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Minocqua Marketplace aggregates 80+ vendors who've pledged not to fund MAGA candidates. A Kickstarter campaign is funding its national relaunch.
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
Minocqua Marketplace aggregates 80+ vendors who've pledged not to fund MAGA candidates. A Kickstarter campaign is funding its national relaunch.
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
In the US, T-Mobile has launched what it calls the first real-time AI platform built directly into a wireless network, starting with Live Translation.The new service enables phone call translation in over 50 languages without requiring apps, downloads or specific devices. It works on any phone connected to T-Mobile's network, from flip phones to the latest smartphones, as long as at least one caller is a T-Mobile customer. All they need to do is say "Hey T-Mobile, translate." Beta registration is open now for postpaid customers, with access rolling out this spring ahead of a commercial launch later this year.Existing translation services typically require dedicated apps, specific hardware or separate subscriptions: barriers that limit adoption, particularly among less tech-savvy users or those on older devices. By embedding AI capabilities at the network level, T-Mobile is positioning translation as infrastructure rather than a product. The carrier is betting that removing friction from cross-language calls could deepen customer loyalty in ways that coverage and network speed improvements no longer can.TREND BITET-Mobile's play reflects a deeper consumer expectation taking hold: technology should work invisibly to make life easier. The implications stretch well beyond telecom. For the 60 million Americans in multilingual households, real-time translation isn't a mere convenience it's a tool for closeness and (intergenerational) connection. For small businesses, it means no longer losing customers because of a language gap. Scale that up to healthcare, where language barriers contribute to misdiagnosis and delayed treatment, or to government services, where they block access to housing, benefits and legal aid, and the stakes become even more evident.The pattern emerging here is one brands across sectors should watch closely: consumers will increasingly expect intelligence embedded at the infrastructure level, requiring zero setup, and designed to enhance human connection rather than replace it. The organizations that deliver on that whether they're carriers, banks, hospitals or public agencies will set a new standard for what "accessible" actually means.
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
On Valentine's Day, French retailer Fnac hosted what it billed as its first-ever cultural speed dating event at its Callao flagship in central Madrid.
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
Barcelona was just named Europe's first Capital of Small Retail, crowning years of deliberate policy work.The city's small retail sector accounts for 13.2% of GDP and supports more than 152,000 jobs, with over 90% of ground-floor commercial premises occupied. But what earned Barcelona the designation isn't the size of its retail ecosystem so much as the depth of its strategy. The city runs over 40 interlocking initiatives spanning sustainability, digitalization, mobility and entrepreneurship.Among the most distinctive is Amunt Persianes ("Raise the Shutters"), through which the city council has invested EUR 17 million in purchasing empty ground-floor premises and offering them to local entrepreneurs at 30-50% below market rent. Rather than waiting for market forces to fill vacant storefronts, Barcelona is treating street-level retail space as public infrastructure. Italy's Silandro and Portugal's Caldas da Rainha also earned the EU-backed title, in the small and mid-sized city categories, respectively.TREND BITEThe European Capitals of Small Retail initiative formalizes a new urban strategy: treating small retail as a public good. For decades, small shops have been framed as casualties of progress: charming but doomed by e-commerce and big-box efficiency. Barcelona's approach flips that script, treating independent retail as essential civic infrastructure a generator of jobs, social cohesion and neighborhood identity that justifies active municipal investment.The playbook is practical: combine data-driven policymaking with direct intervention, embed sustainability into existing retail networks rather than bolting it on, and build public-private coalitions broad enough to survive political cycles. For businesses watching the slow hollowing-out of commercial streets in their own cities, the takeaway is that revitalization doesn't require a savior brand or a market upswing; it requires treating every shuttered storefront as a design problem with a policy solution.
Category:
Marketing and Advertising