UGG Australia is planning to launch on July 14 a dedicated e-commerce site that will offer the entire product line called iheartugg.com. 

The line includes footwear, loungewear, accessories and handbags and will be available in the United States, Japan and China. The new brand, the company said, has been designed to not only tap into the tween market but also to foster enduring brand loyalty among customers. 

While on summer vacation, nearby location trumps brands for many types of consumer purchases, and mobile devices will be the dominant form of search. A new study conducted by location marketing automation provider Placeable shows that proximity is apparently so important that only 1% of vacationers consider reviews when looking to replace a forgotten item.

Boston -- Swirl Networks, provider of an enterprise-class beacon marketing platform, announced that it has entered into a strategic relationship with Motorola Solutions. The two companies will work together in the areas of product, sales and services to support iBeacon technology rollouts in large-scale retail environments.

This announcement follows the recent unveiling of Motorola's MPact Platform for Mobile Marketing, which leverages Swirl to power the beacon marketing capabilities for its indoor locationing platform.

Burlington, Vt. - Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Truck is launching a month-long tour in New York City July 1-28 and in Portland, Oregon, July 1-29, giving away free ice cream scoops in an omnichannel promotion. Customers can follow the trucks on Twitter to see where they are located and also send tweets to win direct delivery of free ice cream.

Campbell, Calif. – Social shopping site DealsPlus.com has overhauled its site. Starting July 1, DealsPlus users will be able to create, curate and share their own "collections" of products.

Collections make it easy for users to find ideas from like-minded members of the community. For example, users looking for summer home decor inspiration can now "admire" the Summer Home collection and find targeted online deals. As part of the new release DealsPlus will begin working with celebrity and expert collection curators.

No longer content as a social platform for sharing promotional offers, DealPlus.com has relaunched its site to include new capabilities for users to feature curated assortments of merchandise.