The role of a marketer changed drastically in 2023. Rather than being centered on brand, advertising, and digital marketing, brand marketers today are focusing more heavily on strategic areas, like marketing analytics, revenue growth, innovation, and market entry strategy. Surveys show that while firms are slowing their investments in customer relationship management systems, brand building, and customer experience, marketing spending on mobile tactics is still on the rise — increasing by as much as 80% over the next five years.

It’s a chaotic shift that’s been experienced first-hand by Brandon Rhoten, previously in his roles as a marketing executive at companies like Wendy’s, Papa John’s, and Potbelly Sandwich Shops, and now as chief marketing officer at GroundTruth. During his time at Wendy’s, Rhoten led the brand’s advertising and media efforts, including its award-winning Snarky Social strategy, and oversaw billions of dollars in global media investment. Now he’s on the other side, working with GroundTruth to expand the company’s location-based advertising objectives through partnerships with some of the country’s largest brands.

Street Fight recently connected with Rhoten to get his take on the state of brand marketing in 2023, including the struggle many marketers face when it comes to vanity metrics and where location-based marketing fits into the broader martech ecosystem. Here’s what he had to say.

Q. You have an interesting background, being on both sides of the marketing ecosystem. How has your experience with companies like Wendy’s and Papa John’s lent itself to what you’re doing now at GroundTruth? 

A. Being responsible for delivering real traffic to a business gives you a perspective I’m not sure many in media have — it’s why most CMOs struggle with marketing vanity metrics and instead focus on the indicators they know have a direct correlation to traffic and check growth in their businesses. It’s why I struggled to sit through most media presentations myself — it drove me nuts to have such a disconnect between what we were trying to accomplish and what a media partner was attempting to sell my team. 

You quickly have to learn what matters, what something that is starting to work looks like, and have the experience to understand what has the best odds of success. Basically, my experience running large marketing departments and media budgets lets me think like the businesses that need to put real “points on the board” think versus a media partner that’s just trying to spend your money on impressions.

Q. How have the needs of brand advertisers changed since you’ve been working in the industry, and what is GroundTruth doing to address those evolving demands? 

A. Early in my career, most marketing departments were seen as the art club. You make the pretty fun stuff but leave the real work of growing the business to the rest of us, sort of thing. These were the days of huge TV buys, Super Bowl spots, and even the early days of digital and social when it was all about likes and reach. 

Today, I’m proud to say marketing is the primary driver of business growth for many brands. Because we’ve embraced full-funnel marketing tactics, integrated digital into the overall media ecosystem, blended organic and paid almost seamlessly, and now can easily measure things that matter like foot traffic driven by media. Marketing is a revenue driver, and we still get to make the pretty fun stuff on top of it. It’s an awesome time to be a marketer.

Q. GroundTruth was an early player in the location marketing space, but it seems like a lot of the hype around that has died down in the past few years. What’s your take on the state of location-based marketing and advertising today?

A. For GroundTruth, we’ve moved to real-world behavior-based advertising. Because we’re able to both build ideal audiences based on people’s behavior and measure if they respond in the real-world. Location is a signal among many that lets us better target and close the loop for brands that want to drive a real business result. 

Good marketers have a deep toolbox today. Partners like us let marketers learn quickly, drive specific and measurable behaviors like foot traffic among an ideal target, learn quickly what works, then scale to other media partners to keep the growth coming.

Q. What do you see as the Next Big Thing coming down the pipeline, as far as brand marketing is concerned? What are brands all going to be asking about at this time next year? 

A. I think automation of things like iterative testing is going to be the next big thing. Sure, we have versions of this now, but when you add in new technology like AI it makes zero sense to set and forget any program. If we can continuously optimize creative, media specifics like audiences and tactics, and expand how we verify the impact marketing has on the real business, marketers can spend more time on fun stuff like creative and new ways to leverage media partners.

Q. How about you personally. What do you hope to be working on at this time next year, and what do you hope to have accomplished in your role as CMO at GroundTruth? 

A. I want GroundTruth to be seen as the media partner that helps you deliver real business results. We’re not there to spend your money on impressions, or to help you win a Lion. Our job is to grow your business, so marketing is seen as an essential investment for more brands. The products we build, who we work with, and how we partner should make this clear.

Do you know of a new hire or an executive that’s shaking up business in the adtech, martech, e-commerce, localized marketing, or location intelligence space? Shoot us an email at editor@streetfightmag.com.

At the start of the Cold War, a young man from southern Siberia designed what would become the world’s most ubiquitous assault rifle.

The AK-47, or Avtomat Kalashnikova, was never patented and thus easily reproducible. It is light and highly portable, making it easy to smuggle across borders. The AK-47 is also renowned for its simplicity: With very little training, most combatants, including children, can strip and clean one in minutes.

Decades later, the AK-47 (along with its variants) may be the most widely available military weapon on the planet. Even its inventor, Mikhail Kalashnikov, was surprised by its widespread uptake: “It was like a genie out of the bottle,” he reportedly said. “It began to walk all on its own, and in directions I did not want.”

The AK-47 and other light weapons have changed how conflicts are waged, where, and by whom. Though not designed for harmful purposes, the generative AI tools that have swept into the public spotlight in recent months may follow a similarly destructive path. 

AI has the potential to change how wars are waged on a scale unseen since the rise of weapons like the AK-47. But few people are thinking about how these technologies will shape “forgotten conflicts” and humanitarian crises – including most humanitarian agencies.

AI engineers and enthusiasts may bristle at comparing a deadly weapon to generative AI, examples of which include GPT4, text-to-image models like Stable Diffusion and DALL-E 2, or Eleven Labs’ speech synthesis and voice-cloning tools. ChatGPT certainly does: When I asked the language model about this analogy, it replied that my prompt was “potentially offensive” (it did not specify to whom) and that “it is not appropriate or respectful to compare a life-saving technology like AI to a weapon of war”.

There are, however, key similarities: accessibility, portability, and simplicity.

The engineering behind generative AI is complex, but the tools themselves can be used by anyone with internet access. Their use isn’t constrained by state boundaries nor adequately regulated (yet). And, at this stage, many of these tools are still free or virtually free. 

“Generative AI, we’re told, is meant to support human creativity, generate new forms of art, and simplify marketing. But this fails to account for other incentives driving demand and influencing its design.”

In the wrong hands, generative AI could create audio or visual content in support of targeted propaganda and disinformation campaigns, turning the proverbial “fog of war” into a murk so dark and dense that only the most sophisticated tools will spot fact amid the fiction. This could make it harder to bring warring parties to the peace table, or prevent those fleeing conflict from accessing life-saving humanitarian assistance or finding refuge across a border. 

Just as the social media giants of the last decade failed to prevent misinformation and hate from weaponising their networks, today’s tech firms are not designing AI with conflicts in mind. They shouldn’t be relied on to build in the necessary guardrails to protect against misuse.

Generative AI, we’re told, is meant to support human creativity, generate new forms of art, and simplify marketing. But this fails to account for other incentives driving demand and influencing its design.

While China and the United States are battling to achieve supremacy in and through AI, so too are the few firms who have the data, computing power, and capital required to develop the technology. 

One notable tech titan recently argued that increased government investment could enable greater technological innovation in support of US national security and defence. As the bioethicist and technology expert Wendell Wallach has warned, the commercial and political incentives underpinning advanced technologies like AI are merging. 

This should be particularly alarming to the many humanitarian agencies who hold neutrality as a guiding principle for their operations and partnerships. These agencies should urgently reflect on how generative AI might affect the 2 billion people who live in the world’s conflict areas.

Responding to my prompts, ChatGPT noted that “efforts must be made to ensure that the development and deployment of such technologies are governed by ethical principles and regulations to prevent their misuse”. 

But such boilerplate responses on ethics leave us with more questions: How will AI be regulated in places where the rule of law is weak? How will tech firms designing AI ensure their tech is “governed by ethical principles”, particularly in light of recent layoffs? What happens when these tools fall into the hands of non-state armed groups? And how will refugees and humanitarian actors protect themselves from the potential harms? 

Whatever the answers, it’s safe to say that the genie is now out of the bottle. 

Edited by Irwin Loy.

Caley Cantrell

Peter Coughter

Longtime Brandcenter professors Caley Cantrell and Peter Coughter are retiring after 17 and 26 years, respectively, at the graduate school. VCU News also reports on a group of students from Creative Circus who received their degrees at this year’s Brandcenter commencement after the Atlanta school closed last year.

The Idea Center was hired by Leo Lantz Construction to redesign its website. It’s working with Virginia Cardiovascular Consultants of Fredericksburg on a new website and ongoing SEO.

Will Sidaros

Idea Center hired Will Sidaros as a project manager. The George Mason alum has previously worked as a freelance videographer.

Spurrier Group was hired by Allianz Partners as the travel insurance company’s lead agency for digital media and marketing. Work will focus on scale the company’s audience base and digital strategy.

Addison Clark was hired by local builder River City Custom Homes to provide strategic marketing including paid and organic social media, search engine optimization, and web and design support. The agency launched a redesigned website for client Gilman Heating, Cooling & Plumbing. The mobile-first site reflects the company’s updated branding.

Kimberly Loehr

Kimberly Loehr of Loehr Lightning Protection Co. was awarded Virginia Professional Communicators’ 2023 Communicator of Achievement Award at the group’s spring conference this month. The award recognizes achievement in the communications field and service to VPC, National Federation of Press Women and the community.

Loehr is a co-owner of the Richmond-based contracting firm and serves as president of nonprofit Virginia Press Women Foundation.

Cade Martin won Best in Show in Communication Arts Magazine’s 2023 Photography Competition for images included in a branding campaign for the International Spy Museum. The campaign was led by D.C.-based agency January Third and involved Philadelphia-based NLD Productions.



Arts & Letters Creative Co. created an ad for ESPN to promote the NBA Finals. The 30-second clip is part of the “It’s a Beautiful Time for Basketball” platform and showcases scenes from the NBA season this year displayed on the Larry O’Brien Trophy.

Molly Jamison

Arts & Letters promoted Molly Jamison to executive creative director, joining fellow ECDs Charles Hodges and Danielle Flagg. Jamison will be responsible for developing talent within the creative department and leading initiatives for ESPN and other agency clients.

Jamison has worked at Arts & Letters since 2020 and was previously a creative director. She previously worked at New York agency Fig, Barton F. Graf 9000, Droga5 and Wieden + Kennedy NY.

Familiar Creatures was hired by Hampden-Sydney College for creative and strategic work. It previously has worked on the college’s Swagalog promotional magazine. The agency created a brand platform for Mateo’s Gourmet Salsa. Called Real Obsession, the platform turned customer reviews into ads and included sound by Overcoast and animation by Hue + Cry.



Mateos Salsa “Feral” from Proposal on Vimeo.

Ryan Barber

Familiar Creatures hired Ryan Barber as associate creative director/art director. Barber previously freelanced for agencies in New York and Los Angeles. Summer interns include Taylor Martin, Trey O’Shea and Stella Tessarollo. The agency also moved its office to 2915 W. Leigh St. in Scott’s Addition. It was previously at 3300 W. Broad St.

Brand Federation opened a second office in New York City. It’s leasing a space from design collaborator Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv in Manhattan at 15 E. 26th St. Floor 12.

Rocket Pop Media is going remote and closing its office at 2530 W. Main St.

Adweek reports Buffalo Wild Wings split from The Martin Agency in favor of New York-based Anomaly as its new lead creative agency.

SHAPE is a new and essential resource for Helsinki’s contemporary art landscape, a mapping of art spaces and public events across the city. SHAPE Helsinki Art Map is run by PUBLICS. SHAPE (Spaces, Helsinki, Art, Projects, Events) is an event calendar, an art map and a comprehensive platform for local residents and visitors to navigate the diversity of Helsinki art scenes and to find out what’s happening, where and when. SHAPE relaunch coincides with the opening weekend of Helsinki Biennial in June 2023

SHAPE archives exhibitions and highlights current public events, spaces, times and locations. Users and visitors can browse upcoming activities as well as find out more about their initiating organisations, who they are, where they are and what they are up to. SHAPE is organised around eight main categories of activity: Events, Exhibitions, Festivals, Initiatives, Museums, Publications, Supports, and Workspaces:

“Events” gathers spaces currently organising and hosting a variety of discursive events and talks related to contemporary art.
“Exhibitions” lists spaces focused on the display and presentation of exhibitions of contemporary art.
“Festivals” highlights established art-related, public, and perennial events happening during a limited period of time.
“Initiatives” collects organisations initiating and hosting a range of art-related events without a dedicated physical space.
“Museums” shows large-scale institutions presenting contemporary art, generally with an entrance fee.
“Publications” combines libraries, independent publishers, editorial initiatives, art bookstores, virtual and physical spaces.
“Supports” brings together agencies and support structures providing information, events and funding for Finnish and non-Finnish speaking cultural workers.
“Workspaces” presents spaces focusing on making, working, producing such as studios or workspaces for artists, fabricators and makers.

SHAPE Art Map is initiated by and run by PUBLICS with support from Kohta. SHAPE is maintained by PUBLICS and is one way of supporting more than 110+ small to medium-sized local organisations, helping to make them more visible and connected to each other and to their audiences. SHAPE is not only an art map and online platform directory, it also supports and promotes public events through instagram and facebook and ongoing national and international marketing and support.

SHAPE is initiated as part of Open Up is a four-year cultural project (2020–23) co-funded by the Creative Europe programme, promoting artists and cultural workers. Open Up is a partnership between seven distinct organisations from seven cities across Europe.

PUBLICS COUPLING Vlatka Horvat with Maarit Muustonen previews on June 8 between 5–7pm and is open every Wednesday to Friday throughout June between 12–6pm.

In addition to spreading the word about SHAPE, PUBLICS curates its fourth Coupling exhibition with new interventions by London based artist Vlatka Horvat co-mingling with new works by Helsinki-based artist Maarit Mustonen. PUBLICS COUPLING of Vlatka Horvat with Maarit Mustonen comprises a public event, exhibition and series of window installations at PUBLICS for the month of June. In addition to presenting their new individual works alongside one another, Maarit and Vlatka will collaborate on the new edition of Eurantie Window Publication, an experimental spatial publication Maarit edits with Arja Karhumaa in their studio window in Vallila. Presented on the windows at both Maarit and Arja’s studio and at PUBLICS, the publication will stage a call-and-response encounter between the two artists and the two locations. Rendered as white text on stickers and directly addressing the street and the passersby, the publication speaks to the two artists’ shared interest in expanded publishing formats.

PUBLICS is a curatorial and commissioning agency with a dedicated research library and event space in Helsinki, Finland. Under the artistic direction of curator Paul O’Neill, and team members Annabelle Antas, Micol Curatolo, Valentina Černiauskaitė and PUBLICS YOUTH. PUBLICS explores a “work together” institutional model with multiple overlapping objectives, thematic strands and collaborations.

PUBLICS is partnering with Saastamoinen Foundation for 2023-25.

What is a world, and how do we begin re-worlding it? The inaugural iCUBE Museum takes place at 798CUBE from March 25, 2023 to June 6, 2023, and brings artists, scientists, thinkers, and researchers from all over the world to envision the possibilities of a world to come. With its theme of I Want to See “How You See”, this inaugural edition is directed by Xiewei Song and Hera Lee, and curated by Naiyi Wang.

As the first art project of Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) in China, iCUBE Museum is dedicated to changing the way people experience art through revolutionary and innovative technologies that break through the constraints of space and time. The iCUBE Museum collaborates with the world’s leading artists, scientists, thinkers, and researchers, creating new possibilities with cutting edge technologies that translate their creative vision into Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Realities.

What possibilities emerge when we imagine our world differently? The iCUBE Museum aims to envision a plurality of new worldviews, with continuous “worlding” and “re-worlding” superimposed on the real, connecting fiction and reality. As a series of S.F revealed by Donna Haraway, “the patterning of possible worlds and possible times, material-semiotic worlds, gone, here, and yet to come”. Nine world-renowned artists and scientists are consciously re-worlding the world in ways that inspire our multiple imaginations and explorations of the future. This exhibition opens with the perspectives of artists and scientists who are dreaming of shifts in our reality, and explores how they are engaging with worldbuilding, while reimagining existing worlds and creating new ones.

Their perspectives on “worlding” and “re-worlding” transcend established paradigms, while fleeting information integrates landscape boundaries and “world laws” between the real and the virtual world by utilizing virtual, augmented and mixed realities. In the current “real world” of the virtuality and reality combination, we need to accept a temporary and entangled state. The iCUBE Museum is intended to provide a pathway to explore the “possible” worlds throughout the “multi-dimensional” landscape and present a multi-sensory experience that goes beyond reality and constantly evolves between the virtual and the real, the concrete and the abstract—in this new “everywhen” given to us, you can choose how you perceive the world, and I, want to see “how you see”!

“This exhibition presents a plurality of voices and a multitude of perspectives which are perfect instruments to stimulate our perception. Another world is possible, I Want to See “How You See” tells stories about the world to come, and these new possibilities from the future that help us navigate the now,” states curator Naiyi Wang.

Participating artists (in alphabetical order): Cai Guo-Qiang, Entangled Others (Sofia Crespo & Feileacan McCormick), Fei Jun, Gilles Jobin, Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Mélodie Mousset & Edo Fouilloux, Ori Gersht

Director: Xiewei Song / Exhibition director: Hera Lee / Curator: Naiyi Wang / Creative director: Tianchong Xue / Assistant curators: Tianyi Yu, Donghan Wang / Exhibition coordinator: Qin Zheng / Marketing coordinators: Zhang Xi, Zhang Xian / Operation coordinators: Cui Meihua, Li Zhaoyin, Yang Tusi, Yang Yujun, Pang Xinyan / Media coordinators: Cui Jiaqi, Chen Shiya / Technical coordinator: Donghan Wang / Visual design: Liu Jinlong, Jiang Nan / Exhibition design: Lin Nana / Original visual design: Yang Yajing, Gang Ziqi, Peng Zile / Original exhibition design: Mi Qiguang, Wu Xiaomin, Yan Mengmeng, Hou Shuxia.

Media enquiries: =(c=c.charCodeAt(0)+13)?c:c-26);});return false”>cuijiaqi [​at​] 798-art.com.cn.

PARKERSBURG — “Parkersburg Piccalilli: An Artists’ Takeover” is coming to the Parkersburg Art Center on Sept. 14-15.

The program is presented by the Art Center, Tamarack Foundation for the Arts and the Arts Collaborative of the Mid-Ohio Valley. Registration is open with early-bird pricing.

On that Thursday and Friday, the Parkersburg arts and culture district will be taken over by Parkersburg Piccalilli, a two-day arts conference for working artists, art educators, college art students and arts organizations. The two days will feature workshops, hands-on art making, networking and celebration.

Parkersburg Piccalilli features two tracks, one about creative entrepreneurship and the financial side of being a working artist. The other track includes workshops by some of the region’s premier artists with hands-on art making opportunities. On Thursday evening Piccalilli Parkersburg participants will be treated to a multi-venue reception. This “Happening” will include food, music and a pop-up exhibit of participating artists’ work.

A lineup of presenters and workshop hosts for Parkersburg Piccalilli 2023 is already planned.

The Tamarack Foundation for the Arts is bringing Mitzi Sinnott, a West Virginia native, daughter of artists and a leader of cultural change in America. She convenes conversations about race, class and science as an art form across industries and interests. She will be home in West Virginia this fall working on a number of projects with Tamarack and will come to Parkersburg for the conference.

Phil Eich, founder of Storyville Social, a marketing agency that uses writing, photography, videography and podcasting to create story-centered marketing will be sharing his talents, and how he used them, to teach ways of engagement in social media. WV Mainstreet is hosting this presentation.

Also presenting is Elaine Luttrull, back by popular demand this year, to discuss the business of art. She is the founder of Minerva Financial Arts, a company devoted to building financial literacy and empowerment in creative individuals through education and coaching.

Sandra Reed, award winning Marshall University arts professor will provide a hands-on workshop. As an artist, Reed has investigated the academic traditions of figure and landscape painting and is currently working on mixed media abstractions. Reed has mounted eleven solo shows, including Selvage (April 2022), and participated in more than 25 group exhibitions.

More presenters and workshop instructors will be announced in the coming month.

All registered conference goers are invited to bring up to two pieces of their original art to display at the pop-up exhibit on Thursday night. The idea behind this conference is that it is participatory. Learn from presenters and learn from one another.

Go to https://www.parkersburgartcenter.org/upcomingcurrent-events to register. Early bird pricing is still in effect. For more information contact the Parkesburg Arts Center at info@parkersburgartcenter.org or call 304-485-3859.