Esri has launched its first major advertising campaign with a slogan Esri President Jack Dangermond introduced at the Esri User Conference in July.
“Unlike anyone else on this planet, you and your fellow GIS colleagues truly ‘See What Others Can’t.’ My sense is, it’s now time to share this perspective with the rest of the world,” Dangermond said.
The campaign includes broadcast commercials, industry magazines and newspapers, at airports, on billboards and on websites.
“We are inviting the public to join us in understanding how we see the world and how we want them to see the world,” Dangermond said. “We are hopeful this will help expand the understanding and appreciation of what our users do. We ultimately want to bring more people into our community — sharing information, working together, and finding new ways to solve the greatest challenges of today and the future.”
Let’s look through the other end of the telescope this month. The satellites are nattering along, lining up in orderly fashion at the rocket pad, extending their solar arms smoothly in space once they arrive on orbit. The constellations accrue and new signals inch closer to maturity.
The only blips on the horizon come from Ligado’s terrestrial impulse and a looming gap in GPS ground control. Just possibly, the latter might coincide with activation of the full European constellation and Galileo could come to the rescue of suitably equipped users who hunger for greater accuracy. This has been Galileo’s raison d’etre for two decades now, and it may actually be on the cusp of coming true.
At any rate, back to the telescope’s other end. What might that be? Facebook.
“When you think back to the beginning of online advertising, this is what advertisers have been waiting for.” That is Facebook’s director of monetization product marketing — an actual job title, and a powerful one in time to come.
All this — what advertisers have been waiting for — is made possible by GPS. Soon, by all GNSS. And by your smartphone.
From a GNSS Design & Test point of view, this means we are about to see some real money come available for constellations. Fast-multiplying applications of position, navigation and timing data have always shaped GNSS evolution, to some degree. Making this latest development different by a degree of magnitude is its potential to alter the way GNSS policy is shaped and the way GNSS funding is provided.
Facebook will soon roll out a new Store Visits metric for business clients: location data and purchases correlated to Facebook ad performance. Partnerships with point-of-sale systems like Square and Marketo will “prove” (let’s use that word loosely for now) who bought what after seeing Facebook ads.
The way the company tells it, “While people use mobile in 45 percent of all shopping journeys, more than 90% of sales still happen in brick-and-mortar businesses.”
Even if you don’t buy something, Facebook will know that you — assuming, and this is a big jump, that you are a Facebook user — visited a store by aligning GPS, beacon, Wi-Fi and other radio-frequency signals and cell-tower locations with brick-and-mortar coordinates. You may not be a Facebook user, but I’ll bet one of your loved ones is.
With the new feature, instead of having to (gasp!) leave Facebook to visit an unfamiliar website for a store locator, users can view the address, hours, phone number and estimated travel time without exiting the social network.
I know people who rarely or never leave Facebook. Do you? This is a plus for them.
Facebook, one of the new corporate mega-giants, duels with Google, Apple and Microsoft over various pieces of digital turf. One of the most hotly contested treasures — the Holy Grail, in marketing execs’ terms — is the capture and use of user data. It is getting more than a little bit creepy.
To date, the even-bigger giant that is advertising has used metrics such as ad views and clicks to measure effectiveness: how much an ad actually inspires purchase or response to other calls to action. I know this because I use these metrics, or someone in my organization does. Such metrics are now deemed “flimsy” by the standards of aligning GPS, beacon, Wi-Fi data and so on as outlined above.
Facebook is not alone in exploring the fertile ground. Google recently launched ads that show maps of nearby locations, and the others surely do not lag far behind. For the moment, these massive integrators aggregate and anonymize the data to protect privacy, but that’s not to guarantee they would always do so. Currently, there’s no specific opt-out other than turning off location services for the app on the user’s device, which people might be reluctant to do if it degrades other app functionality.
Let’s shield our eyes from the dark side for the moment, and consider what this means for GNSS.
We, you and I, those of us in the PNT industry, have known for some time how integral to critical infrastructure GPS is and GNSS soon will be. But the vast public does not. And lawmakers, bless their little hearts, largely do not either. That will change when the desperate craving of large companies to reach billions of buyers enters the PNT arena.
We can envision mega-marketing bolstered by alliance with the transportation industry, both ground and air, as driverless vehicles and drones become more commonplace. With powerful lobbying interests behind it, GPS might finally get some respect, and other systems around the world with it. Modernization might proceed more smoothly and quickly, without funding hiccups and capability gaps. That’s the bright side of all this.
It reminds me of nothing so much as an old rock’n’roll song. In “Top of the Pops,” the Kinks sang:
Now my agent called me on the telephone He said, son your record’s just got to number 1 And you know what this means?
With the service, media players display a content loop with information specific to the vicinity of the vehicle.
MediaSignage has released GPS-powered, location-based services (LBS) for digital signage. The tool provides specific geo-targeting of advertising campaigns based on the location of the screen.
The GPS-enabled location targeting works well for buses, taxis and trains, because advertisers can more easily target their digital signage content based on a targeted geographic radius, MediaSignage said in a press release.
For instance, a taxicab may provide digital signage behind the headrest and allow local advertisers to target messages to patrons that ride within the cab. When a moving car, bus or train enters the desired radius (such as close to a specific restaurant or local venue), the installed media player displays a new content loop with information specific to the vicinity. Once the media player moves out of that vicinity, the original content loop resumes.
MediaSignage has designed the tool to be simple and affordable, enabling any business owner to have their message presented in a matter of a few minutes. Users can log in to StudioLite, set the radius on a map, and set the priority duration for each content resource that is to be displayed. Users can set radius location information for several desired areas within a geographic footprint.
When users combine the power of GPS tracking into moving digital signage, the ability to target for advertising purposes becomes extremely powerful, MediaSignage said. Placing local advertisements in taxi, bus, train and even Uber cars provides a powerful tool for selling ads and targeting customers.
“We are extremely pleased and excited by this latest feature implementation within our system,” said MediaSignage president Nate Nead. “It provides an additional value-adding tool for digital signage business owners and operators, allowing them to better monetize their display screens in a host of different and non-traditional environments. We hope our users will take full advantage of the new features and that the features will provide a profit-enhancing tool for their businesses.”
sensewhere’s crowdsourcing technology enables precise location information, with no additional infrastructure, in areas where there is no or inaccurate GPS satellite data such as indoors or in tight urban areas.
Tencent Holdings Ltd., a provider of Internet services in China, has completed a strategic investment in sensewhere Ltd., a provider of indoor location solutions based in Scotland. Tencent has also secured a license to use sensewhere indoor positioning software as part of its Tencent Map Location software development kit (SDK) that is available to numerous users across Tencent mobile platforms and mobile services of Tencent affiliate companies.
The investment will help sensewhere develop potential partnerships in China’s mobile Internet space, deliver its mobile advertising service, fuel expansion of the company and its indoor location solutions. As part of the arrangements, sensewhere will be Tencent’s preferred vendor for location-based advertising services in China.
“This investment by Tencent will be significant for the company and is an endorsement of our technology, strategy and ability to deliver low cost, highly scalable and highly accurate Universal indoor positioning,” said sensewhere CEO Rob Palfreyman. “I am thrilled with the collaboration, and having Tencent as a strategic investor will help take sensewhere to the next level and assist us growing our customer base, building new Location Based Services and investing further in R&D.”
“The investment by Tencent highlights the advantage of sensewhere’s indoor positioning technology over other solutions and further cements our position as a leading Indoor Positioning System (IPS) provider,” said sensewhere Chairman Jim Devine. “The planned roll out of multiple services to millions of users across China and contiguous territories which incorporate sensewhere’s enabling technology represents a major step forward towards our goal of providing a truly global solution for indoor positioning.”
sensewhere believes that its seamless, automatic solution for IPS and easy integration with mobile applications and devices will be the driving force behind emerging technologies, such as automatic beacon mapping, wearable technology, artificial intelligence, mobile advertising and using its live database to power next-generation location-based services.
“We believe that a superior, universal indoor positioning technology will deeply influence how people interact with each other, and significantly change how companies communicate with consumers and conduct commerce indoor across online and offline platforms,” said Julian Ma, corporate vice president of Tencent in Mobile Internet Group. “sensewhere’s unique, highly scalable approach will greatly enhance Tencent Map’s indoor positioning capabilities and enable our users to navigate indoor in a much more accurate and convenient manner.”
The video below explains sensewhere’s indoor location technology.
TeleCommunication Systems (TCS) has purchased location-based technology and intellectual property from Loctronix. TCS is integrating the newly acquired assets from Loctronix with its location solution portfolio. Combined, the location-based services (LBS) solutions will enable TCS to further develop indoor-location technology applications ranging from advertising and marketing to navigation and public safety, TCS said.
TCS specializes in secure and reliable wireless communications. The company’s patented solutions enable 9-1-1, commercial location-based services and deployable wireless infrastructure; cybersecurity; defense and aerospace components; and applications for mobile location-based services and messaging.
“Purchasing LBS technology and intellectual property from Loctronix not only adds to our already vast set of intellectual property rights for LBS, more importantly it underpins our continued commitment to further building out our advanced location product portfolio,” said Jay Whitehurst, TCS senior vice president and Commercial Software Group president. “In addition to expanding the breadth of our current location product offering, the Loctronix assets will provide clear differentiators in device location, and increase our market and revenue opportunities — both for commercial and public safety applications.”
“We have exciting news,” Loctronix announced on its website. “The global leader in Precise Device location, TeleCommunication Systems, Inc. (TCS) has integrated our assets with theirs. We have always said that our mission was to locate any device anywhere — indoors or outdoors. With our technology, TCS will now be able to do just that.”
TCS plans to roll out new solutions leveraging the Loctronix assets by year’s end.
Local ID has closed a $1.9 million seed round of funding led by Crosscut Ventures. Local ID is a local intelligence platform that provides multi-unit brands with the data, tools and process needed to maximize their local marketing efforts, according to the company.
Other investors in the round included Technicolor, TenOneTen, Baroda Ventures, Double M Partners, Tallwave, Wavemaker Partners and Queens Bridge Venture Partners.
Founded by a team with more than 60 years of collective retail experience, Local ID is a cloud-based platform that provides brands with visibility into each store’s trade area. For example, Local ID:
surfaces local events that present timely and contextual marketing opportunities;
identifies competitive intrusions;
provides proactive preparation for weather events; and
incorporates a wealth of other data on the hundreds of local marketing opportunities taking place each day within a store’s trade area.
With brick and mortar representing 94 percent of the $4.5 trillion retail sales market, according to eMarketer, Local ID gives multi-unit brands an edge in capturing a larger share of this vast but extremely competitive market, the company said.
“Local ID is the first local intelligence platform designed to solve at-scale local store marketing for large brick and mortar brands,” said Alex Nocifera, Founder & CEO of Local ID. “Our dynamic, enterprise platform will increase same store sales and traffic for our customers by systemizing the way they plan, execute and track their local marketing activities. This funding, along with the extensive outreach we’ve done over the last year with large brands, has validated the timeliness of our solution to solve brands’ decentralized, inefficient inability to execute and measure local marketing at scale. Overall, I could not be more excited about our team, the early market signals and the product we are taking to the market.”
Local ID is a single-source solution that will centralize all local store marketing programs, institutionalize market-specific knowledge and systemize best practices across the enterprise. The platform leverages Esri mapping software, integrates multiple data streams and then custom curates brand opportunities for every store in the system. The core pillars include:
Store Profiles–A dynamic database of every store in a brand’s system providing visibility into every location and activity
People Profiles–Details, activities and insights of all employees engaged in local marketing at any level
Relevant Opportunities–Custom curated, brand relevant opportunities in each market
Marketing Activities –An innovative and engaging task management tool for tracking and systemizing local marketing activities
The company will use the new funding to invest in product development, research and acquiring key talent. Nocifera previously served as founder and CEO of both Ripple TV and Circle Street, two venture-backed start-ups focused on helping big brands solve complex local challenges. Ripple TV was acquired by TargetCast Networks (now part of Brite Media Group). Circle Street was acquired by Valassis, the largest local advertising company for promotional media to retail and CPG brands.
“Local ID has the opportunity to be the Salesforce.com of the trillion dollar local marketing space by solving the conundrum large, multi-unit brands face in executing successful local store strategies at the enterprise level,”said Brian Garrett, co-founder and managing director of Crosscut Ventures. “It’s a massive, untapped market and one that the Local ID team, with deep experience in RetailTech, is perfectly situated to address.”
A new Placecast poll indicates that nearly 118 million smartphone owners will be relying on their phones for holiday shopping this year. For smartphone owners who plan to do holiday shopping, three out of four will use their phones to find sales, comparison shop, take pictures of possible gifts, and make purchases.
The survey also showed that American shoppers are very aware of in-store beacons, despite the fact that it is a relatively new technology; more than half (52 percent) of the cell phone/smartphone owners surveyed said they have heard of in-store beacons, and 15 percent have engaged with them.
“Brands that embrace beacons are highly likely to see a spike in their sales in the coming shopping season and in general,” said Placecast CEO Alistair Goodman.
Beacon technology is only one indoor location technology being pursued by retailers. Kevin Dennehy’s Wireless LBS Insider column from August, Indoor Location Has Major Growing Pains, but Big Upside, provides an overview.
Conducted in October among more than 2,000 U.S. adults, this was the fifth survey in Placecast’s Alert Shopper series, one of the longest running research series around how consumers interact with various marketing and purchasing mechanisms. This year’s poll reveals the latest trends in mobile shopping and provides key insights for brands and technology providers on how to connect with the highly connected consumer this holiday season, when stakes are high. The poll was conducted online within the U.S. for Placecast by Harris Poll.
According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), holiday spending will be up nearly 5 percent this year compared to last year, with the average person expected to spend about $800. The NRF reports that gift givers “plan to splurge” for holidays like Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Hanukah: “Consumers are spending more across the board on family, friends, co-workers, pets and even babysitters…Sales and discounts were listed as the most important factor.”
“It’s not surprising that consumers are most influenced by sales and discounts; the question is, what is the best way to get these offers to them? Our survey looked at various ways brand can reach customers, and we found that reaching users on mobile while they are near stores, and using in-store technology — like beacons — are some of the best ways of reaching consumers who are looking for offers, or for more information to make a purchase,” said Goodman.
Beacons are a small, low-cost piece of hardware installed in stores. They emit a signal (called Bluetooth low energy, or BLE) that can be targeted directly to phones. Beacons can bring the analytics and targeting capabilities of the online experience to physical stores — for example, sending a discount for perfume to a 40-year-old woman who has recently done an online search for scents.
Because beacon technology is relatively new, the high awareness level discovered in this wave of the Alert Shopper series may seem surprising to the industry; the research team involved in data analysis for the Harris Nielsen poll explains the possible cause: “Consumers are clearly voting in favor of beacons due to stores promoting them and the value they deliver in couponing. While awareness seems high at 52 percent, this may be due to people wanting to identify with the coolness of new technologies, and certainly indicates huge promise for it. Minority Report is looking more and more like a reality than a movie,” said Kathryn Koegel, chief of Insights and Communications Steampunkt Collaborative.
Goodman seconds this “halo effect” of new tech: “There could very well be a huge halo effect here, but nonetheless, one fact remains: we are all now assuming that there is technology in stores that can connect with our phones — whether it’s opening an app or getting a push notification. But the real art lies in delivering timely and useful ads and offers, not overwhelming the consumer, and making sure the promotions are targeted accurately.”
The Alert Shopper V survey revealed that 15 percent of cell phone/smartphone owners had interacted with beacons. “Though this number is likely higher than the actual number of people who have interacted with in-store beacons, the fact that people are highly aware of them and think they interact with them bodes well for the technology,” said Koegel.
The importance of in-store marketing was underscored by another data point from the Placecast survey; the top activity for Mobile Millennial females (women 18-34 who own a smartphone and plan on doing any holiday shopping this year) — when asked what they plan to use their smartphone for while holiday shopping this season — is searching for a coupon for a store they are already in, with over half (52 percent) looking to save money by checking their phones. The same percentage said they would use their smartphone to take a picture of a potential gift to text a friend or family member for their opinion (52 percent).
The Alert Shopper Survey #5 revealed these key takeaways for brands and marketers this holiday season:
Phones are an integral part of the shopping process: among those who plan on doing any holiday shopping, 3 out of 4 smartphone owners plan to use their phones for some part of their gift-finding and buying experience.
Among all smartphone owners, searching for an item in a search engine to find a local retailer topped the list of mobile actions for holiday shopping this season, with 2 out of 5 (39 percent) saying they plan to use their smartphone for this; sending a picture of a potential gift to a friend or family member at a close second (38 percent), followed by searching for a coupon for the store they’re in (33 percent).
Mobile Millennials are the most active mobile shoppers this holiday season: Young men ages 18-34 (91 percent) and women ages 18-34 (85 percent) who own smartphones reported the highest percentages when asked if they plan to use their phones while shopping this holiday season; these Millennials make up about 25 percent of the United States population, outpacing Baby Boomers and Gen X (ages 28-38). Though they have not reached their peak spending potential, Millennials nonetheless control 21 percent of consumer discretionary purchases, which is estimated at over a trillion dollars in direct buying power and a huge influence on purchases by older generations (i.e., parents and grandparents).
Moms and dads with children under 18 in their household will be very active on mobile: 86 percent of dads plan to use their smartphones for holiday shopping this year. When asked what they will use their phones for the most popular answer among dads was “use my phone to look for an item in a search engine to find a local retailer.” Over half (54 percent) gave this answer. Three out of four (75 percent) mothers plan on using their smartphones for holiday shopping this year. While men are searching for retail locations, mobile moms selected “take pictures of potential gifts to text and get opinions from friends/family” as the top mobile activity, with nearly half (48 percent) saying they will do this.
The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), a global trade association for the mobile marketing industry, is forming a Mobile Location Data Accuracy Group. The focus of the group will be to eliminate any confusion around mobile location data and to improve the trust and confidence brand marketers and agencies have in mobile location advertising and the data that drives it.
Simultaneously, the MMA is forming a Location Leadership Council that will be an industry “think tank” comprised of a merging together of thought leaders from the MMA’s Location and Privacy committees and experts in the various areas of location — marketing, technology, data and policy. Stemming from the council will be a number of working groups, the first of which is the Mobile Location Data Accuracy Group.
The working group will expand on the previously launched Location Terminology Guide, in which the MMA Location Committee identified eight types of location data and signals, and ranked each according to the reach and accuracy of the data. The data and signals to be examined by the working group include (from most accurate to least):
Indoor positioning system
Bluetooth
GPS
Wi-Fi hotspots
Wi-Fi triangulation
Cell tower triangulation
IP address
User reported location
Specifically the Mobile Location Data Accuracy Group will:
Dig deeper into each of these data types and elaborate further on their appropriate uses and limitations.
Develop and issue an RFI (Request for Information) to all location data vendors and validators that will establish criteria with which vendors can be aligned with the data types they use.
Establish strict, standardized definitions with the MRC that vendors will be held accountable to and audited against.
According to an April 2014 BIA/Kelsey study on local media spending, location targeted mobile advertising accounted for 40% of the $7.22 billion mobile ad spend in 2013, and is expected to grow to 52% of the $30.3 billion forecasted for 2018.
“In order to scale mobile marketing specifically driven by location data, it is critical for the industry to come together to develop a common set of definitions of the types of location data available and how they are best used,” said Greg Stuart, CEO, MMA. “By agreeing to and abiding by a common set of best practices and guidelines, MMA members will be instrumental in driving the growth in the industry while assuring brand marketers of the measurable value derived from their mobile efforts.”
With tighter definitions of location data, and the viable uses of such data, measuring results will be more consistent and reliable, the MMA said. These benchmarks will allow buyers to have a much clearer understanding of the data being used, and how it will impact their location-driven mobile advertising campaigns.
Initial members of the group will include:
xAd – Monica Ho, SVP Marketing (co-chair)
Joule – Michael Lieberman, CEO (co-chair)
Factual – Vikas Gupta, Director of Marketing
ThinkNear – Brett Kohn, Director of Marketing
Mobiquity – James Meckley, CMO
Nielsen – Tom Eaton, VP, Client Services
MEC – Bav Panchal, Mobile
OpenX – Rob Kramer, GM, Mobile
Ubimo – Ran Ben-Yair, CEO
Verve – James Smith, CRO
“Having this type of transparency into location data is a huge step forward that will allow us, as buyers, to invest in mobile with increased confidence,” said Michael Lieberman, CEO, Joule North America. “This program will, in large part, allow mobile marketing to truly scale and deliver measurable results for our clients around the world.”
“We are committed to improving clarity and defining auditable standards for location data and ultimately all of location-based services. This will remove the barriers for brands and agencies to leverage the power of this unique mobile value proposition and improve their confidence in how and what to use,” said Monica Ho, SVP Marketing, xAd. “We are excited to work with the MMA and the industry in achieving standards that we believe will be critical for scaling the mobile marketing industry.”
The Mobile Location Data Accuracy Group will be gathering the industry leaders to share initial definitions and use cases at the Location Data Accuracy Panel Session August 26 at the Crowne Plaza Times Square, New York, 6:30-9 p.m. The session will provide an opportunity for brands, agencies and key partners in the location advertising arena to meet and discuss opportunities ahead.
Proximity and indoor positioning will grow as technology gets better — and consumers value its benefits. Attendees at the recent Place conference in New York had the opportunity to hear from companies who advocated Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and even magnetic positioning technology. In addition, several advertising agencies and retailers attended, showing that the nascent proximity/indoor location niche could be a major market in the next few years.
NEW YORK — The potential for indoor positioning and proximity marketing is huge if even a fraction of overall retail sales are attributed to the information the technology gives to retailers, said panel members at the July 22 Place conference here.
The indoor opportunity is huge as studies have shown that 70 percent to 89 percent of consumers use smartphones in stores to compare prices and shop for coupons, said Greg Sterling, Opus Research senior analyst. “About $20 to $50 billion of purchases were influenced at point-of-sale in stores. $500 billion of retail sales came without any premeditated product selections,” he said. “Even if a small fraction shifts to mobile devices, that’s an enormous amount of money.”
Sterling said that despite consumers’ ambivalence to privacy issues, if they are guaranteed some sort of benefits to being tracked, they will opt-in. “72 percent said they don’t want tracking [without benefits]. That number goes up to 66.4 percent who say ‘yes’ if there are specific benefits — rewards and discounts,” he said. “It is about educating consumers [as to benefits of location-based advertising].”
Technology improvements and retailer awareness in the last two years have made such mobile advertising agencies as Joule interesting in location as a data point beyond geofencing, said Michael Lieberman, company co-president.
“I am biased as we are mobile agency, so for us, most of our clients are using location to identify buyers. Ideally, we see a device in multiple locations, we understand consumers’ behavior,” Lieberman said. “If I see you every morning at a Starbucks, you are a coffee drinker and I should target you that way. However, if you are trying to use location as a national campaign you will only get a percentage of accuracy — you are missing out on other information.”
Right now, retailers have little idea how and why a consumer makes a purchase, Lieberman said. “The [important] point is in [indoor location’s] measurement — what happens in the store environment. You walk in store, make a purchase, right now we have no idea what they did to buy a product,” he said. “We are losing that piece — and it is a big gap in thinking. Everything about consumer path in that store determines a purchase. What’s valuable is the in-store data that gives you the most actionable information.”
Location today is used for targeting, but not for the total consumer measurement that Facebook requires, said Doug Stotland, Facebook product marketing director. “IKEA recently ran a campaign in a local radius, they wanted to see who showed up in their parking lot,” Stotland said. “It’s really compelling when you look at the methodology — you want to see if people actually showed up at the store. The home run is how to tie it to what they actually buy.”
Stotland said Facebook uses location information for targeting, but basically users tell the company where they live and that’s it. “We can do better than that — there is definitely a big opportunity there. The great thing about Facebook is that I am always logged in — there is no value for targeting if I am not.”
In a case study session at Place, Korean telecom provider SK Telecom has been making inroads in indoor positioning markets for several years, said John Kim, SK Telecom senior business development manager. “While we are the number one mobile operator in Korea, like other companies, we were hitting saturation levels,” Kim said. “We found that location-based services for telecos are a key service, basing this on earlier tracking, navigation and security markets.”
SK Telecom ran indoor positioning tests at Seoul National University Hospital, which has 1,360 beds, making it hard to find patients. Kim said younger indoor positioning users liked the service and found it easy to use. “We also found that it was difficult for active marketing — what does a hospital use to promote it? Two-for-one x-rays?” Kim said. “The service was also difficult for remote maintenance and support.
Kim said that SK Telecom is installing the product as a test in a Seoul sports stadium and at the L’Oreal Madrid flagship store. “We are also partnering with [Herndon, Va.-based] APX to work in their Google Glass product to provide location information.”
Overall, the upside of indoor location is huge, said Don Dodge, Google developer advocate. “Imagine if you can look at phone to know exactly what stores your family members are in at the mall. At CES, you have no idea where 15 to 20 of your friends are,” he said. “If my wife gives me a list of groceries, I can find them in certain areas and know what price they are. First responders, fire departments, can find their way around in a burning building — and find a safe way out.”
Privacy: The Attack on Opt-In
In a privacy panel, members put a dark cloud over the ubiquitous answer by many companies that consumer opt-in alleviates all concerns for the location industry.
Amanda Koulousias, a Federal Trade Commission attorney, said Section Five of the FTC Act, which has been expanded to cover tracking users over a certain time, prohibits deceptive practices that are likely to mislead people acting reasonably.
Privacy seems to be a hot topic for reporters. Kate Kaye, a panel member who is a reporter with Advertising Age, said that security issues around beacons and leakages is a story. She also said that the Associated Press recently ran a story critical of the new Verizon rewards program. “The story typifies the balance a lot of marketers are trying to straddle — how much information can we gather, and how do we not [anger] consumers. Verizon Wireless prompts you to join their loyalty rewards program, but you have to opt-in to their location data program,” she said.
Privacy panel moderator Jules Polonetsky, Future of Privacy Forum executive director, said a way some companies get consumers to opt in to being tracked is just to say “download this app.”
The location industry’s privacy issues are not going away — and the path for resolution isn’t clear, said Greg Turetsky, principal engineer in Intel’s wireless communications group. “The privacy issue is so complex legally, economically and socially, that I expect it will not be resolved any time soon,” he said.
In other Place conference news:
Opus Research, the organizer of the conference, published a report on magnetic positioning, which has a unique footprint. The company contends that magnetic positioning, which can be complimented by other technologies, offers six-foot accuracy with 90 percent precision. In comparison, Bluetooth offers proximity, but not the blue dot solution magnetic positioning currently has. In addition, Opus believes that Wi-Fi positioning, which has 40-foot accuracy, needs too much support and is expensive.
The LBS market continues to grow strongly and with the arrival of always-on ubiquitous location, ABI Research believes that the market is ready to truly support location based advertising efforts. In Western Markets, a third generation of location-based services is now underway. It has forecast retail/shopping, ambient intelligence, hyperlocal social and personal asset tracking/BLE beacon applications to emerge as the next wave of important location based services over the next five years, with ABI Research forecasting a four-fold increase in revenues by 2019.
In emerging regions the value of location is not lost with strong local deals/offers markets already emerging. Senior analyst Patrick Connolly comments, “In Asia, ABI Research sees LBS downloads breaking 4 Billion in 2019. In China, major Internet companies can see the necessity of location and are acquiring/integrating as they move to mobile. Tencent, the Chinese Internet giant, has spent approximately $200 million to acquire an 11.28% stake in mapping company NavInfo. This follows Alibaba’s acquisition of AutoNavi. Tencent has also invested in the Chinese Yelp, Dianping, which is one of the top three players in the local deals market, which is estimated to have reached $1.2 Billion in 1Q14. Sina Weibo, which floated on the NASDAQ in April also has its own Places application.”
Furthermore, in a reversal of previous LBS application trends, ABI Research expects to see many of these companies expanding into international markets in the future. Momo is such an app, with 20 million subscribers, which is using location to go local and generate advertising revenues. It has used a round of investment to launch an English version of the application, which it hopes will enable it to expand.
When one talks about the worldwide location industry, mobile resource management — fleets and trucks, for instance — aren’t sexy at all, but they make money. What is supposed to be sexy is location-based advertising. According to many analysts, location-based advertising has been hampered by a few things: education for both consumers and mobile advertisers, privacy issues, and relevant proximity information so folks can use it to make purchases. Another concern could be the expense of rolling out indoor beacons.
BARCELONA—Major consumer privacy concerns aside, companies are starting to see growth in location-based advertising, with new markets emerging in Europe. While the numbers of mobile advertising companies has decreased at the Mobile World Congress, held here in February, from just two years ago, the remaining players are seeing a more mature market.
Mobile advertisers are beginning to realize that location is the Holy Grail for growth, said Cameron Peeples, Airpush vice president of marketing. “People going into New York from Newark during rush hour can receive a different call to action because of a created geo-fence. Advertisers can determine whether the traveler is there on business or looking for a hotel and other travel deals,” he said.
Before Mobile World Congress, Los Angeles-based Airpush partnered with AirX, a large mobile ad exchange company. The majority of the AirX inventory, about 120,000 Android applications, includes highly-sought-after GPS location data, the company said.
There are large differences between the North American and European markets for mobile advertising, Peeples said. “The mobile advertising market [in Europe] is definitely evolving. The European market is key for us, dramatically higher than other markets,” he said. “[The European] market seems to have people connected to a lot of things — they are more mobile, use public transportation more, and always have a phone that is more centric to who they are.”
Making location-based advertising relevant to the consumer is still a major challenge. “Our focus next year is on native advertising. Native advertising combines not only the right message, but the right delivery vehicle,” Peeples said. “No one bicycling enthusiast wants ads tailored for someone who wants flowers.”
Peeples said the privacy issues are a big deal, but his company’s services are opt-in. “A lot of it is loyalty advertising. It’s all opt-in,” he said.
xAd Partners with Waze, Sees UK Growth
Another mobile advertising company, New York-based xAd, is also making inroads in Europe. “We are in the UK right now, which is really WiFi-focused. A lot of our early [location-based] advertising efforts are in education — to educate consumers and the advertising agencies about the power of location and mobile,” said Monica Ho, xAd vice president of marketing. “Not all location is created equal. The real value of [location-based advertising] is the proximity target to market to.”
Right before Mobile World Congress, Waze selected xAd as its third-party provider of search and display mobile ads in the United States. Waze, which was bought by Google in a deal worth more than $1 billion, is a top three map and navigation app in the iTunes store — a ranking that was probably helped by the Apple Maps debacle in 2012.
The companies say the deal will place xAd’s mobile ad targeting technologies into Waze’s location-based advertising platform.
Ho said there are still two areas of concern for location-based advertising: relevancy to the consumer and privacy issues. “There was privacy backlash from Nordstrom collecting consumer information from their Wi-Fi system,” she said, referring to the controversy last year when the retailer was accused of capturing consumer information during an indoor positioning test.
Apple to Roll out Upgraded Maps on iPhone 6
Speaking about Apple Maps, many industry analysts says the company has come a long way since the very public embarrassment nearly two years ago over map inaccuracies and flaws. The company recently released iOS 7.1, but is expected to rollout iOS 8 when the iPhone 6 debuts later this year.
With the debut of the iPhone 6, an updated version of Apple Maps will also be released, according to published reports.
Last year, Apple bought two companies, HopStop and Locationary, to allow the company to entrench itself once more in the location business. How firmly those roots prove to be, and how well they serve the company against archrival Google, remain to be seen.
Apple has been stockpiling companies and mapping software since its introduction of Apple Maps on iOS devices, which had a rough start. GPS World’s LBS Insiderreported extensively on the problems Apple encountered with its mapping software. Some of these problems included sending drivers to a wrong location and direction.
After the mapping software problems were made public, Apple CEO Tim Cook apologized for the mapping software’s problems and even suggested that users go to such competitors as Waze, MapQuest, and Microsoft’s Bing.
In other location news:
A Wall Street Journal reporter basically said there was nothing much new at Mobile World Congress — and that the excitement and action was at the outlying conferences at Fira Montjuic. One of these more interesting conferences, Four Years From Now, or 4YFN, featured start-up companies making pitches and displaying their new products, some of which included location capability.
The Mobile World Congress final stats. Organizers said MWC had more than 85,000 attendees from 200 countries — an increase of 13,000 from the previous year. It’s now being touted as the biggest and best wireless show.
In February, GPS World reported that TruePosition had purchased Skyhook for an undisclosed price. Skyhook provided location services to a number of companies including Apple and Samsung. The interesting issue is Skyhook’s lawsuit with Google, which alleged that the Internet giant influenced smartphone manufacturers to abandon the Boston-based company. According to published reports, the legal action still is going forward.
AT&T Mobility is shuttering its location-based Alerts marketing program. The company said it would release an updated version later this year. AT&T Mobility launched Alerts in late 2012. It featured free opt-in, location-based text message alert service. Participating retailers included Stapes, Gap, Zales, Neiman Marcus, and others.
I didn’t go to South by Southwest. Is my cool-guy card revoked? One of the reasons I didn’t is because, outside of meetings that were not part of the conference, there was not one location industry announcement made there. Maybe something will change my mind next year, but call me an old fogey — I just didn’t see the need to go to Austin this year.
Sonata is a self-service advertising platform for the retail world.
Currently, 96 percent of world trade takes place through traditional brick and mortar stores. Add almost 1,000 million smartphones with integrated GPS to that retailing picture and a whole range of advertising opportunities, with high added value for advertisers and consumers, opens up. Sonata was begun l to drive foot traffic to local retailers’ point of sale via potential customers’ smartphones.
Sonata divides the world into 90-square-metre plots. The plots are uploaded with local business adverts, which then appear on smartphones and tablets that come in range of the advertiser according to the smartphone’s geolocation. Sonata has been developed by TAPTAP Networks, a Spanish mobile advertising market leader based in Madrid.
The process of uploading an advertising campaign is very simple for the retailer and takes no more than three minutes, according to Sonata. A retailer doesn’t need a website or even a mobile app; all that’s required is a minimum investment of £50. Advertisers follow three steps:
registration using an email address;
adding the store details (just one or a whole network);
choosing the ad’s geographical area and the design of the ad from one of Sonata’s creative templates (or advertisers can create their own design).
“Any local business, including those without technical know-how, can create an advertising campaign,” says Alvaro del Castillo, CEO of TAPTAP Networks and the developers of Sonata.
“An added attraction of Sonata is that local businesses only pay for actual results-calls, registrations, clicks, purchases in the store… whatever form of contact a customer makes-and can choose how much to pay for them,” says del Castillo.
“The Sonata platform is focused on meeting the need of the local small-business sector, which views the online world as a major threat with the ever-growing pressure it exerts from ‘showrooming’ and the selling of cost price goods by major e-commerce players,” explained de Castillo.
