Mountain Avenue Rite Aid is Closing in Five Days

Update to my July 2 Bredemarket blog post.

As of July 21, the Rite Aid at 4th and Mountain in Ontario, California IS closing. In the next five days.

No Thrifty Ice Cream here.

And while the Thrifty Ice Cream counter at this store is empty, at least the Thrifty company survives.

No pharmacy pick up either.

More pictures below. Avoid if store closings depress you.

Aisles mostly bare, some store fixtures disassembled.
And they’re for sale.

My July 4

My July 4 included a parade and cherries.

Admittedly a lot of content, especially for a non-working day. (One was scheduled.) But if your technology firm lacks marketing content, I know a guy – https://bredemarket.com/mark/

Content for tech marketers.

The (Sort Of) Monster That is Thrifty Ice Cream

I had heard that Corona’s Monster Beverage had purchased Thrifty Ice Cream as part of the Rite Aid bankruptcy proceedings, but wanted to confirm this. And the news was partially correct.

Yes, Thrifty Ice Cream’s sale was approved on July 1 at a purchase price of $19.2 million.

The buyer?

Not Monster Beverage, but a separate corporate entity known as Hilrod Holdings.

Hilrod Holdings is linked to Hilton Schlosberg and Rodney Sacks, who until recently were co-CEOs at the energy drink company Monster Beverage Corporation. Sacks stepped down from his position as co-CEO in mid-June.”

Monster Beverage is primarily known for Monster Energy drinks, and used to be the original owner of Hansen’s non-energy drink  (sold to Coca-Cola who then axed it).

Sacks, 75, is now Chairman at Monster, so both Schlosberg and Sacks are still connected with Monster while simultaneously running Hilrod. Not that ice cream directly competes with energy drinks, but the Hilrod hobby could raise some eyebrows.

July 4 Parade, Post Assembly

In addition to the security and pre-assembly videos I filmed before today’s July 4 Independence Day parade in Ontario, California, I also filmed a little bit of video during the parade itself.

But not the bagpipes. (I heard enough of them when I lived near Upland High years ago.)

The video below includes the Vietnam veterans and Chaffey High School. (Not that any current Chaffey students are Vietnam veterans.)

There is no video of horses, because I saw no horses during the parade. Don’t know why.

July 4 parade.

For comparison, here is my July 4, 2023 post.

Back to promoting Bredemarket content services (in Ontario and elsewhere) later.

NFI is Charged Up

(Imagen 4)

It’s been over three years since I mentioned NFI Industries in the Bredemarket blog. At the time I said:

“NFI is working with Volvo, Daimler, and others on an ambitious project to “[o]perate the first 100% zero-emission drayage fleet in the U.S. with the deployment of 60 battery-electric tractors.” NFI wants to achieve this by 2023.”

Well, now it’s 2025, and NFI has nearly 90 battery-electric tractors. And a place to charge them:

“NFI and Prologis Mobility launched a new electric truck charging depot in Ontario, California. The 1 MW facility features 10 dedicated charging ports and charges up to 20 vehicles daily.”

Biometric Marketers: What About WRITER Personas?

(Imagen 4)

Biometric marketing leaders already know that I’ve talked about reader personas to death. But what about WRITER personas? And what happens when you try to address ALL the reader and writer personas?

Reader personas

While there are drawbacks to using personas, they are useful in both content marketing and proposal work when you want to tailor your words to resonate with particular types of readers (target audiences, or hungry people).

I still love my example from 2021 in which a mythical Request for Proposal (RFP) was issued by my hometown of Ontario, California for an Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS). The proposal manager had to bear the following target audiences (hungry people) in mind for different parts of the proposal.

  • The field investigators who run across biometric evidence at the scene of a crime, such as a knife with a fingerprint on it or a video feed showing someone breaking into a liquor store.
  • The examiners who look at crime scene evidence and use it to identify individuals. 
  • The people who capture biometrics from arrested individuals at livescan stations. 
  • The information technologies (IT) people who are responsible for ensuring that Ontario, California’s biometric data is sent to San Bernardino County, the state of California, perhaps other systems such as the Western Identification Network, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 
  • The purchasing agent who has to make sure that all of Ontario’s purchases comply with purchasing laws and regulations. 
  • The privacy advocate who needs to ensure that the biometric data complies with state and national privacy laws.
  • The mayor (Paul Leon back in 2021, and still in 2025), who has to deal with angry citizens asking why their catalytic converters are being stolen from their vehicles, and demanding to know what the mayor is doing about it. 
  • Probably a dozen other stakeholders that I haven’t talked about yet, but who are influenced by the city’s purchasing decision.

Writer personas

But who is actually writing the text to address these different types of readers?

Now in this case I’m not talking about archetypes (a topic in itself), but about the roles of the subject matter experts who write or help write the content.

I am currently working on some internal content for a Bredemarket biometric client. I can’t reveal what type of content, but it’s a variant of one of the 22 types of content I’ve previously addressed. A 23rd type, I guess.

Anyway, I am writing this content from a product marketing perspective, since I am the self-proclaimed biometric product marketing expert. This means that the internal content fits into a story, focuses on the customer, highlights benefits, and dwells on the product.

But what would happen if someone in a role other than product marketing consultant wrote this content?

  • An engineer would emphasize different things. Maybe a focus on the APIs.
  • A finance manager would emphasize different things. Maybe an ROI focus.
  • A salesperson may focus on different things. Maybe qualification of a prospect. Or eventually conversion.

So the final content is not only shaped by the reader, but by the writer.

You can’t please everyone so you’ve got to please yourself

With all the different reader and writer personas, how should you respond?

Do all the things?

Perhaps you can address everyone in a 500 page proposal, but the internal content Bredemarket is creating is less than 10 pages long.

Which is possibly already too long for MY internal target audience.

So I will NOT create the internal content that addresses the needs of EVERY reader and writer persona.

Which is one truth about (reader) personas in general. If you need to address three personas, it’s more effective to create 3 separate pieces than a single one.

Which is what I’m doing in another project for this same Bredemarket biometric client, this one customer-facing.

And the content targeted to latent examiners won’t mention the needs of Paul Leon.

In which I address the marketing leader reader persona

So now I, the biometric product marketing expert writer persona, will re-address you, the biometric marketing leader reader persona.

You need content, or proposal content.

But maybe you’re not getting it because your existing staff is overwhelmed.

So you’re delaying content creation or proposal responses, or just plain not doing it. And letting opportunities slip through your fingers.

Plug the leaks and stop your competitors from stealing from you. Bring Bredemarket on board. Schedule a free exploratory meeting today at https://bredemarket.com/cpa/.

CPA
Bredemarket’s “CPA.”