UK: Geofencing and similar location based advertising technologies are rising in popularity, owing to the ability to capture a target audience, observed a report published in the April issue of Business Review Europe.
According to the report, geofencing is relatively a new marketing tool and yet already some of the world’s biggest brands are using it to market their products. For example, Gap – a retail chain of clothing, recently trialled an advertising campaign in New York, San Francisco and Chicago, which involved using location enabling apps to target potential customers within close proximity to Gap stores.
Gap worked alongside advertising company Titan to place conventional adverts at bus stops and other transit locations. Titan then created geofences around those ads, which activated the mobile part of the campaign for people who were nearby. Using location-based apps on smartphones to determine the location of the potential customer and location-finding technology, Gap sent virtual ads and coupons directly to the phones of those in proximity via apps such as ‘Words with Friends’. By using geofencing, Gap was able to determine who was nearby and target them specifically.
And Gap is not the only brand making the most of innovative mobile advertising methods. O2, the UK’s leading provider of mobile phones and broadband, also began utilising geospatial features to attract a greater number of customers to its deals service ‘Priority Moments’, which is an exclusive location-based service. It delivers money saving deals from leading brands directly to O2 customers, enhancing everyday experiences by making it easier for consumers to connect and interact with their favourite companies, products and services. O2 worked with the company MongoDB to roll out its service owning to the fact that it’s flexible and has the capability to implement geo-spatial features and scalability; factors that are becoming increasingly important for brands when choosing their advertising provider.
“What makes ‘Priority Moments’ attractive to our customers is the locational component; deals are delivered by location so it’s quick and easy to find the offers and experiences they want,” said Andrew Pattinson, Head of Online Delivery.
The report concluded that whether these tactics will work in less tech-savvy locals remains to be seen. Some have speculated that most consumers still don’t know how these things work, however one thing is certain, location based advertising is the way forward. Mobile devices are on the increase and our lives are quickly beginning to revolve around efficient and easy solutions, gone are the days when we expect to find a product we want, we expect it to find us.
Source: Business Review Europe
