Channels

The Kroger Co. has revealed the return of Boost Bonus Days, giving Boost by Kroger Plus members exclusive access to more benefits offered through membership, from July 16 through July 29. During the two-week event, Boost members and those who join during Boost Bonus Days will receive exclusive access to such discounts as savings on Kroger’s Our Brands favorites from aisles across the store. “Boost by Kroger Plus offers members incredible savings every day, and those savings are about to get even bigger with Boost Bonus Days,” said Tom Duncan, VP, head of marketing at Kroger.  Boost Bonus Days features include: More than $100 in grocery savings; Most offers redeemable up to five times; $10 off a $75 or more Kroger Delivery order; 50% off a new annual membership, while current members can receive half off their annual membership next year when they extend July 9-July 29. According to the company, Boost by Kroger Plus members can save up to $1,100 per year with benefits like: Unlimited free delivery on orders of $35 or more; 2x Fuel Points any way that customers shop, with extra fuel points during fuel promotions; Streaming options of Disney+ Basic (with ads), Hulu (with ads) or ESPN+ for annual Boost members; and Member-exclusive offers throughout the year.

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The expansion of co-branded credit card options to the non-prime consumer segment help boost consumer engagement while offering consumers the potential to “graduate” to more robust credit access as their financial health improves, Concora Credit Chief Commercial Officer Rolando De Gracia told. To achieve this, the company collaborates with partners on program design, recognizing that non-prime consumers will likely yield a “lower revenue share” for the issuer. A core component of this inclusive strategy is the concept of a starter card. For non-prime customers, a starter card provides an entry point to lead to a “graduation strategy,” he said. That strategy addresses the often-rapid credit improvement seen in non-prime consumers who consistently make payments. Unlike prime consumers whose FICO scores remain relatively stable with on-time payments, non-prime individuals — whose credit may have declined due to life events like healthcare issues, divorce or unemployment — can see their credit profiles increase with haste. Approximately 30% of Concora Credit’s cardholders will improve their FICO score sufficiently within six or seven months to become eligible for the partner’s primary “champion product.” Concora Credit facilitates this by collaborating with the partner’s primary bank, providing lists of eligible cardholders. When these consumers are identified as having improved their FICO score by hundreds of points, they are often offered the prime product. The graduation strategy also strengthens the partnership between brands and issuers. When a retailer, for instance, sees approval rates at the point of sale jump from 50% to 70% due to an alternative product launched in tandem with Concora Credit, issuers and merchants become more confident and “motivated to pitch the product,” De Gracia said.

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Neighborhood social app Nextdoor is launching a redesigned version of its service that it’s calling the “new Nextdoor.” The app is adding local news, real-time alerts, and an AI-powered feature called “Faves” that’s designed for discovering local businesses and spots. Nextdoor has also updated its overall design to look more contemporary. The company is looking to turn things around and attract more users by making its platform more helpful, useful, and timely. With this redesign, Nextdoor is looking to increase the quality and quantity of local information on the platform, Nextdoor CEO and co-founder Nirav Tolia told. Users will be able to discuss the news in a comments section under each post. In terms of the new alerts, Nextdoor now shows real-time updates on things like weather, traffic, power outages, storms, and wildfires. These alerts will appear on a dynamic neighborhood map, allowing neighbors to have timely conversations about safety and preparedness.  Tolia noted that these alerts are hyper-localized because Nextdoor is built on a geospatial platform. So unlike Amber Alerts that are sent out to everyone in a certain location, Nextdoor says it can personalize its alerts down to the house.  Nextdoor’s unique value is in digitizing and capturing local word-of-mouth, the kind of hyperlocal information that isn’t available through platforms like Google or ChatGPT, because you can only get it from direct conversations.

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In 2022, Ally Financial started ramping up its sponsorship of women’s sports. That turned out to be an extraordinarily well-timed investment. Over the past three years, interest in women’s sports has skyrocketed. All the while, Ally’s logo appeared on basketball courts, soccer fields and athletes’ uniforms. And as the sports grew in popularity, so did the auto lender and digital-only bank. “I look at it as wins all around,” said Andrea Brimmer, Ally’s chief marketing and public relations officer. “It’s allowed us to carve out a really unique space and to have a really disruptive and loud voice on a much smaller overall spend.” As Ally poured money into women’s sports, the bank gained significant cachet. In 2024, the value of Ally’s brand grew by 31%, according to the consulting firm Brand Finance. In 2023, when many Americans lost faith in lenders amid the regional banking crisis, Ally was one of the few banks whose public reputation improved. To the extent that this progress was attributable to the bank’s investment in female athletics, Ally got a bargain. Women’s sports have historically garnered far less sponsorship money than men’s sports — the NBA took in $1.6 billion last season, while the WNBA received $76 million — so a little spending on the “W” leagues goes a long way. As a target for a bank’s marketing spending, women’s sports hold a number of advantages. The first is that there are so many games, leagues, teams and athletes to choose from — at almost any budget. Another advantage is the sheer size of the audience.  So by sponsoring those games, brands like Ally can tap into some very powerful associations.

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SearchStax announced the release of Smart Answers for Site Search, a generative AI feature that delivers instant, natural language summaries at the top of onsite search results pages. Pulled from the customer’s own content index, Smart Answers gives website visitors faster access to accurate information, modernizing how people search, engage, and discover content on websites. With Smart Answers, visitors can type natural language questions into the search bar and receive a direct, AI-generated answer that appears instantly above website search results, similar to Google AI Overviews. Each response is grounded in the website’s indexed content and includes source citations. Users can also provide feedback to fine-tune the experience. For marketing teams and website experience owners, Smart Answers levels up their onsite search without the burden of heavy code changes or development projects. Smart Answers provides a developer-ready widget for easy implementation, with customizable UI to match your brand. Smart Answers determines if the search request requires a generative response and then synthesizes information from your content that has been indexed in SearchStax Site Search, delivering easy-to-digest answers to web visitors’ questions. Key Benefits of Smart Answers: Faster access to information with AI-summarized responses; Trusted answers based on your own website content; Natural language support, encouraging questions over keywords; Higher engagement and satisfaction by matching modern user expectations; Effortless modernization of your search experience without needing to re-architect your site

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Walmart is letting SMBs and non-profits apply for credit to make payments. Walmart Business offers a broad assortment of more than 100,000 items with categorization and navigation tailored to organizational shoppers, is rolling out the TreviPay Pay by Invoice solution. This represents the retailer’s first business-to-business omnichannel payment capability and offers corporate and non-profit customers a business line of credit that provides flexible net terms and enables them to defer payment and receive detailed invoices to help monitor spending. Eligible customers can apply for a business line of credit with 30-day net terms that is fully integrated into the omnichannel Walmart Business environment. Walmart also recently rolled out Walmart Business Print, which enables organizational customers to design and place an order and then choose items with no-to-low minimum quantities to be shipped directly to them or picked up in-store. In addition, the discounter offers Walmart Business customers access to Clover business management solutions.

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