RCS: The Three Letters that Will Change Marketing in 2025

By Jack Philbin, Chief Executive Officer, Vibes

With over 25 years in mobile, Jack Philbin is one of the industry’s premier thought leaders. In addition to his role as CEO of Vibes, Jack formerly served as Chairman of the Mobile Marketing Association’s North America Board of Directors and Vice Chairman of the MMA’s Global Board of Directors. He’s a member of the CTIA Wireless Innovation Council and is a regular speaker on mobile innovation. With his close industry ties, Jack advocates and educates on everything from mobile strategy and industry trends to mobile best practices. For his efforts, Jack was honored with the MMA’s “Outstanding Individual Achievement” award in 2005; was named the 2013 Mobile Evangelist of the Year by Mobile Marketer; and led Vibes to "Leader" in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Mobile Marketing Platforms in 2020-2022.

RCS is the future of marketing. RCS will be the standard channel for customer experience by the end of 2025, allowing brands to deliver rich, interactive content without the need for apps.

RCS — Rich Communication Services — must be in every marketer’s vocabulary in 2025. This messaging protocol hit the mainstream when Apple incorporated it into iOS 18. Most major carriers now support RCS, paving the way for it to become the standard for messaging.

The days of short message service (SMS) dominance are numbered, but there’s no need to panic. In fact, marketers should be celebrating this transition. RCS will open up exciting new opportunities, and now is the time to start experimenting.

What’s the Difference Between RCS and SMS?

RCS is an enhancement of SMS and multimedia messaging services (MMS) in several ways.

Content: SMS is limited to plain text. MMS allows you to send multimedia content, but it has size restrictions. RCS supports rich media like high-resolution images, videos and large files. Businesses can offer a branded experience with RCS messages, displaying the company’s name, logo and colors. Verified send checkmarks also confirm a brand’s legitimacy, which is especially important as text message scams grow more sophisticated.
Chat features: RCS offers read receipts, typing indicators, advanced group chat capabilities and more. These features are similar to those found in separate messaging apps like WhatsApp, but users can access it without leaving the phone’s native messaging app. RCS also supports two-way communication between brands and customers and delivers an authentic conversational experience.
Interactive features: The interactive opportunities provided by RCS boost customer engagement. Businesses can send multimedia cards and carousels with one-tap call-to-action buttons. Rather than typing out a message, customers can simply tap to initiate their next action, and message elements will dynamically adapt to user responses. The result of these capabilities is an app-like experience within the messaging platform. Customers can browse, pay and even receive customer support without switching applications, removing friction and driving higher purchase rates.
Analytics: SMS provides basic metrics like delivery rates, open rates and response times. RCS offers a broader range of information in real time, such as read receipts, interaction timing, reactions, multimedia element engagement and conversion rates. Marketers know more data means better campaigns.

How Does RCS Change the User Experience?

SMS has proven to be a valuable asset for marketers. SMS messages boast a 97% read rate within 15 minutes, with significantly higher click-through rates than email. Adding multimedia improves campaign performance.

Over Thanksgiving weekend 2024, one large apparel retailer that works with Vibes sent both SMS and MMS promotional messages. The multimedia’s revenue per message was twice as high as that of the text. These results demonstrate the power of images and videos. Now, imagine what you can achieve when you enhance the quality and interactivity of the multimedia. RCS’s capabilities unlock this huge potential.

Consider this scenario: You receive an SMS from your favorite store that reads: “This weekend only: 20% off your favorite styles with the code SALE20. Click below to shop now!” No branding, no visuals — just text. It feels generic and impersonal. Clicking the link takes you out of your messenger app to a website or a brand app to continue your shopping journey. Have a question? You can’t ask it in the text thread.

Now imagine you receive an RCS. The message comes from the store’s verified profile, complete with their logo, name and brand colors. The message opens to a visually rich experience. In addition to the 20% off message, you see a carousel of their latest collection with swipeable images, styled looks and prices. Each image has a button: “Buy Now,” “Save for Later” or “Find in Store,” allowing you to interact with — and purchase — an item right in the messaging app. RCS messages can also suggest quick replies, such as “Where is the nearest store?” which the brand can answer.

Which experience is more likely to inspire you to buy something?

RCS for business messaging is still new, but companies are already seeing success. Subway promoted a deal on both RCS and SMS, and the RCS campaign’s conversion rate was 140% higher.

What’s Ahead for 2025?

RCS will be the standard channel for customer experience by the end of 2025. Brands should prepare accordingly.

Apps cater to your most loyal customers, but what about everyone else? RCS will reduce reliance on apps and allow brands to tap into a broader audience. RCS delivers the same experience without the hassle and commitment of downloading an app. By expanding accessibility and streamlining interactions, RCS opens new opportunities to engage with new customer segments and build meaningful connections.

Incorporating RCS into your marketing campaigns early in 2025 allows you to be among the first to deliver this heightened experience to your customers. Your rich content will leave a lasting impression compared to a competitor’s SMS and MMS messaging. Test use cases now to gather data and refine your strategy so your campaigns are optimized when everyone else gets onboard.

RCS is the future of marketing. These three letters are ushering in a new era of dynamic, interactive engagement. Brands that delay adoption will quickly find themselves outclassed by competitors.

JAN 2025

The State of the Retail Industry 2025

03/05/2025 16:35:09

What’s on

Retailers’ minds in 2025?

By Jon Beck, CEO, Columbus Consulting

Jon Beck is the CEO of Columbus Consulting. Jon is a retail specialist with over 25 years of experience working with retail, wholesale and manufacturing companies focused on improving corporate performance through better planning, execution and analysis. A highly motivated business consultant with broad global experience. Jon has successfully designed and implemented solutions for nearly 100 clients, spanning apparel, footwear and hard lines.

There is increasing pressure across the industry to implement smarter solutions leveraging AI, ML, etc. throughout all business and technology functions. Many companies are struggling to achieve this due to bad underlying data and inconsistent information being shared throughout their organization. 2024 was a big turning point for the industry to really dig into establishing strong, well governed data foundations. We expect this to explode in 2025.

Data, Tariffs, Assortment, Business Integration

Data Data Data

Tariffs.

Proposed new tariffs are poised to reshape the landscape of international trade, with implications for U.S. retailers and brands. We see retailers addressing the risks now and understanding the potential impact by category. The best practice is to look for continuous improvement in the supply chain and regularly evaluate sourcing and production partners. In a world that is constantly changing, we must be ready to adapt.

2024 was a big turning point for the industry to dig into establishing strong, well-governed data foundations, setting the stage for a data explosion in 2025.

Assortment

Business Integration

Assortment optimization continues to improve and accelerate as data, systems, organization and process allows. Maintaining tight, tailored assortments is the key to sustaining a healthy inventory position. Customer satisfaction directly correlates with improved customer choices, prices and promotions, availability and fulfillment. We are seeing more work in the assortment area than in the recent past as other priorities were addressed.

Duplication of duties creates significant waste, confusion and cultural challenges. With growth and the promise of increased productivity, retailers are relooking at organization and calendar to drive scalability, efficiency and greater job satisfaction. Improved business coordination enables better, more consistent application of AI and ML to automate and improve on day to day operations.

Companies that successfully achieve progress in these areas will find themselves poised to scale, operate more efficiently and have the right foundations for good data and corporate culture.

ABOUT COLUMBUS CONSULTING

Columbus Consulting delivers solutions that drive true value and have been transforming the retail, grocery and CPG industries for over two decades. We are a retail consulting company of industry experts. Our approach is simple, if you do it, we do it. We are more than consultants; we are experienced practitioners who actually sat in our clients’ seats. We understand the challenges, know what questions to ask and deliver the right solutions. Columbus offers a unique, consumer-centric approach with an end-to-end perspective that bridges functional & organization silos from strategy to execution. Our specialties include: unified commerce, merchandising & category management, planning & inventory management, sourcing & supply chain, data & analytics, accounting, finance & operations, people & organization and information technology. Let us know how we can help you. To learn more

The State of the Retail Industry 2025

JAN 2025

03/05/2025 16:35:09

The Power of Collaborative Data Sharing for Retailers

By Are Traasdahl, Chief Executive Officer, Crisp

Are has more than 20 years of experience in mobile and digital technology. Prior to Crisp, Are was Founder & CEO of Tapad, which he sold in 2016 as one of New York’s largest venture-backed exits. Prior to Tapad, he founded Thumbplay, a mobile entertainment service now called iHeartRadio.

Traasdahl is a frequent contributor to the press, and has been featured in Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, AdAge and more. He was named Global Startup Awards Founder of the Year in 2016 and EY Entrepreneur of the Year in 2014. When he’s not building the next big thing, you might find Are traveling the globe with his family.

Favorite grocery store product: Whole bean coffee for my 5am caffeine fix

Investing in clean, structured data today positions retailers to capitalize on AI-driven efficiency and automation solutions in the rapidly evolving retail technology landscape of tomorrow.

What happens when retailers invest in scalable and collaborative data infrastructure? Efficiency soars, suppliers thrive, and revenue opportunities flourish.

As CPG companies bring their omnichannel data into centralized systems for decision-making and intelligence, brick-and-mortar retailers are changing their data approach. Digitally native reporting solutions offered by platforms like Shopify and Amazon have pushed traditional retailers to adapt to a data-first era, with significant investments in data infrastructure shifting the focus from legacy portal solutions to streamlined systems that extract and integrate clean, actionable insights. Rather than burdening suppliers with disparate, manual reporting processes, this data-forward approach equips brands with fast, actionable insights – driving mutual supply chain success, growth, and innovation.

This open-data ecosystem provides the foundation for collaborative commerce: by increasing the visibility and usability of retail data for suppliers, retailers themselves gain greater transparency into operations, account performance, and consumer shopping behavior. Additionally, these systems enhance retailer ownership of first-party data intelligence and boost the success of revenue-generating retail media programs.

Supply in sync

Retailers manage thousands of suppliers who collectively define the in-store and on-line experience. Meanwhile, brands are under constant pressure to deliver across retail accounts, capitalizing on all placement opportunities, and safeguarding their shelf space.

Performance benchmarks like on-time in-full (OTIF) and out-of-stock percentage (OOS%) can make retailers' expectations of their supplier partners clear. However, only by providing reliable reporting on these metrics can retailers reallocate inventory if necessary, and keep distribution centers (DCs) stocked to meet regional demand.

Real-time and readily ingestible data play a crucial role in synchronizing supply chains and enabling suppliers to meet retailers' expectations. By providing timely and actionable insights, retailers can empower their suppliers to make informed decisions and respond quickly to market demands.

Performance breakthroughs

Streamlined reporting made available by KeHE and Whole Foods helped Instacart’s #1 fastest-growing brand of 2023, MUSH,to resolve long-standing out-of-stocks (OOS) and boost fill-rate averages to over 90%, improving inventory flow for both distributor and retailer.. Similarly, UNFI Insights powered by Crisp, a breakthrough reporting tool, has enabled rocketship-growth brands like Chosen Foods to grow total UNFI sales 35% year-over-year while virtually eliminating waste through an integrated spoilage risk detection tool. Nestlé USA, an early adopter of the tool, streamlined real-time, granular reporting across 1,500 SKUs in its $300M UNFI business segment, allowing the Nestlé USA team supporting UNFI to focus on driving sales growth activities rather than data management.

Wins like Mars’ Nature’s Bakery achieving triple-digit growth at regional chains like The Fresh Market and 80% YOY sales growth at Thrive Market further illustrate the shared benefits of effective data-sharing practices.

Win resources

Grow with data

In addition to helping suppliers keep their retailer’s shelves stocked and sales strong, retail data insights can drive organizational buy-in for increased supplier resources to drive retailer-targeted growth.. Brands with visibility into performance metrics can more easily identify media spend opportunities and allocate budgets to retailer-specific marketing programs. With retail media spend expected to account for almost a quarter of all U.S. ad spend by 2028, retailers enabling these campaigns through transparent data-sharing practices stand to gain significant, sustainable revenue.

This approach offers untapped opportunities for retailers beyond the big-box giants to differentiate themselves – particularly as cost-conscious consumers grow less attached to longstanding brand loyalties.

Collaborative data-sharing helps retailers and suppliers achieve shared growth targets, driving incremental sales and operational success. It also increases the availability and value of proprietary first-party data – putting consumer insights, category performance, and more, into the hands of retailers instead of extending a reliance on third-party syndicated market reports.

While syndicated market reports provide valuable category-wide trends, they often lag in timeliness and granularity, with latency of four or more weeks. This delay means opportunities to act on critical inventory or promotional shifts may have passed. In contrast, daily point-of-sale (POS) data offers immediate, actionable insights that enable swift responses to market changes.

Finally, for retailers aiming to capitalize on AI-driven efficiency and automation solutions, clean and structured data is critical. Investing in robust data-sharing systems today ensures they’ll be well-positioned to scale and evolve within the continuously expanding retail technology landscape of tomorrow.

The State of the Retail Industry 2025

JAN 2025

03/05/2025 16:35:09